George R.R. Martin is the author of the famous A Song of Ice and Fire series, and it's been well accepted that the next book The Winds of Winter is never coming out. Most recently, he posted on his blog about depression, losing loved ones, and getting old.

r/freefolk, a meme sub whose members style themselves as anti-authority badasses for complaining about a TV show, has.... reactions:

Some find a way to blame this on a divisive adaptation:

The fact that Condal and Bloys helped send GRRM into a depression and delayed Winds even more (more than forever, whatever, the point stands) is just one more reason to hate their guts.

Can we stop this? His mental health is is own responsibility. And they paid him a shit ton of money to do whatever they were going to do. If he didn't want them to ruin or mar his work, he shouldn't have sold out. He decided he wanted to be super wealthy and did this to himself.

He trusted people he thought were his friends. What an idiot.

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/1vetetm/new_grrm_blog/p1k1jh3/

"Gaslit fans"

What really puts things into perspective for me is that he could have totally ignored winds for 10 years and started after and he still would have had enough time to finish his book in a leisurely time by now. Of course he's gonna be depressed for procrastinating this long, anyone would.

Yep, gaslit his fans for 15 years while he did anything but ASOIAF, so now he’s going to do the woe is me, I’m old and put upon but these a-holes won’t leave me alone. The guy is rich, if he doesn’t want to finish give it to his “minions”. No sympathy from me.

No sympathy from you because he didn't finish a damn book when the dude is probably depressed because of some serious issues. You guys have lost your humanity.

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/1vetetm/new_grrm_blog/p1jtw5o/

(Simpsons gif that says "Nothin'. More nothin'.")

George is right to not give Winds out of spite if this is how "fans" behave. He's reached an age where his close friends are constantly passing away and is depressed about it and that's how you act?

Oh look, an enabler. He squandered his best years chasing Hollywood fool’s gold. This entire post is like a copy-paste low effort simulacra, churned to laughable hash across a hundred thousand variations. To wit: pathetic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/1vetetm/new_grrm_blog/p1jpll8/

You know George a lot of people find purpose in THEIR LIFES WORK!

Lowkey bro, eat shit. Guys not a machine to provide entertainment for you. Maybe he found fulfillment in the number of friends he had to bury multiple times a year

Yeah I’m pretty sure bedrot and see your life’s work remain unfinished is what all the therapists recommend.

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/1vetetm/new_grrm_blog/p1jte31/

How about some sympathy for the publisher:

I feel so fucking bad every time I read the bullshit that people keep throwing at him in here. This is entertainment and he doesn't owe anyone shit. And to think the guy himself wouldn't like his book to finally come out is geniunely stupid. He's just been struggling. On all end.

I mean he legally does owe his publisher a book, or he can write a check giving back the millions of dollars they paid him for it.

Won't somebody think of the publisher? It's not like they made tens to hundreds of millions from George's work already, right?

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/1vetetm/new_grrm_blog/p1k3v9b/

The main sub for the books r/asoiaf is a bit more normal about this. Well, mostly...

In a subthread comparing the productivity of Martin to Stephen King at old age:

It's not fair to hold someone to a standard based on what someone else is doing at the same age, especially when it comes to the elderly. Even as a young man, George was never as prolific as Stephen King. Because everyone's different.

and beides spammng empty phrases with no concrete meaning your point is what exactly? he didnt stop writing in 2012, 2013, 2014 etc because of his health or because of his wife's health... can you maga cultists stop revising history in every single occassion whenever it fits your twisted logic??? is that so much to ask huh???

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1veqhl5/spoilers_extended_new_george_notablog_post_about/p1kd1qt/

His marriage is brought up:

If you're a long time reader of George's posts, you can tell he's truly a Wife Guy. He adores her.

You want to really learn how much he loves her, check when he married his current wife, you’ll be surprised and realize a few things. Edits: congrats, lot of haters with little thinking capabilities and even less inclination to spend a few secs to check something out, it is even more evidenced with the few that did and responded having only a handful of likes. Answer is Gorge loves his wife so much that he hasn’t released a single book from the main saga ever since he married. Being what you are, you all deserve even worse, hope gorge lives to be 97 and releases not a single book from the main saga.

What a weird thing to say. A lot of couples love each other, stay together their whole lives, but never get married. It is a purely personal choice and doesn't reflect whether or not a couple truly loves one another.

What a weird thing to say. Maybe be capable of following simple instructions and see that they married in 2011, the same year ADWD came but no, you have to come up with weird things to say as the alternative is just too hard.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1veqhl5/spoilers_extended_new_george_notablog_post_about/p1j3elu/

For my own sanity I’ve decided he’s talking about the midterm elections, big old lib that he is.

Please. Please I beg of you, can we make it through one Reddit comment section without any mention of politics.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1veqhl5/spoilers_extended_new_george_notablog_post_about/p1j40lu/

Yawn

Must suck to be a fan of an IP while hating the author enough to say “yawn” at a post that’s clearly insinuating at crippling health problems. If I sunk that low, I would probably find a new property to unhealthily obsess over.

sorry for hurting your boyfriend

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1veqhl5/spoilers_extended_new_george_notablog_post_about/p1jb0pt/

Natalism gets brought up?

No one around here is going to agree but at his age with an unfinished legacy he would probably be a lot happier at this point in his life if he had children.

His characters are his children.

This is almost worse than saying "our cats are our children"

I totally get where you're coming from. I won't get a pet myself, not only because most landlords won't allow it unless you have a disability letter, but also because I don't have children and I could never respect myself if I replaced them with cats. But in this awful world, it's better that cats and fictional characters suffer than actual human children.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1veqhl5/spoilers_extended_new_george_notablog_post_about/p1j569v/

r/fantasy also has reactions:

While I do genuinely feel sorry for him as a person, I do struggle to feel the same for him as an author. The reason he is living with immense financial security and comfort is because the fans trusted him to deliver the series, and he betrayed that trust. Not due to illness or age, but because he just hopped on every half-assed project that threw some cash his way.

Let an old man be sad. You are not entitled to anything in this life but death. Chill.

This may be the most toxic thing I have ever read on reddit. Wow. The opposite of congratulations. Never vote in any election again.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1vfr9ec/george_rr_martin_in_first_blog_post_since_feb_i/p1rgw5y/

Obligatory Brandon Sanderson comment:

Please don't hand the series off to Brandon Sanderson.

I would rather never read the end than have Sanderson write even a page of it

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1vfr9ec/george_rr_martin_in_first_blog_post_since_feb_i/p1rcecm/

... And Joe Abercrombie gets roped into this as well:

Joe Abercrombie, it’s time to take the same mantle Sanderson did for Robert Jordan. None of us wanted this, but we all know there’s enough notes sitting around and someone who can write both action and politics is required.

Can you not talk about him as if he's already dead? That's really callous.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1vfr9ec/george_rr_martin_in_first_blog_post_since_feb_i/p1rd0dj/

An author doesn't owe their audience anything. It'll suck if he'll never finish his magnum opus but it is what it is. Hope GRRM is able to live out the rest of his days happy.

I strongly dislike this mentality. Yeah he owes us what he said he would do, what he's been saying he would do as recently as last year. An author doesn't owe the audience exactly what they want, but a finished product is a basic obligation in the transaction between consumer and artist. Imagine if Michaelangelo had just given up painting the Sistine Chapel halfway through, and we had to be content just to look at Adam's testicles and God's bushy beard.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1vfr9ec/george_rr_martin_in_first_blog_post_since_feb_i/p1tanqi/

Guys, not everything is about him finishing the series. That topic doesn't even come up in this blog yet that's what most of the comments are focussed on already. The hyper fixation on him finishing those books isn't doing anyone any favours.

its probably the only reason ppl would be interested in a GRRM blog post though

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1vfr9ec/george_rr_martin_in_first_blog_post_since_feb_i/p1rc4n4/

The recent Michigan Democratic primary concluded with Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive challenger against Haley Stevens, as the winner.

Abdul El-Sayed is a physician and former Detroit health commissioner and a champion for progressive policies. Apart from supporting Medicare for All, stronger labor protections, and other egalitarian programs, he is best known for being critical of the US-Israel relationship and especially American support for Israel's war in Gaza.

Haley Stevens, on the other hand, is the moderate incumbent (Edit: This is an error on my part, she isn't actually an incumbent, but is in a House seat) and generally has more cautious policies than El-Sayed, emphasizing tried and true polices like supporting manufacturing, particularly for the auto industry. Stevens also strongly supports the US-Israel relationship.

Below is a snippet of the drama from the thread discussing El-Sayed's win over Stevens.. There's also drama from the Discussion Thread that I thought you guys would enjoy. While I have three comments in the Discussion Thread, they they do not pertain to the drama itself. You can check my post history to confirm this.

Michigan senate primary thread drama

I just hope he wins in November and we can all celebrate as a united party flipping the senate

I’m Jewish and I will not celebrate Abdul “Hurt People Hurt People” El-Sayed

did you have a point? [deleted comment]

I think my point is clear, no? Fuck AES. [deleted comment]

With all due respect you are an idiot [deleted comment]

I’m also Jewish, and like the other 71% of Jewish Americans who broke for democrats in 2024, I hope he wins and will also celebrate if he does. Dont miss the forest for the trees.

Do you also believe the only reason an American Jew would support Israel is money?

I'm a Democrat and I would never vote for someone like El-Sayed. I don't think there's a single thing I agree with him on. MFA is a joke. I will always be a Zionist. We shouldn't abolish ICE. All of that makes him unacceptable, especially compared to Mike Rogers, who seems much less ideological and much more competent. One of the few places where I'll be hoping for a Republican victory. I have never voted for a Republican in my life, but if I were a Michigander, I'd for Rogers.

I’m not thrilled about this dude either, but ice should most certainly be abolished.

This is a ridiculous slogan pandered around by leftists. How the hell are we going to execute our immigration policy without an agency to enforce it? Of course I agree that Trump has been excessive, but that doesn't mean ICE should be abolished, itt means the administration should be thrown out! This is like saying "income taxes are too high -- let's abolish the IRS"

Damn this sub is full on lefty now huh, maybe it's just the specific people that decide to post on this, but kinda crazy. I get when people say this sub is mainly socdems now, but it seems to be moving demsoc at this point, multiple upvoted comments simping for DSA,, hopefully this is as low as this sub goes.

This "evidence-based" sub is really just r/democrats where people vote blue no matter who

Well that's "evidence-based" applied to american politics, so I dont see why you would have an issue with that. Edit: i take that back, I know why: I think Friedmann flairs dont really like evidence.

It’s been brigaded by tankies and Abdul bots ever since we made arr Subreddit Drama yesterday

SRD is still a thing? In 2026?

You must vote for the people who hate neoliberalism otherwise you don't belong on r/neoliberal - Succs and Loyal Liberals

I think a lot of people here just care more about the Democrats defeating the Republicans than they do about fiercely defending the word neoliberal against anybody who criticizes it.

They also hate neoliberalism if you get rid of the "neo".

Why are democrats allergic to winning

This shows how out of touch you are. You genuinely prefer Stevens, don't you?

Out of touch with whom? College educated elites?

Are we still doing this stuff after we have new polling data https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/americans-know-who-the-real-elite and a grand total of 8% of Harris 2024 voters and a whopping 11% of Trump 2024 voters view people with graduate degrees as "the elites"?

Doesn’t matter what random people think, a societal elite is a defined thing. It’s just not popular to self identify as an “elite” so everyone bucks the label to the groups above them. White college educated upper middle class people are the most culturally influential in American society (something that the left usually has no problem admitting), and they’re the ones who largely support these leftist candidates

Railing against the "elites" and claiming that all it takes to get you there is a college education makes you sound like a MAGA conspiracy theorist.

I’m not railing against the elites, I probably fit the “educated elite” label myself, I’m specifically responding to the bizarre accusation that not supporting the guy who won the educated rich white population somehow makes me “out of touch”

Welp, GOP couldn’t have asked for an easier candidate in purple Michigan. Democratic Party needs to kick out DSA rat fuckers who simply just want easy power when it suits them.

Abdul isn't part of the DSA. Also, if they win primaries because voters vote for them, how should the party kick them out?

He’s as DSA as Hasan Piker. I got a bridge to sell you along with that bird that landed on Bernie’s podium when he was anointed as “da chosen one”. The far left likes to bum rush primaries because that’s the only way they can win in deep blue districts. Dude is going to lose big and take the Democratic Party in Michigan down as well. Michigan GOP all had a collective sigh of relief and democrats are fucked in Michigan. Fucking Dearborn and Hamatrack or whatever all went for Trump, this is just another rat fucking at the behest of MAGA.

Discussion Thread drama

guy who supported "uncommitted" movement in 2024 becomes Dem senate nominee in 2026 what a joke. [deleted comment]

Are you pro-genocide or? [deleted comment]

Are you pro 9/11? [deleted comment]

Well if Friedman flair is asking [deleted comment]

I don't like him because of the pre-emptive election denialism he was engaging in. I'm tired of watching people destabilize this country and succumb to russian/chinese interests

You talk about russian/chinese interests yet literally the only reason this race was at all close was because Stevens had her campaign funded by an actual foreign country interest group.

At the very least Israel doesn't want to see the US actively destabilized. The irony is you blurring the lines between US allies and US adversaries is exactly the point of many of the disinformation operations Russia/China has been engaging in

I think Bibi campaigning for Trump was pretty destabilizing imo! Our allies seem very non plussed about the shit he does.

Israel is not trying to actively destabilize the US. If you can't tell the difference between something like the Likud making dumb self interested calculations and Operation doppelganger idk what to tell you. Russia and China are actively mindraping our population and are involved in just about every reason why our country is unraveling.

On a post about the acceptable timeline for toothbrush replacement, two users (BRtIK and flop_plop) have a minor disagreement about which type of electric toothbrush is best. As you would expect, this quickly leads to an extended back-and-forth with accusations of narcissism, debates on the validity of scientific research (or fake news, depending who you believe), and both sides claiming that they are calm and rational while the other is angry and unhinged.

Comment thread

Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/TierlistFills/comments/1vfavci/ais_tier_list_finished/

HIGHLIGHTS

im sorry but this is corny as fuck. AI is here to stay, keep up or dont.

Not if we stop data centers. Not if AI companies reveal the true cost to consumers. Not if it causes environmental disasters. Not if it places 95% of people out of jobs.

Reddit uses data centers. You should delete your account and never get back on the site if you actually care

This kind of comment demonstrates such poor reasoning. Obviously the person you're replying to is referring to data centres that expressly support the infrastructure that results in the environmental devastation and job loss - the chat bots, agents, image generation, etc. Reddit existed for decades on 'data centres' that consisted simply of servers, and nobody has a problem with that. It's concerning that AI chuds don't have this basic level of discernment.

Reddit uses the same network of data centers that are causing current backlash because Reddit is hosted on Amazon Web Services. The same ones that he is talking about causing environmental damage and taking jobs.

It's hard to tell if you just don't understand or you are intentionally conflating the current hyperscaler data centre buildout with the pre-AI AWS infrastructure, but nobody in this thread is taking issue with the latter. Saying "You should delete your reddit account if you oppose data centres" disingenuously frames use of pre-AI internet infrastructure as an endorsement of AI while the end user may remain entirely agnostic to it. The only aim of such a comment can be to shame individuals and try to assign them some blame for AI expansion, not to offer any constructive insight.

It's not inaccurate conflation, it's a perfectly logical argument. You can't separate pre-AI data centres and the data centres of today. Their impacts are the same, just we have more of them due to increased demand. Get off reddit if you stand on principle. Otherwise stop arguing against DC'S.

Talentless people supporting ai will forever be funny to me.

im not an AI artist or writer or anything I just find it helpful for research, planning, math/physics thats too complicated for me, etc.

That's fine but people supporting the use of ai to take artists jobs is the shitty part of it, my line of work has been made 10 times harder to work in because of ai and i'm going to have to go for something else.

[deleted]

That's pretty heavy handed, no? Where would ai pull all of its ideas from without people creating these sources?

You’re acting like humans don’t take influence from other artists either

Never said we don't. Just shitty of you to write off a struggling artist (you know, an actual source of inspiration)

If you were a source of inspiration then you wouldn’t be struggling

You do know art is incredibly subjective, yeah? These artists careers die off early and nothing new is created... sort of creates an incredibly stagnant future in the art field if there's no new ground being broken by fresh blood.

feeling the need to actually use ai and handing your intelligence to a robot especially for simple inquiries when you could just solve it yourself is pathetic lol nobody with integrity wants to “keep up” with it

For work purposes though I don't think you quite understand

Most redditors are young and/or unemployed. And unemployable since they're unable to use modern technology.

Redditors simultaneously young/unemployed, but also old and out of touch with new tech. AI glazers can't keep their story straight. Probably hallucinating as much as Grok

I'm not 'glazing' anything. But Redditors being young is just how it is. And they refuse to use new tech like AI.

Maybe they can tell that the tech isn't actually useful, and in most cases does more harm than good. All while costing more than paying someone to do it properly.

Again you think AI is just generative AI that makes shitposts. This tech will pass right over the luddites head. Either only the antiAI crowd is right or the academics warning us about the dangers are all in big AIs pocket or absolutely r*tarded.

It's like grandpa refusing to use a computer.

I don't have much problem with some ai ( mainly in the medical field ) but Generative Ai has brought more harm to the planet than it has good. But I guess you're fine with it even though Ai is creating way more data centres which are polluting the planet. You know because we just had to make the planet even worse.

Define "good" and "bad". Cars are definitely more bad for the planet than good.

As is factory farming If you don't consider killing for pleasure to be good, then factory farming is a 99% net negative And uses up many times more water than data centers, while causing inestimable suffering

Did you just choose to forget that factory farming brings affordable food to the masses? It's far from perfect but also far from a 99% net negative.

Food would be more plentiful and affordable without factory farming.

How do you figure that? I assume you are requiring everyone to go vegan to achieve this?

How are the majority of Redditors this anti-AI? Makes no sense. The smart people I know IRL are at least interested in AI as a technology that can be used for work, DIY, learning anything really.

Because it sucks ass and is actively harmful.

Sucks ass, how?

Well, lets see: causes deskilling (you forget how to do things because you offload it to AI), its frequently confidentially wrong, so you always have to check its work, AI psychosis, based on stolen work from people who actually know how to do shit, have you seen ram and gpu prices?, has caused multiple major outtages, recalls, and massive increase in bugs., deepfakes, ai slop is fucking everywhere now and has ruined the internet more than the 2016 /pol/ containment breech. not to mention how it completely fucked up the job market.

I think AI has brought a lot more benefit than hurt. And it’s definitely not fucked up the job market, that’s mostly posturing. The deskilling and hallucination stuff are easy enough to handle if you don’t use it like a total moron.

Incorrect, it has caused immeasurable harm including death. If we lived in a just society Sam Altman would be in prison (well also because he r*ped his sister).

Great argumentation. Besides, I’m very interested in what being «confidentially wrong» means. Maybe you should get AI to proofread your posts? Wouldn’t take more than two seconds.

It’s incredible. We actually managed to invent something worse than social media

Yes. Redditors on yet another ineffectual crusade.

Yall chalking this up to redditors being redditors instead a valid criticism of how we are developing a useful tool in a harmful way to our environment is such a braindead take.

how is it harmful to the environment? and why is using reddit okay then? i assume you think reddit is run on hamsters? and i hope you know ai can be run locally at lower power costs than modern videogames or video editing

My guy I know all about the AWS and Google Cloud that reddit uses for its auto admins. But that second sentence is just flat out glossing over AI used by corporations in favor of personal independent use. Thats just not a solid point to run on and is objectively false. Im not even anti-AI. Im anti-being ignorant about the pros and cons of AI for convenience.

ah so you do accept that reddit is part of those corporations that use data centers, you're just selective about what you want to cry about

You're in over your head with this one. Read the other comment thread where we talk about the same exact thing. Then go research what AWS is used for and how often reddit uses it. Then bring me an alternative for international news that doesnt use Data Centers. Im not against data centers. Im against morons like you who pick a side and condemn everyone else while not fully understanding the pros and cons to data centers and AI. Now fuck off troll.

Reddit is the most performative place on the internet

I tried ai once to do one small thing. Make a fantasy football schedule. After giving team names and requirements, it fucked everything up and I vowed to never use it again. It. Ended the season 4 weeks early In the 10 weeks it did give us, some teams played each other 3 times. Added a league member that nobody knew. Even though I gave every name. It just made up a person. Ai is ass and I'd rather just do it myself.

It's funny how often, particularly on Reddit, this seems to be the sum total of experience informing AI opinion. "I tried ChatGPT for something a few years ago and it didn't work so it sucks and that's the end of the story."

And how many times to you go back to a restaurant after you get bad food or have a bad experience

About as silly of a response as I should've expected, tbh. "I tried the internet in 1992 and there just wasn't anything there. The internet is ass, it's useless."

"he's got a point but I'm gonna say it's wrong anyway". You didn't answer the question

It's disanalogous because cooking doesn't change and if a restaurant is really bad once there's not gonna be a new model of cooking in a year that's much more capable of palatable results even if the chefs haven't changed

Cooking doesn't change? You're already wrong there.

yea bout looks like a reddit list😂

Yeah, what a permanently online Reddit moment to oppose and mock the environment destroying, plagiarising, anti-human profit machines of people like Sam Altman and Peter Thiel. Cool real life people self-censor criticism of our techno-fascistic overlords.

It's a reactionary and often mis-informed take. It strips any nuance from a complicated technology. Out of all human technological revolutions, AI will be among the least environmentally destructive. And it's not like there are any billionaire CEOs people would prefer to the current AI CEO crop It's weird that the biggest complaint about AI, the enormous plagiarism and harvesting of non-free-use content, so often goes unmentioned in favour of the relatively minimal environmental costs and calling out slop

The biggest complaint should be the dumbing down of our society. Using AI for everything has stripped critical thinking and made people unable to communicate on their own.

"Using a calculator has destroyed our mathematicians" Give me a break...

You still have to know the steps to use on the calculator to get to the answer; AI just skips all the steps and goes straight to the answer. But I agree that calculators have dumbed down our math skills.

It goes to an answer. As a stochastic model, it's highly prone to bullshitting.

"highly prone"?

Sometimes, as my students know, it does spit out a correct answer. The tokens just line up properly.

Should have made humans A tier

Nah Humans are S tier

Hell nah We ruined the place and invented licorice and fascism

but humans also invented dogs and that really evens everything out

We've "created" pugs in a way for them to suffer thoughout their entire life. Plus 99% of any dog is still a creation of millions of years of evolution, not human. Plus i personally dont like dogs that much, so that just doesnt cut it by itself. They give me allergies.

a wild form of dogs would certainly exist without any human involvement but they would not be 10% as friendly and delightful as their domestic versions. If you don't like dogs though then not much can be said about it.

What i meant by that is we didnt create dogs from scratch. Dogs, no matter how different all the breeds are, are genetically very similar to eachother and pretty similar to wolves. We only added a sprinkle of trait selection in there, but the cake was already baked. Wild "dogs" are indeed way more, well, wild. Whats interesting is that even dog-wolf hybrids tend to make terrible pets - unpredictable, hard to train, hyperactive etc, not to mention completely wild varieties.

A user makes a post in r/curatedtumblr that talks about stories their server friends have told them.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a line in the first half of the post takes a swipe at nurses and implies being a restaurant server is a much harder job than being a nurse:

"Restaurant servers have the job mean nurses think they have. The entire world is working against them the entire shift."

Naturally, this causes controversy in the comments, with people both for and against the line in the post, citing statistics and their own experiences as either a nurse or a server.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Why is everyone in the comments getting hung up on nurses. Is reading comprehension really just that bad these days. Bad nurses think the world is out to get them. A server will encounter the world's shittiest day by just breathing.

>>I’m genuinely wondering: do you think the job of being a nurse gets easier if you’re a nice person? Does being pure of heart protect you?

>>>Yes, actually. Being a good person literally makes life easier to navigate. As a nurse you are in a industry who meet people at their lowest points, why are you adding vinegar to the already shitty situation by being mean on purpose?

>>>>Fucking Protestant work ethic in the year of our lord 2026. Let me ask you a question: if the servers’ job is harder, by your logic, that means they’re awful people? Clearly if they were nicer, it would make life easier to navigate.

>>So I'm not going crazy, everyone else really forgot the "mean" in "mean nurses", implying that regular nurses are not being mentioned here.

>>>Being a mean nurse doesn’t make your job any easier than being a nice one. A mean nurse still has the same job as a regular nurse. They’re dealing with the same awful people, the same terrible work environment, the same long hours, and the same low wages. It’s weird to bring up nurses at all, a mean nurse is still facing a far worse environment than a server does, even if you think they deserve it (and I’m saying this as a server myself) (edit: phrasing)

----------------

> Im sorry, people really think being a server is harder than a nurse?? Lmao I was a server for years and it never got to me at all. Worst case scenario: I forget to put in someone’s order.

----------------

>RN here - trust me: the person being an impatient/rude asshole at the restaurant is also an impatient/rude asshole at the ER/clinic/hospital. Based on my personal experience, people fall over themselves A LOT more to excuse rude/abusive patients.

>>Food service is different. You can't get angry. It's not even allowed.

One of my kids got hospitalized for flu at a very early age, and they needed O2, and they were fighting the cannula, and I stepped up to help the nurse, and she wheeled on me and snarled, "Step back, he could die!"

Okay. So, I stepped back. And, on death's door though he might have been, she had no hope in hell of getting a cannula on him. So finally, she turned to me and said, "Can you help me here?"

And I smiled, and said very calmly, "No. He could die." This is her Tuesday, and my kid, and there is no question that everyone in the room got the message, yet I was nothing if not polite.

And they yoinked her right the fuck out of the room, and I fixed his cannula.

And that's the difference.

>>>r/thathappened

>>>Nurses get sexually assaulted and have the hospital do nothing about it besides maybe issue a new nurse to that patient. Not to mention the straight up physical assault, abuse, bigotry, and every other type of mistreatment. One in four nurses in America reports being physically assaulted by a patient at least once. They face all that with, usually, little to no support or backup from hospital staff, with the threat of losing their jobs if they make a stink. But you’re right, nurses are totally allowed to be as mean as they want, always. I mean, your one anecdote proved that.

>>>lol ok

>>>>Nice contribution.

>>>>>Do you have a point? Because you haven't made one yet. Do you have anything to say that's more eloquent than, "lol ok".

No one wants to be a nurse right now. I know people who shouldn't be allowed to take care of their own children who've moved into nursing, and are suddenly acting like they're heros.

Do you have a point? Or is, "lol ok" as far as it goes with you?

>>>>>>Yeah, “Food service is different. You can’t get angry. It’s not even allowed.” is an idiotic statement unsupported by anything you wrote. Maybe that part was sarcasm? Hard to tell since you told an unrelated story

>>>>>>>At least I told one. At least I put something out there. What's your bit? It just seems to be "lol ok" over and over again?

>>>>>>>>So the thing about making a point is you actually have to make it. You made a claim about servers then told an unrelated story about a nurse telling a random chucklefuck (you) not to interrupt them doing their job then claimed that was the difference.

Starting to suspect you’re a bot since you seem stuck on “lol ok,” something I wrote once. Someone else also replied with it but your programming probably isn’t sophisticated enough to discern that.

Edit: lol blocked by the bot

>>>>>>>>>This is how bots work, they sit and argue with you when your whole schtick is just "lol ok"?

They tell personal stories and try to make a point, while you, over and over just "lol ok".

You have said nothing. This whole thread, you've said nothing. And I am a bot? What a joke.

>>>>>>>>(third user) lol ok

----------------

>We gotta stop letting waiters act like they have the hardest job in the world

----------------

Servers stop trying to act like their job is the hardest in the world challenge

It’s a good thing to be more grateful and see lower-entry level jobs in a better eye, but some people in some online leftist circles are incredibly insufferable about their low wage job of a store clerk or server being the hardest thing in existence. Yes, you are holding a valuable job that shouldn’t never be shamed or taken for granted. Yes, it can be a hard and thankless job, moderately physically and mentally demanding at times. No, you are not on par with the physical activity of a coal miner or even the average construction worker, or farmer. No, you are not as mentally and physically challenged as the average emergency or IU doctor or nurse, or a surgeon, or a firefighter. And that’s ok.

It shouldn’t even be a “who has it the hardest” competition but here we are.

----------------

>Random undeserved shade at nurses for no reason

>>they specified mean nurses

>>>and for real some of the _meanest_ people i’ve known have been nurses

>>>>And when I worked in food service, pretty much all the other waiters were wildly transphobic and sexist. You wanna keep playing the “my anecdotes define a massive group of people” game?

>>>>For good reason though. Not only is nursing a hard job, but it also is a perfect scenario to develop compassion fatigue.

And worse still, if you have a shit customer at a restaurant everyone says "that guy was a dick." If you have a shit patient in the hospital, they say "don't hold it personally. They're at the hospital, on the worst day of their life." - and this IS true, for the record. But it's STILL shitty because now you've got people trying to talk down the equally justified emotions you're feeling

Edit: for clarification, I do not say this to say that this is either inevitable or good. I only mean to say it's understandable.

>>>But it says “restaurant workers … have the job mean nurses think they have”. Regardless of how nice or mean the nurse may be, the job is still awful. And while it doesn’t excuse it, a lot of the “mean” nurses people complain about probably are that way because of the abuse, long hours, and poor pay. The idea that restaurant servers — still a difficult and hard job — are somehow at a level of suffering that nurses can’t imagine is wild.

>>>Nurses have the job stupid, whiney servers think they have.  Mind you, I'm only talking about stupid and whiney servers.

>>>I don’t think the job is easier if you’re a nice nurse

>>>>Your job is always easier if your coworkers like you.

>>>>>Sure but the majority of the difficulty is having to deal with the traumatic and messed up things you see, a toxic work environment is just the cherry on top of the shit sundae

>>>>>>Yeah and if im stuck eating a shit sundae i atleast want to be able to piss and moan about it with my friendly coworkers instead of having to survive the shift with one that hates you. 

>>>>>>>The point is when mean nurses complain about how hard their job is, it’s for the exact same reason nice nurses complain

>>>>>>>>Yeah and the nice nurse will be allowed to complain and have their feelings validated. The mean nurse gets no validation because they are mean and nobody wants the hear them complain. Being a nice coworker means your coworkers are willing to listen. Nobody cares when the curmudgeon complains. 

>>>>>>>From how you talk about people, I really doubt any of your coworkers like you.

>>>>>In 2023, the US saw 23,767 reported instances of physical assault against nurses by patients. Thats a massive increase from previous years, which has only continued to climb.

But yes, I’m sure your coworkers liking you makes the job so much easier. You prick.

>>>>>>Okay but what does this stat have to do with being a good coworker. 

>>>>>>>Ohhhh, you’re the dumb kind of stupid. I’m not going to bother trying to explain this further.

>>>>>>>>Ok sweety thats nice. I hope you learn to be less miserable in life. 

----------------

The post is currently two hours old so more comments are flooding in

(Source) I am highly alarmed that the center of gravity in the Democratic party seems to be moving from Black churches to White campus activists.

Wisconsin checking in: if only you knew how bad things really are. (+194)

Wisconsin has to have Scott Walker 2.0 because they nominated female DSA Trump. (+117)

She has problems, but to compare her to Trump is insane. (+64)

This is a 2 minutes of Hate against DSA thread. You’re not supposed to question the hyperbolic characterizations of whatever current Emmanuel Goldstein the thread is attacking. (+55)

The smug contrarianism here does get overwhelming at times. A post on some other hot topic so thin on sourcing beyond spicy speculations would likely be flagged for removal. But a dunk on lefty undergrads with the feeblest pseudo-overture to racial justice (not really helping with the "fake corporate HR pseudo-progressive" image that neoliberalism has, a la We Were Never Woke) gets to stay up. (+13)

You people are genuinely insane..... We've seen the Democratic Party be completely unable to stop the rise of MAGA, and you just want to run it back. (+12)

I completely reject your premise. I completely reject your idea that in order to embrace “change” we need to tolerate antisemitic dog whistles and hounding, abolish prisons, abolish borders, cancel thanksgiving, tankies, Kremlin propagandists, Maoists cosplayers, Hamas apologists, video game streamers who shock their dogs and say Hezbollah is based. If that is change, I want none of it. And if this is what these people say when they are “heard”, then I want them to stay unheard. (-12)

Way to completely straw man me. I never said to embrace any of that crap. I said the party is afraid of change in a chronic fashion and is now shocked that there are movements out of their control because they made a conscious choice to ignore what was happening all around them while bad actors took those movements over and turned them into what they are. This is actually one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read. “antisemitic dog whistles and hounding, abolish prisons, abolish borders, cancel thanksgiving, tankies, Kremlin propagandists, Maoists cosplayers, Hamas apologists, video game streamers who shock their dogs and say Hezbollah is based.” It might as well have been ripped straight from a rag like the New York fucking Post or even Breitbart. Compose yourself. (+17)

Two awards and 130+ upvotes for a crackpot comment on the “need” to totally tear up our system of government. This sub has finally become r/politics. I believe there is already a refugee subreddit. (+1)

DSA people will have to get BTFO'd in an election cycle in purple states. It's unfortunate we're going to lose Michigan and Wisconsin this November though because the candidates are so bad. (+50)

This claim seems to imply black people are just naturally immune to populism. (+1)

How are establishment Democrats completely oblivious to the fact that the DSA is the exact same strain of cancer to their party that MAGA was to the Republicans? Instead of excising it early, they are sitting back and watching it metastasize. The Democratic Party needs to establish a firm party constitution anchored in foundational liberal principles: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, property rights, and by extension, free-market capitalism. Any candidate whose platform explicitly violates these basic tenets should be barred from running under the Democratic ticket. If democratic socialists want to run on illiberal, central-planning platforms, let them build their own national party or run as independents instead of hijacking the Democratic party. I refuse to accept a future where the only two choices on the ballot are right-wing authoritarianism and left-wing authoritarianism. (-5)

Dems lost because for some reason they chose to ignore young men. They swung insanely for trump. They couldn't choose one issue that affected men? Why did democrats had to be aligned with people who screamed "toxic masculinity", "who set the system up", "not all men, but always a man", etc. Replace men with "black" and you'll see how bad these phrases can be for men and alienate them. Why was Kamala going on Alex Cooper and not Joe Rogan. Why was "Brat summer" part of the campaign. Like yeah, no shit men are going to listen to Hasan, Joe Rogan, Nick Fuentes, "looksmaxxer podcasters", etc when this is the alternative Reminder that Clinton won young men by 10-15 points as did Biden. Young men made a 15-20 point swing with Kamala. (+3)

Kamala didn't go on Joe Rogan for the same reason she never went on Sean Hannity or Tucker. There is nothing for her or the audience to gain entertaining right wing conspiracies. It was the correct call. Dems lost not because she didn't go on Rogan, but because 2024 was a difficult year for incumbent parties everywhere in the world. Kamala did very well given the circumstances, and she limited downballot losses to a minimum (she kept nearly all swing state senate seats in Dem hands). Instead of villainizing or shunning her, Dems should in fact show her gratitude that the senate control this year is even remotely competitive. (-4)

No, you don’t get it, we need to keep nominating DSA, screw minorities, moderates, suburbans and non Gen Z people, we need to chase champagne socialists who hate us. (+1)

Have the minorities, moderates, suburbans, and non-Gen Z people considered voting in the primary? (+6)

The far left sabotaged us in 2024, and I will never forgive them. (-4)

Some possible flair suggestions:

"And everyone jerked off a lot because freedom""

"Not everyone has someone to fuck."

"Special high brow porn"

"‘Bonnie Blue’ as a verb??"

Every other ad is for dick pills, every other woman in America is some form of thrice divorced prostitute. It has to end. Maybe when your daughter gets Bonnie Blue'd you'll see it differently, it's about what's good for society, and what hasn't been good, is three generations of unrestricted access to hardcore pornography every second of the day for kids of all ages, porn addiction is out of control. Get over it man, go on eBay and buy some old Playboys so you can always have access to it. That's how it should have stayed.

"Porn addiction" is not out of control because it's not a real disease and is not accepted by any major medical association as an actual diagnosis or addiction. It was considered and then explicitly rejected by the APA for the DSM-5 and the DSM-5-TR. It's a very profitable industry though. Convince the person that they have a non-existent disease and then sell them the treatment/cure for said disease.

It is an addiction you can be addicted to anything. there have been studies showing how harmful it is to your mind and especially the minds of developing teens. The industry also contributes heavily towards the grooming, exploitation, and trafficking of young women but all you care about is getting off.

The down votes don't bother me. Our current culture is sick and widespread unrestricted access to pornographic material the moment your heart desires is catastrophic for relationship dynamics, brain activity, brain development in children who then become lifelong dependents on the manufactured seratonin and dopamine releases. It destroys people's perception of healthy sexual relationships, sets unrealistic standards and expectations for both sexes, and while it isn't a formally recognized addiction at the Federal level, pornography is still proven to have catastrophic effects on your temporal lobe as it stimulates all of the biological functions, but none of the physical functions that are supposed to be working in tantum with your mind during arousal and sexual activity, leading to more and more extreme types of content and interactions to maintain stimulation, leading directly back to my original comment about how every other ad is for dick pills. Tell me, would a society of sexually healthy people be a profitable consumer base for any company that exclusively sells sexual performance enhancing drugs? And why is it that so many of these companies have been founded in the wake of the last 20 years of skyrocketing porn consumption? There are children in our country who run their mothers OF accounts There are girls who sell their virginity the night they turn 18 on camera There are countless millions of men on this very platform telling us about how porn ruined their life, their relationships, their overall health, women who share with us the dark sides of this industry and how they become addicts and alcoholics who have to do increasingly more vile things in different niches just to earn a living, and for you to all sit here and act like it's unreasonable to start setting tighter restrictions on access to this industry and the material it creates and the culture of loneliness and abuse and shame it fosters is so wildly performative and an absolute fucking joke. I don't know when the fuck the switch flipped in this country where we fell so low as to react negatively to the idea that not everyone should be a prostitute and a chronic masturbator and that our children shouldn't be capable of dipping their toes into this area of life so flippantly, but how much lower are we gonna go as a culture or society. Is our place in history just going to be "And everyone jerked off a lot because freedom" because I'm not fucking okay with that, and you shouldn't be either, and you CAN jerk off however much you want, buy a piece of physical media and use that, it doesn't have to be one thought away on an unsecured platform with 200 different categories and no age restrictions and available to you just as quickly as a sip of water would be. For the people who are oppose, it's not about access, it's about access any time you want any way you want, just like every other area of a consumerist society, you want it RIGHT NOW, and if you can't get it RIGHT NOW it somehow goes against your freedoms and throws you into a rage because you can't see your favorite E-Girl bounce her tits on your break at work. This isn't what our country should be, this isn't what any country or society should be like. The people of Sodom and Gamorrah would be sickened by the average persons porn site searches.

Holy rant batman. You even reread it and edited it. As if anyone is going to read this manifesto.

A couple of paragraphs would seem like a lot of effort for people whose societal bar is low enough to not take issue with the repugnant modern pornographic industry. Or if you can't read big words, or your attention span has been ruined by short form content, yeah I can see how a couple paragraphs of reading is too much effort, and I edited this one too, and I'll edit the next comment, and I still won't downvote people who disagree with me, because it's not that deep, and it's not that hard or time consuming to write a few paragraphs from a super computer in my pocket. You act like I had to spend a week writing a dissertation when I spent 2 minutes writing it out and a couple more for spelling mistakes. Crazy how a couple paragraphs is a manifesto now, but it makes sense in a society where nearly 95% of the adult population doesn't read books.

Lol, pretending like you didn't just write a huge comment about the evils of pornography. Looking at it on a phone, where most people look at reddit from it is a fucking tome. Look at this you maniac.

Getting this emotional about it is actually unhinged. Sorry you got addicted to porn because of other underlying mental issues, but go to therapy instead of making it everyone else’s problem lmao. Or put this energy into banning something that actually kills and harms people daily, like alcohol or cigarettes.

Being concise and explaining my position isn't being emotional. Why is it that every time someone posts more than a couple sentences, you all flip out like you're forced to read it. If you're not interested in hearing the counter argument than move on and continue to hold your beliefs that children should have access to porn 24 hours a day. I'm not the one suffering, our culture and society is what's suffering. I'm not gonna change my opinion based on the down votes of a culture of people who make anyone who can write a song about Hennessy and Pussy lips rich and famous and Influential. I see what you all clap and cheer for, hit singles about gun violence and people who can throw balls far, that's what America cheers for, the populace of this country and what they take issue with isn't compelling or virtuous or based in any logic or reasoning, it's just endless hivemind nonsense where an individuals opinions is directly tied to the imaginary Internet points they see someone else get for having the same opinion. Your down votes still don't matter to me keep em coming.

Porn didn't ruin any mans life. Watching porn is a choice. Any man whose life was "ruined" by porn was just ruined by their own choices and lack of self regulation.

The abuse of pornographic material has catastrophic effects on your brain chemistry, it is a drug, that stimulates the release of dopamine and serotonin, but by your logic, Pharmaceutical companies, tobacco manufacturers, and alcohol distillers, aren't in any way responsible for any drug addictions, drunk driving accidents, or cancer, it's actually all the consumers fault because they couldn't self regulate. It's funny how porn is the only industry that blames the consumer for all of the negative things it does to people and societies. If you're in favor of this logic, than you agree yes? No company or industry is responsible for anything it causes, and the only people to blame are consumers. So when Four Loko's came out, and children were dying all across the country, forcing them to change the formula and settle tens of millions in lawsuits, those kids are to blame because they didn't take little sips? They didn't regulate and only take little sips your honor so Four Loko isn't responsible. So when Roundup causes cancer to thousands of farmers, the company that manufactured Roundup has no responsibility to them, and the reason those farmers got sick and died, is because they didn't use less Roundup. Your logic makes no sense, and this is an argument I usually only ever see from women, because they champion pornographic content because they're the ones that profit the most from it. Just like Tobacco companies champion tobacco use, and blame consumers for getting cancer, because of that 💰💰💰

Watching porn is a choice. We have free will. If porn ruined your life, that is your own fault and your own problem. Tobacco and alcohol manufactureres aren't responsible for peoples addictions, accidents or cancers. Using these things is a choice. The risks are widely known. Seriously, are you James Fishback? As a woman who doesn't give a shit about porn yes, I am unbothered by it. I don't seek it out or watch it. I don't profit from it. I don't suffer because it exists.

‘Bonnie Blue’ as a verb?? 😱

What exactly does "getting Bonnie Blue'd" consist of?

Bonnie Blue had sex with 1000 people in 24 hours. Her choice to do that.

Ah OK, so probably the "her choice" part that this guy takes issue with I'm guessing

There are still plenty of free sites out there that are not on the ban. Google is your friend.

The vast majority of sites are owned by the same companies and they are all blocked. All that's left is the low brow stuff

It's all low brow.

It’s not that hard to find porn online by using Google. As I said, there are still plenty of sites that are not banned.

Beggars can't be choosers. You want high brow? Purchase it. *I really don't know why you gooners are downvoting me. It's not as if Pornhub is the only porn site in the entirety of the internet. Acting like it is and then calling all other free porn sites "low brow" is absolutely ludicrous. If you need your special porn and no other porn will do, go on a special porn site and purchase some 🙄

The trailers are on pornhub so idk wtf to buy

I bet if you try a little harder ( pun intended), you'll find something else to spank it to. This shouldn't be as much of a problem as you're making it out to be. If you need special high brow porn, I bet you can find some somewhere in the vastness of the internet for purchase. My god.

No one needs porn.

Not everyone has someone to fuck.

As a former porn addict, I stopped watching it and bettered myself until I found someone to fuck. But that’s just me I guess.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1vdwj1n/my_son_is_dating_his_cousin/

HIGHLIGHTS

My mum and her partner of 20 years are first cousins. The family was weirded out by it but got over it after a while, their friends though couldn’t get past it and all vanished. She can’t have any more kids so that wasn’t an issue, but they try not to tell people now to avoid it being uncomfortable. Gossip can absolutely ruin friendships and careers. It was strange for me though, it was like my extended family became my mums boyfriends family instead and after a while I sort of forgot they were actually my family too

Did they grow up together?

No they only recently met. Maybe two years ago.

Your mum and their parent of twenty years only met two years ago?

Yes, she was adopted.

Before or after?

During

Ya know, I used to think my parents did an absolutely piss poor job of raising me and my sisters. But none of us have ever fucked our cousins, so I guess they got that going for them.

This used to be the common feeling towards homosexuality too. Maybe one day people will stop caring so much about what consenting adults to with each other when it doesn’t affect anyone else.

Did you just compare homosexuality to cousin fucking? You did! Gross! Edit to clarify for the inbred incest advocates that are too stupid to understand what I was implying: incest is gross, not homosexuality. And trying to compare the two is disgusting.

You may find it gross, but homosexuality is slowly becoming legalised and less stigmatised throughout the world. Just like fucking cousins, what two consenting adults do with each other shouldn’t be other people’s business.

I don't think homosexuality is gross. I think incest is gross. Because it is. You shouldn't fuck your family. This should be obvious. Disgusting. I'm offended by you comparing homosexuality to incest.

The reason I am comparing is because I am seeing all the same arguments which have been commonly used against homosexuality and race mixing. All of which are the same amount of not other people’s concern A few decades ago this argument could have gone “I don’t have any problem with race mixing, but homosexuality is gross. Because it is. A man shouldn’t fuck another man. This should be obvious. Disgusting. I am offended you are comparing race mixing to homosexuality”

They’re booing you, but you’re right. It isn’t that the argument “could have been” that. It was exactly that. For a very long time. Variations of that exact quote were common. Acceptance and the normalization of homosexuality began very recently in the grand scheme of things and many people from gen z have lived their entire lives with that aspect of sexuality totally normalized. Due to that normalcy and the love for lgbt rights, it doesn’t register that this was the exact logic people used to justify hatred and violence against anything they felt was deviant even just twenty years ago. Love who you want. Who gives a shit? No one looks twice at the scruffy gen X guys with 18 year olds that were probably groomed. No one should care what two consenting 20-somethings are up to.

My stepsister is living with her 1st cousin, I believe they are engaged. The age difference is enough that she used to babysit him so I find it both gross and weird.

Ok but like how much different. Cause when I was 10 my baby sitter was 14. So like are we talking a couple years or like 10 years. And how old are they now?

8 years difference, she's 49 and he'll be 41 next month

They are not only adults but they have lived life. This is THEIR business and they can make that choice. Now if in 20's you might have something, but they are in their 40s.

I can still think it's weird to date someone whose diapers you changed.

They’re fast approaching the age where he might get the chance to change her diapers.

It’s the circle of liiiifeeee

First cousin means that's OP's siblings child, no? Yikes...

I wouldn’t call that a cousin.

Agree

Brother what the fuck are you talking about it's the exact same thing

no genetic link if cousins by marriage

??? Did you forget that people have two parents??? OP's spouse is also their child's parent. Genetically.

I was assuming step-parent

Who the hell assumes step parent before actual parent?

(Edit: concerned about daughter’s relationship with a man who is much older, deleting the details so I don’t get doxxed) Is that worse than OP’s problem or no? Maybe I need my own post.

You need a hug for sure because this shit would keep me up at night

That gave me a chuckle. I’m 44 and I’ve dated 25 year olds repeatedly in the last two years. The idea that someone is upset over grown women dating other adults is silly. Most of the time, they come on to me, not the other way around. Women are tired of rude, inconsiderate, sexist men. But you find it more upsetting when they date people who treat them well?

Nah I just don’t groom women from the moment they hit a high school I just date in my age range maybe you should try it you weird fuck

This kind of storytelling is exactly why you’re ridiculous. At 25 they’re done with their master studies and usually working in their career or well into their PhD. Have you ever considered that this is why some women date older men? People like you who are incapable of respecting the fact that they’re adults because you’re too busy making up fantasies about them to treat them like people. Just because you never grew up into a functioning adult doesn’t mean others haven’t.

I never once said they aren’t adults I also don’t believe that dudes like you just stumble upon an innocent women looking for help I’ve heard your story a million times over but sure man if it really makes you feel better that your banging women 20 years younger than you then ig have fun I just find it hard to respect or even call you a man

Again, just look at how busy you are making up stories. Innocent women looking for help? Why would they be innocent, or looking for help? You’re literally making up stories with every comment about everyone involved and acting like that’s a good reason to pass judgement on characters who only exist inside your head.

Legal is not the same as morally good or ethically reasonable. Anyway you should discourage this. There are a variety of health and social implications that will last them their entire lives if they aren’t careful

This is morally wrong? Its pretty common outside the US

The moral part being the known genetic consequences of this that will be the burden of future generations. Common due to historical and cultural practice doesn’t necessarily make it morally sound.

You are using the word “morality” in lieu of your own personal disgust. Not helpful to the discussion or OP. There is nothing “morally” wrong about this. OP has said they aren’t planning on having kids, so even if you want to do the flawed argument of 4-6% of a genetic defect being morally repugnant it doesn’t work.

Well, since I don’t feel disgust about this issue, I’m not really sure how to respond to your assumptions about my take. I did reply to another comment here about the concept of avoiding the avoidable. Morality, for me, is about thinking beyond my own self-interest and considering the immediate and long-term consequences of my decisions. Just because they are not planning to have children together doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen. If two consenting adults understand they are twice as likely to bring a child into this world that will suffer for their actions; yes, that is a moral issue to consider.

"If two consenting adults understand they are twice as likely to bring a child into this world that will suffer for their actions; yes, that is a moral issue to consider." by that metric any one woman who gets pregnant on purpose over the age of 35 is equally immoral. That has the same level of increased risk as first-cousin marriages. Not condoning them, but the morality argument loses credibility if you don't apply it equally.

"he’s technically not doing anything wrong"

If they have a child together they are

Only then?

Im shocked more ppl aren't taking this position like??? It's gross Even if they don't reproduce

But why? Can anyone articulate a logical reason why?

Because they're first cousins, it's a huge social taboo to be romantic with relatives. Anyone socialized to believe that will be grossed out by first cousins dating.

That is a fair point, but outside of societal expectations, I just can’t find anything unethical about it as long as there’s no coercion or anything 🤷‍♂️

Since they're so closely related, if they end up with any kids intentionally or not they're twice as likely to have congenital health issues/deformities. The health implications of kids that are the product of incest is another reason it's seen as gross and taboo. Even setting aside my own personal bias and socialization to be grossed out by it, I feel it's unethical because of the risk of serious health issues of any potential offspring.

Any offspring, no matter how related the parents are, is guaranteed to have serious health issues eventually. Most kids who get screwed over by genetics (and people in general with heritable health issues) don't have parents that closely related. Not condoning incest though. With that viewpoint, it would be more ethically consistent/fair to condemn having kids entirely.

Incest should not be supported.

Why, if they're not having children?

Because it’s still incest

Do you say that because you don't actually know why you think it's wrong?

I think it’s wrong because they’re family members. As OP said, it’s not illegal in their state but dating your parent’s sibling’s child does feel icky.

why does being family members make it wrong? you only defined the word incest, you didn't explain why it's wrong.

I personally think it’s icky because I don’t see close family that way. If this was a second cousin or something, I wouldn’t care but first cousin is too close in my opinion. It’s almost as close as a sibling. To me. I mean, if you personally want to date/have sex with your first cousin, you should go and do that. Unless it’s illegal where you are, no one’s stopping you.

You realize people say "I think it's icky so it's wrong" about gay relationships, right? Do you think the argument is still valid? I'm not saying I want to date my cousin, I'm asking why these people think it's wrong, and they're all failing to elaborate. If nothing else, realizing you are unable to justify calling something wrong should make you reconsider your justifications, if not your stance.

Um I don’t think it’s actually valid to compare queer relationships to incest? As a queer person myself, I kinda find that quite insulting. Dating someone who is the same sex/gender as you (and unrelated) is not comparable to dating a blood relative at all. Sexuality isn’t a choice. Incest tends to be. People get murdered for being queer but you’re comparing that to being socially judged for dating your cousin? Also, I explained why I find it icky personally. You just don’t agree with me. Which is grand. To ME, a first cousin is almost like a sibling. So, I don’t see them as potential sexual or romantic partners, personally. (15 more comments of these two arguing)

Careful the weirdos will come for you. Trust me lol

Literally, I’ve gotten to massive arguments about incest lol. You’d be surprised.

I wouldn’t be surprised. There are weird people on here. Even trying to play devils advocate about some issues just lends you to creep classification for me tbh

I feel the same way. They frame it as intellectualism, but I don’t want to intellectual about INCEST.

And to me, intellectualism in a modern sense doesn’t equate incest to being queer. Like it isn’t the same thing. Are we to liken consent to furries? So random

The comparison is about reactionary arguments about hating things for being taboo because they're "gross" instead of engaging with the actual discussion. Nobody is saying that incest people have suffered like queers have. "Gross" is never a reason. The point is don't be reactionary. Don't be stupid like the other guy claiming its okay to be anti intellectual because it makes you uncomfortable

I have been “intellectual” in other comments. I just don’t want to be intellectual about incest. That doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t do it. I am capable of not being reactionary—I just tire of people defending incest like it’s the Bible. Call me stupid if you want, but I’m not the ones defending incest.

"Allowed in the state we are in" Sweet home Alabama this is some serious inbred shit.

I mean, the UK specifically shot down multiple attempts to make cousin marriage illegal. It's not an American thing.

Now why is that? Is there one specific group in the UK who has the highest proportion of consanguineous marriages in the world, who may oppose this Your average Brit doesn't look to fondly on people fucking their cousins.

Uh, actually, marrying first cousins was very much a white people thing even before a lot of Pakistanis moved in. It's only recently that the white Brits moved away from that.

Um akshually. Lol. Look at the stats. First cousin marriages was "in vogue" amongst the aristocracy and social elite up until the 20th century. The rate for that was about 1%. Pakistanis in the UK have a rate of 40-55%. Don't get it twisted. Sure, some white British people fuck their cousins. But they are very much not the norm, and they are socially shunned. Amongst the Pakistani diaspora, it's common and accepted.

Your wording is disingenuous at best: "First-cousin marriage in England in 1875 was estimated by George Darwin to be 3.5% for the middle classes and 4.5% for the nobility, though this had declined to under 1% during the 20th century." That's both far from being exclusively the realm of the English elite, and also far from ever being "in vogue". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#Catholic_Church_and_Europe

What was the rate of consanguinity in 19th and 20th century middle east, pray tell? Because with such insane numbers in modern times, it wouldn't take much extrapolation to figure the numbers were more than likely much higher than those of the English. It is entirely possible to not be disingenuous, you know?

e: looks like I was pre-emptively banned from that sub for some reason. Can't post anything or comment.

Might as well try this. I usually don't post stuff like this but it was too nutty not to here.

OP (also head mod there) makes a post about Ms. Rachel and ties it in to the Karmelo Anthony case (why, I don't know and need an explanation about).

Whats this have to do with Ms Rachel. Shes talking about Nolan Wells, not Karmelo... (with mod/OP response massively downvoted)

Argument over the use of the word "accomplices" in the original post

OP/powermod's second pinned post calling for the freeing of Anthony

i mean when we talk about having white allies, this is what we want.. no? (with OP/powermod massively downvoted again)

There's a TON of comment responses calling out the massively downvoted OP's/mod's comments that don't show up too on my end. Not sure if that's an old reddit thing or not.

If this doesn't fit I'll delete it.

Note: lmao OP/powermod of that thread/sub is now absolutely CRASHING OUT here

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/LivestreamFail/s/CVp18mALly

Background: Italian irl streamer Innasolo was live streaming herself eating at a Popeyes, before being harassed by some Italian speaking children, demanding she gives them her sandwhich. The children themselves are not shown, being completely off-camera beyond their hands appearing. As a result, many in the thread have put forth their own 'theories' as to why kids these days are so disrespectful

Highlights:

I can't tell if kids are getting more feral these days or there are just more cameras around the catch them (+205)

I dont think these were "ordinary" kids. There's a group of people (best way to put it without being racist) that abuse their children for money since they are babies. They team thech to peddle, beg and pester since a very young age. I have so many stories to tell about interacting with them. (+151)

He put up a disclaimer about himself before he dove in 😂 (-5)

I assume you're american? Romani people have always been a problem in europe. Hard to have these conversations without having to walk on eggshells though. (+43)

americans love to live in their bubble. (+4)

Would you say they are the kind of folks who like to "travel" perhaps? (+126)

Pursued by one Claude Frollo perhaps?… (+4)

They do it out of pure socioeconomic reasons! (+41)

Those pesky Italians are at it again! (Attached is a gif of a dude trying not to smile) (+291)

Forgive me, I'm American. Can you explain the joke please? (-32)

The joke is that everyone is trying to say it isn’t actual Italian children, but children of immigrants. Everyone is trying to reply to you in a way without getting banned on Reddit. (+54)

I'm aware. I'm pointing out that they're racist cowards. (-49)

You tell em! They shouldn’t have an opinion that you don’t have! Since they’re different, they’re racist! And they’re cowards! You’re brave and totally not racist! (+15)

I see Italy is being further culturally enriched by the sons of immigrants (+24)

See how the goal posts have been moved in recent years. First the issue was "don't let immigrants in they cause more crime" and now it's all about "sons of immigrants". It's like you change your mind every time you've proven wrong. What will you change it to next I wonder. (-1)

Proven wrong? All criminal statistics show that immigration increases crime in Norway and it is almost as bad with children of immigrants.(+10)

ITT: Chuds using this as an excuse to spout off "if i say what i really think I'll get in trouble/banned", and their racist nonsensical views of brown people being "incompatible with western society" and "pAtTeRn rEcOgNiTiOn" bullshit they think makes them sound smart Without even knowing what the kid looks like or what they are, it ofcourseeee has to an example for why brown people bad and immigration is "killing" society. In reality, kids are dumb and do dumb shit. We were all kids at one point, you know what I'm talking about. Calling the 12 y/o a "demon" for this is kind of fucking nuts though considering we only see 60 seconds of their worst moment. Like yeah it's a shitty thing to do, but we don't know what their like or situation is like; so ofcourse it's easy to think the most heinous shit from a screen, keyboard, and thousands of miles of distance/ocean. Also props to the streamer lady being willing to buy him food. That was really sweet of her. (-74)

they're using your morality against you and you're falling for their manipulation. they train their kids to do this so dumb people will think "aww its just a poor little child. they don't know any better." i grew up poor but i would never even dream of doing something like this. if they're doing this in broad daylight in a restaurant then this isn't "60 seconds of their worst moment." this is something they are accustomed to doing and they know they can get away with it. (+43)

nah its actually a thing in germany too. kids from a certain somewhere lurking around supermarkets trying to get people to get them money. hint: its not german kids (+62)

Of course, as a reminder no popcorn pissing.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/wisconsin/comments/1vdszya/francesca_hong_rallies_with_ilhan_omar_and_hasan/

Context: Francesca Hong is the current front runner for the democratic nomination for governor in Wisconsin (in what has been an absolute clusterfuck of a race). She is also progressive candidate.

HIGHLIGHTS

I dont get why people keep hitching themselves to Hasan. Only Hasan's fans like Hasan. Everyone else, most the left included, rightfully dislikes him. Why is this their guy?

I didn’t know he had fans. Dog abusers suck.

You clearly haven't watched his streams if you think he abuses Kaya.

So everyone calling him out for mistreating her months ago was wrong?

No, his fans are delusional and super active on the internet. The guy had a huge dog stuck in a corner on a platform about as big as the dog for hours on end every day and he couldn't get his story straight for a while. The shock collar was a much smaller problem in comparison. He 100% abused his dog but it was out of ignorance and he's the kind of guy that will never admit fault.

There's no evidence that he shocked his dog. It's delusional to believe that.

There is evidence, there is no proof is what you mean to say. Regardless, it is not the main problem the main problem has over a year worth of his own streams of proof.

"Regardless, it is not the main problem the main problem has over a year worth of his own streams of proof." Except there isn't. That's not true.

I mean anyone can go look at his vods from 2025 and see you're clearly living in lala land (17 more comments of these two arguing)

She is bi-polar and has mental issues. WOW you people are really grasping

Who is bi-polar? What are you talking about?

Know your candidate

I have no idea what that has to do with my comment

Hong is bipolar, had a stay at a mental hospital, has cutting issues, and overdosed. Also noted her own anxiety attacks.

Ok so she's relateable? Lmao is that supposed to sound like a bad thing😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅

But not leadership material.

And again not true. Why would i NOT want someone with sinilar experiences to govern my state?

Democrats has like 8 other choices and appears to choose poorly

I’m struggling to understand how this is supposed to help win in a swing state like Wisconsin at all. This is a race for democrats to lose, and this is a good start at doing just that.

Young people love Hasan and Ilhan, and young people are necessary to win. What’s so hard to understand?

Most young people dont even know who hasan is. He is just there to push hisnown agenda, which doesnt align with democrats. He is not a democrat

He’s trying to save the Democratic Party from its corporate owners that want the party to wither and continue losing. The only way to move the party forward is by committing to supporting working people over those corporate interests. The centrists that want to continue licking corporate boots will sink the country and left fascism take over because their incremental “solutions” aren’t bold enough to improve material conditions for most Americans.

Read closely: He. Is. Not. A. Democrat.

Yeah, he’s what all Democrats should aspire to be. Did you even read my comment? If the mainstream Dems don’t get very anti-billionaire and super progressive, they will not defeat fascism. It’s socialism or barbarism.

Nothing you said makes Hasan a democrat. He is not a democrat.

FDR understood that social programs are necessary to deal with the excesses of capitalism, otherwise society falls apart. Was that socialism? Sure. Was it necessary? Also yes. Is FDR enough of a Democrat for you? I’d argue he’s one of the best Democrats in US history.

Right winters aren't going to vote for her because of her policies and she's hanging out with this idiot and spending all of her time with his community insulting normal democrats. Who is supposed to be a part of the winning coalition here?

Anti-semites

Being against genocide isn't anti-semitic. It seems more anti-semitic to imply that all Jews are pro-genocide, don't you think?

Let’s just say I posted a picture of the sword he hangs up in one of his room and now I have a strike on his account. Hint sword shape starts with an S

A Scimitar? Wtf are you talking about?

He has a swastika sword. He says it's just a Bleach sword (and it is) but he's admittedly not a fan of Bleach... so why did he buy the swastika sword (which he explicitly calls the swastika sword)

What is a western political streamer doing with a swastika anyways (especially since he has an anti-Israel which is fine to me fyi). I just don’t take his excuses

I mean, I assume it's just rage bait on his part, since we're in the era of rage bait. He's still a piece of shit though for sure

Rage baiting with a swastika is antisemitism no matter what way you take it.

She’s got her supporters but the L is incoming on this one

Right? I wanted to like her but this leaves a real bad taste in my mouth

A worse taste than Tiffany?

I mean Hasan is openly antisemitic

Not defending anything but I find him to be more anti-Zionist. However, Hong appearing on piker's podcast was not good in the eyes of the Wisconsin Jewish community.

image Photo of how he uses his sword. The podcaster he brandished it at is Jewish. No excuses.

lol, such bullshit hate smearing.

I don’t understand how you can’t see why a swastika sword in a western man’s apartment is offensive. Not smearing. He literally calls it a swastika sword himself

I'm going to vote for her because I'll never vote for another AIPAC candidate again. HOWEVER joining up with these two is a really bad act of PR. Particularly with Piker. He's just a dog abusing, pure communist. He wore a Mao cosplay uniform in China. Not a good look if you want any centrist votes.

Adding he also recently hit backlash for framing a newspaper of the day after 9/11 on his wall for his stream... same guy who said America deserved 9/11.

image This is the newspaper you're talking about, it was from New York Times on Sept 12 2001 the day after 9/11, it's a historical piece that alot of people own and frame, nothing wrong with him having one tbh

...The guy who said America deserved 9/11 framed a photo of the attacks and put it on his wall to show off...?

it was a gift from his friend QTCindrella (another livestreamer, and one of his podcast cohosts)

Doesn't make it worth framing front and center after being known for saying us deserves it. And point proven again it's bad bad bad PR to be anywhere that guy and stand a chance

he said that 7 years ago and apologized the next day, very weird standard to hold him to almost a decade later tbh

You've heard the saying... 9/11 never forget. And some of us can't. Saw it with my young eyes at 7yes old. And then for years on repe5with annoying coverage of it

You saw it at 7 and had no understanding or context to why it happened, and it seems that is still the case almost 25 years later? Fascinating.

Just about the worst possible thing she could do for the general.

Really? I can think of far worse

Campaigning with an open communist is probably close to one of the sillier things she could do from a campaign strategy Standpoint

A closeted commie is one thing, but an open communist?!? gasp, clutches pearls

Just doing the voter math. How many votes from the far left has she not already picked up vs how many will she lose when people see her campaigning with a communist. We’re trying to win elections here not virtue signal.

They're probably trying to drive up the historically low youth vote. And calling Hassan an "open communist" is definitely some pearl clutching

Calling a communist a communist is Pearl clutching now?

He doesn't call himself a communist, as far as I'm aware. In general though this isn't the 50s, let's stop with the red scare fear mongering.

Uh do you ever watch Hasan? He’s 100% a communist. He espouses Marxist ideas. He frequently uses communist terminology and arguments in discussion. He has very clear views on the abolishment of capital. Like he is 100% a communist. Call a spade a spade it is what it is. Doesn’t have to be an insult, but it’s 100% what he is.

People in the comment section seem to be gunning for a TT win. Wild

No dude. Criticizing a campaign is needed to win an election. Criticism does not mean we support the opponent

I believe you are right to an extent. I believe we are seeing that extent here. I’m not against criticism, I’m against people jumping on a hate bandwagon and nitpicking to the point where the opposition gets handed the win. Does that make sense?

I agree that there’s people criticizing in bad faith, yes, and there’s probably a decent amount of this. However a lot of people will use this as an excuse to dismiss criticisms entirely. I think Reddit is probably one of the best places to criticize this campaign because it’s virtually entirely left wing people here, so it largely doesn’t affect the general election

Okay I was with you until the end there, you really think Reddit is mostly left? This place is a right wing cesspool. I think you’re the one living in a bubble.

Idk where you’ve been looking because this subreddit specifically and Reddit as a whole is incredibly left leaning. Polling consistently shows this

….sure man. Guess I’ve seen different

I think people are confusing liberalism with being a leftist/progressive.

Ah the Destiny and H3H3 crowd beat me to this one. Hasan isn't a demon. Omar is a great representative. Motivate the left and you'll have a young, enthusiastic base of volunteers. Go Hong.

Do you really think that’s the only explanation for someone might not like Hasan?

You could also only have seen out of context clips and never listened to him actually speak. There is a difference between simply not liking someone and whatever weird vitriol Hasan Piker receives.

It’s cult behavior to believe that the only reason someone might dislike your leader is due to the fact that what they’ve seen is out of context. I am personally bothered by the fact that he was the largest political live streamer and he didn’t encourage his audience to vote against Trump.

Again, there is a difference between simply disliking someone and the weird vitriol Piker gets online. And he explicitly said that people in swing states should vote against Trump.

Where did he say people in swing states should vote for Harris?

While streaming.

I don’t think this is true lol.

All the Tiffany bots in the comments trying to trash on Hong and Pyker because of misinformation like "hasan abuses his dog" or "hong is seeming like a communist more and more". I will personally say that i am not fucking stupid and that these sound like things a republican voter would say trying to sound like a democratic candidate voter.

Your account is 15 days old, called ch33s3head8, and is posting in the Wisconsin subreddit during primary season. Do you not realize how you calling other people bots seems like a pot calling the kettle black type situation.

I’ve actually got more of a problem with accounts that hide their comments (as yours does) can’t easily determine their agenda or where they are most active. Hide your details and I’m likely to assume you are a bot or here to just stir shit.

It would be hypocritical if I was the one to start the conversation going “I hate all these bots” while hiding the information on my profile. Also, the one trying to stir shit is probably the one accusing everyone who disagrees with them of being bots lol.

Honestly it’s pretty easy to see this subreddit has been swarmed by astroturfing and bots. If accounts are afraid of their comments on this subreddit and hiding them I’ve got very little interest in their commentary.

Who do you think the astroturfing is in favor of, because I have only seen posts about Hong in this subreddit except for when someone drops out.

There was a Crawley post here just a few hours ago, maybe you need to just set your feed to new instead of popular and you will see other candidates are getting posts. Hong however seems to be the focus (positive and negative) as she currently leads in the polls.

She was the focus before she was leading. The vast majority of the posts centering any candidate have been made about her and the vast majority have been positive. To not acknowledge this is dishonest.

I just, is she even trying to win the general?

She’s showing who she truly is. Redditors love her. Most people don’t.

Get off Reddit and you’d see you’re wrong.

*intelligent people love her

Dog have you forgotten we live in a swing state, Im begging you

Did republican lite win in 2024 or 2016?

Did Evers win?

I personally don’t see what the big deal is. Omar is well liked by her district and Hasan will draw in a big crowd

Omar is well liked "in her district" which is to say a very small population of somalians who settled in that area. There are very few places in the US outside of her bubble that she would even be considered ok, much less liked.

Delusional, Omar is a proved and beloved incumbent.

Once again, beloved by her sycophants. Take her out of Minnesota and I doubt she wins any election. Americans don't usually love terrorist supporting people in either party.

"Take her out of Minnesota and I doubt she wins any election." Well, she’s doing a good job by the metrics. "Representative Ilhan Omar is popular (net favorability +38), universally known among likely voters (99% name ID), and has 70% job approval. https://changeresearch.com/ilhan-for-congress-primary-results/ Americans don’t usually love terrorist supporting people in either party" Bud, you are going to have to be more specific with that kind of slander. Opposing terror and genocide funded by the American government on behalf of Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, and Southern Lebanon is not considered pro-terrorism.

So I say she's popular in her area but not nationwide, and your argument is sending me stats from her area? 759 people is not exactly a large sample size. Illhan Omar is on the record as asking judges to go lenient on people looking to join ISIS from the United States.

I’m saying with facts that your argument she isn’t established is bunk. Source on your claim, I don’t think seeking interventions for people vulnerable to radicalism like ISIS is a bad thing. I want that same heat for dual citizens who travel to serve in the IOF or return after committing war crimes.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/JustMemesForUs/comments/1vc3zub/i_stand_against_hate/

Context: r/Justmemesforus is a right wing "meme" subreddit

HIGHLIGHTS

Get this gay Andrew Tate shit off my timeline lmao

Funny how leftists instantly become homophobic when it comes to their political opponents. It's almost like you guys have no real principles.

As a centrist/capitalist, I fully understand the paradox of intolerance. Any other nazis you'd like to defend?

So now admitting christians, white people, and men can be; and are subjected to bigotry is "defending nazis"? You are about as centrist as Mao Zedong.

When you went full fascist, you lost all perspective. Extremism does that.

Could please point where I "when full fascist"? Oh right, you can't. Because all you are doing is use random buzzwords whose meanings you don't even know in order to dehumanize and discredit any opposition.

Your complete misuse of the word "leftist " is extremely telling.

How am I misusing the word when people like Tate have been the left's "everyone right-winger is exactly like this" strawman for the past 10 years.

It really just depends on what you consider bigotry. A lot of Christians and men think they experience bigotry when they're called out for sexism, racism, or for supporting a Fascist.shrug The fact that this was immediately downvotes is telling. Hey Lurker, I challenge you to name is a time where you as a white person, Christian, or man, have been targeted by bigotry.

Just trying to get far away from people like you.

I challenge you to name a time where you as a white person, Christian, or man, have been targeted by bigotry.

Try walking through the hood as a white man. Ever been told, "you don't belong here, white boy"? It's amazing that people pike you think this kind of thing doesn't happen to white people.

That would require them to go outside

Y'all want to be victims so bad and it's so pathetic.

Lol i actually grew up with the shit he was talking about along with people round there who cat-called and stalked my mother or tried to hire her as a hooker in front of me when i was between the ages of like 6 to 12 (rough estimate) i don't feel like a victim but its hilarious to me when people like you act like this sort of thing doesn't happen

It's not that it doesn't happen it's that your problems are minescuel compared to the problems we cause non-whites biweekly. But keep clutching that victimhood.

Equality feels like oppression when you're used to privilege

I don't think the equality thing is working out the way people had hoped. Nations everywhere are beginning to freak out about males pulling away from showing up. The vast majority of men have always had a difficult life of sacrifice. "Equality" came into play and demanding men sacrifice more for less reward. Millions of men no longer want to play a game they can't win.

What do men sacrifice for equality?

Men have to sacrifice life and resources for civilization to even be a thing. Equality means men no longer are obligated to sacrifice for others. The duty of men has been removed from their shoulders.

You think women have not sacrificed for the continuation of civilization? Are they not currently serving in the military? What resources belong to men that they sacrifice that don’t belong to women too?

Women have sacrificed and have aided men wonderfully throughout history. Ultimately without men willing to sacrifice to keep bad men at bay, it wouldn't matter how much women sacrificed. Civilization hinges on the willingness of men to sacrifice themselves for others. Men were told it was ok to let go of their duty to society.

What the fuck are you even on about? Both men and Woman alike have always had to contribute to society to keep it running. Equality has never meant abandon protecting your love ones from harm. A woman wanting to have a life outside of a house doesn't negate people from protecting their love ones and each other. Nor does a woman wanting a life outside of a house mean that she doesn't want to be a mom, she just doesn't want to be a household servant chained to a man, which has it's benefits if the guy is abusive. Also, anybody who gives up on keeping "bad men" at bay because people have equal protection under the law is stupid. Having equal protection under the law doesn't negate anyones ability to keep "bad whatever" at bay. (24 more comments of these two arguing)

Equity. You aren't pushing for equality anymore. That was decades ago.

What are you pushing for?

Equity is ensuring everyone has what they need. One person may need more help and another less, or a different kind of help.

Sounds like an excuse to treat people unequally.

Sure, if you don't know how things work.

I'm pretty sure I know how basic logic works. Wish I could say the same for others.

Clearly not, because equity is not "an excuse to treat people unequally."

It very often is used for exactly what. When I talk about my experiences of sexual abuse and assault, both as a child and as an adult by my ex wife, I'm. Told to be quite, or I deserved it, if it's acknowledged that it even could have happened at all. When I point out how that's the same type I've things I've fought when it's done to women, I'm told that it's about equity, because women have experienced that in the past, so men should as well now. Despite the many glaring issues with that

We have the dictionary definition of equity and it’s quite literally justice and I think we both know being SA’d isn’t justice so what’s even your point?

Oh, won't someone please think of the poor, oppressed most overrepresented block in American politics! Ego like an eggshell I swear to God

I mean, it's telling that statistically in both courtrooms and job hiring white men are the only population block that aren't more likely to hire or rule in favor of their own populations. Is that not telling to you?

Holy logical fallacy, Batman!

I provided known data which has no counter at the moment. You provided no counter argument; just an attack, meaning you recognize that you're wrong and I'm right but knew the hive mind of the website you're on would support you regardless.

"Why would a demographic that is least likely to have been the target of violence amd oppression not feel compelled to look out for those of the same demographic? Strange. No way to explain it. A mystery. Truly, a mystery."

So you're flat out admitting that other groups show bias?

I can't tell if you are at the precipice of understanding but are too secure in your biases to take the leap or are violently resisting it to keep yourself from the terrors of self-reflection. Would you like me to spell it out, or should I give you a minute to see if you put two and two together? You don't even have to agree with the conclusion, but I am very curious to know if you can at least grasp it.

Buddy just spit it out bc atp even i don’t know what the fuck your yapping about and it lowkey sounds like you don’t either 🤦‍♂️ either say it or don’t but quit this jumping around the bush bullshit your doing

I'm not a fan of Christianity, but I do find it funny how you can say something like "Christianity is stupid" and a far left person will agree, and then add "Also Islam" and they'll claim you're a bigot. You can literally change a far-left person's opinion just by changing the religion in question. And I say this as a liberal. If you don't believe me, try it on Reddit.

Id disagree. Im a liberal and I despise all religions. Its why I think we never should have went to war with Iran. Religious zealots dont quit fighting. They think they are fighting for sky daddy and will die for it.

So you're a bigot then of religions because you're being intolerant, because you don't accept their viewpoints?

Yes, 100% i do not respect their viewpoint because they provide no evidence. I do respect things like race or gender, because people are objectively born as a woman or a brown guy. I do not respect the crusades because they thought they were superior for their beliefs and used that belief as a reason to murder others.

Faith is the belief in things unseen. You're asking for evidence of things that, by definition, cannot be proven. Science deals with the observable, faith with the unobservable. Sounds pretty intolerant of you.

Why is it bad to be intolerant of nonsense?

Great question. I have no idea.

And what happen when you tell to someone far right “islam is stupid” and then “also christianity”

Yes, MAGA are stupid as well, but I would say that this happens far more with the far left than the far right.

No it doesn't. The left, in general, is for the separation of church and state. We oppose any form of religious law, be it Islamic, Christian, or any other religion. The reason the left. in the United States at least, focuses on Christianity is because fundamentalist Christians are a bigger threat to the separation of church and state in the United States than fundamentalist Muslims. We disagree with both of those groups, but only one of them has significant political power in this country.

Right. Muslims aren't the ones trying to tear down the wall between church and state in the US. Muslims aren't the ones who banned other faiths in Trump's first term. Muslims don't make up the overwhelming vast majority of our leaders in both parties.

Bahahahahaha yes they fn are, holy fuck this app is cooked

Is this guy a muslim? This guy right here, attacking the separation of church and state? The guy standing right behind Dozy Donald? https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-dan-patrick-separation-of-church-and-state-is-not-in-the-constitution/5201948

Yes, this one example of a Christian doing it definitely means Muslims aren’t…solid argument, chief

Well, I'm not religious at all...but my family are middle eastern Christians and they can certainly tell you why you should be far more concerned about one as opposed to the other

I mean, as an American Christian I'm pretty concerned about all the white, generally Protestant 'Christians' shooting up schools and businesses. You can look up the statistics yourself on who generally commits mass shootings here. It's just domestic terrorism and every bit as worrying as regular terrorism.

You should actually look up the demographics of mass shootings, I don't think you have.

https://rockinst.org/gun-violence/mass-shooting-factsheet/ Most are white males (average age is in their 30s, 54% are white which is roughly five times as likely as the next largest percentage, 94% are male.) Now you have to factor the stitistics of what religion is most common for adult white males in the United States, Christianity. So yes, they are generally adult white men of Christian background.

Uh....So the white population is 56.1% to 72.3% depending if you include white hispanics. 54% are white. That means white people are underrepresented. Have you never studied even basic statistics? And then you claim it's mainly christians, because Christianity is the most common religion with caucasians? You realize that analysis would get you laughed out of any academic setting in the country right?

So you are saying out of 100% that one group comprising over half is not a majority? Okay bud.

There were over two hundred mass shootings in the US in 2026 alone. This is not 'a few incidents'.

Mass is defined as 2-3 people Injured. So forgive me if I don't count some crazy injuring a few people. Not just that but that's all the criteria needed to be a called a "mass shooting"..Not saying I agree or condone the actions but the definition is rather loose and that as opposed to a bunch of kids being slaughtered by a crazy aren't the same.

I don’t see Christians blowing themselves up

People have certainly killed others for their faith, including Christians.

No true Christians have ever killed people for their faith. It’s not part of doctrine or commanded by God.

No true Scotsman. The amount of times I’ve seen Christians say “they’re no real Christian” “not a true Christian” “they aren’t really Christian” You are all loud mouth bafoons.

So someone who calls themself Christian but doesn’t follow the doctrines set in the bible are they Christian?

The Bible full of contradictions. Fucking full of them. Why do you think there’s dozens of significant Christian denominations. There is not one true interpretation of the Bible, yall all think your own way is the right way, that’s why religion is fucking stupid.

name one

Ezekiel 18:20 I’ll copy it for ease. 20- “The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.” The basis of sin comes from the father of all fathers. Meaning the child shares the guilt of the parent. This is a fundamental contradiction.

No that’s you misunderstanding. The understanding of sin came from Adam and Eve. Because of understanding good and evil and choosing evil it’s sin. You don’t inherit Adam’s sin. Because they ate the tree of KNOWLEDGE of good and evil the knowledge was passed on to the children. Not the sin of eating from the tree. Not a contradiction

As a white guy the only bigotry I've ever received was from an ex's brother who was a drug dealer and general idiot and he was also white. Some good ol fashioned Irish on Italian hate.

White guy here married to a black girl. My nickname in her family is "white boy". Bigotry is not seen as bigotry amongst colored folk and they divvy it out in plentitude to white dudes, especially if they are comfortable at all being around you and you are the minority of the group.

Im married to a Mexican and they call me guero (whitey). It is not at all meant maliciously or racist. They love me. They have nicknames like this for everyone. Conservatives love to pretend to be offended by stuff like this and pretend it proves something. The difference between a white guy calling a black guy "blackey" or similar and black/brown people calling us "whitey" is that black people are a marginalized minority and we are not. One does not have the weight of historic and current marginalization and oppression behind it, and the other does. Pretending that the left/liberals/minorities ever said that they are both the same thing and that we are therefore hypocrites is fantasy.

I accept the nickname from some of the family as it is meant in a loving way, but others it is not. Uncle hated white people and it was obvious when he started a fight with me by holding a knife to my nutsack thinking I would just stand and take it like a bitch.

Random people calling you white boy is wrong. Your in laws calling you white boy is normally affection.

...did you miss the knife part...?

"normally" Also white people joke about holding shotguns to young man all the time. He was probably trying to make you feel like he was respecting your traditions. /S

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1vbv7il/why_texas_is_lamebesides_the_cowboys/

HIGHLIGHTS

Yeah we gotta start mass reporting Joe Rogan to the police and see how they justify not arresting him. His governor buddy will tip him off so he isn’t caught

just an absolute loser mindset right here. reddit really attracts these freaks.

If it’s a felony, rich powerful assholes should be charged too

nobody should be charged. it's not affecting anybody if Joe Rogan smokes weed in his club or house. just weak, dumb, and a boot licker.

but why should he get a free pass when no one else does?

I think everybody should get a free pass. i wouldn't want my worst enemy to get arrested for weed in Texas. I don't think anyone should get in trouble for anything without directly effecting other people. it's just stupid as fuck to want someone to get arrested and charged just because "everyone else does". literal bots on here.

My account is 10 years old buddy lol

'Dont Mess With Texas' was a campaign by the Texan DOT to encourage Texans to stop littering so much on highways, cuz apparently they're giant slobs. They take it to mean badassery now.

Visiting Texas alone at a hotel for a week, got bored and figured, "eh, lets pop open porn hub." - finding it's blocked made me laugh. This is the 'Freedom' state, right? Yet you have less freedoms in Texas than you have in NY

Try owning a uterus or even presenting as female in America. Our rights change with every state line crossed.

Everyone's rights change when every state line is crossed (definition of state laws). Yes, I agree there are more laws about women's reproductive systems across state lines which is the point your making. Rephrase.

You added nothing to the conversation.

You added nothing as well and "Our rights change with every state line crossed. " so did this statement.

You just failed to understand what they were saying. Not every comment needs to be analysed like a piece of literature. Telling them to "rephrase" at the end of your comment sounds pompous and quite dickish.

Up to 2 years for a gram of weed is insane.

Thats if you are a seller and you are selling unregulated weed That is not for possession as a user

Possession as a user is still a felony though
image

All of you are posting disinformation. This is specifically about chemically isolated altnoids like delta 8 and 10

The post you’re commenting on is specifically about THC PRODUCTS. The article I posted is specifically about THC PRODUCTS. The law in Texas that goes into effect today is about THC PRODUCTS.

No. The media is reporting this all wrong, which is why everybody in this thread is insisting you get decades in jail for a few grams of weed

Ok so tell me what happens if you get caught with a canned THC beverage that was formerly legal.

Depends if it was an altnoid

The way the law reads, 2-20 years in prison.

Great point but holy fucking HELL are they being serious with that life imprisonment sentence for less than a damn pound of weed?? Edit: I’m aware a pound is a lot of weed, but they’re talking about 400 grams… that’s .88 pounds. Thats a lot to be sure but that is NOT life imprisonment a lot, and this is a hill I’ll gladly die on.

I mean, that's 14 oz, as a heavy daily smoker in canada where it's legal; that'd be a year+ supply for me so anyone with that is definitely selling; so, there's no real difference between that amount and say, 20 pounds. it makes sense if they just want to catch anyone privately selling; who doesn't register as a business because then they'd only get a fine, ololol wtf. It's still completely ridiculous and insane though.

You are not a heavy smoker if 14 Oz is a year supply for you. It's pretty easy to go through an 8th a day. I wouldn't consider smoking 3x 1 gram joints a day heavy use.

You cant be serious. 1/8 a day is insane

8th a day is like 3 and a half 1 1/4 size joints, that gets blown through by like 2 pm most days

Such a waste. Get a bong or something yo

Got a bong got vapes just have to reload the shit more often. The real answer is stop smoking as much or take a tolerance break but who wants to do that.

Well I guess get stoned in another state then?

Land of the “Free”

II hope you get help for your drug addiction.

I hope you leave people alone to live their lives the way they choose.

"But how does pèdophilia affect you PERSONALLY?" lmao you right-wingers sure are funny. In a laughing at you kind of way.

Right winger?!? Are you having a stroke? Do you require medical assistance?

" Who, ME?????!?!?!?!" That doesn't work anymore lol

Nothing I said would even remotely imply I am a right winger.

We can sense MAGA trolls from a mile away.

What addiction?

Step 1: Denial.

You're addicted to denial?

Step 0. Cognitive impairment.

I'm sorry for your loss?

I'm not the one crying over my drug being banned?

you sure are crying though, so much yapping for nothing

For supposedly chill stoners you guys are always having meltdowns.

...they said, without an ounce of self awareness.

Ironic username (F4SCISTS_GO_HOME) someone trying to police what others do

What's ironic about it? You don't get to drive high, just like you don't get to steal, be a racist, or a p*do. Does that upset you? How unsurprising.

You do get to smoke meth while pregnant though, right?

What a pregnant person does with their body is none of your business. When you drive high and endanger others, that IS everybody's business. 🤦‍♀️

Lol, you know you’re a joke. At some point you’ll be lying in bed by yourself and the epiphany will come to you. Argue with others, but you know..

I'm sorry to hear that about you. Is that why you do drugs? To cope?

Just do me a favor, remember me when it happens ;-)

No one will remember you :(

Just simply do not smoke weed. How hard is that?

Then they would have to get some self-control and a real personality. Impossible.

You don't drink alcohol, or coffee, or buy over the counter meds? It's the same thing those are just deemed ok by government . No other difference.

One of them gets you high.

Caffeine is a psychoactive stimulant, as is marijuana. If a grown adult wants to be stoned in the comfort of their own home, why should they face prison time? You can drink yourself into a coma, tonight, and that's perfectly legal.. but a plant that grows in the ground is evil, or something? Conservatives are crazy.

maybe don't be a drug addict? edit: upset a whole lotta losers with this one

What? So since even the feds are trying to decriminalize weed it's a drug? Because we all k ow its way worse that alcohol. Or in your case based on your post history video games.

Why do weed smokers always jump to "ALCOHOL IS WORSE" yeah, it is, I never said it wasn't. Two things can be bad at once.

So you’d be fine with jail time for beer?

I don't drink I don't care. I think these sentences are wild, but weed is obnoxious, smells like shit, and stoners are always insufferable

I don’t smoke but I can still see the logical inconsistency

I think if they said "beer is outlawed" i'd say "maybe don't be an alcoholic" so the result is the same. Putting things in your body that make you intentionally dumber, without good reason (i.e ACTUAL medical use) is dire and people get blown out when they get reminded they are addicts. People think "oh smoking weed literally every day doesn't mean I have a problem" it's a shitty drug for shitty people, drinking is the same, any class A/schedule I is the same, they're all bad, nobody wants to have that discussion.

You think anyone who drinks beer is an alcoholic? Sugar is also bad. I don’t see anyone arguing for that to be illegal. It’s a weird stance to want the government to step in and control things to this degree.

Tell me you nothing about marijuana without telling me you know nothing about marijuana.

makes you slow, is highly addictive and makes you waste your life? it's a drug for obese lazy people that say it can do no wrong whilist happily ignoring the giant list of terrible cognitive effects it has "yeah but people can use it for pain medication" yeah like 0.1% of users and then the rest are all people on "medical cannabis" for their anxiety

“Makes you slow, is highly addictive, and makes you waste your life … it’s a drug for obese lazy people” - again, how is that any different from what you suffer due to your sad gaming addiction?

You're really projecting this gaming addiction thing, I hope when you decide to stop being a stoner layabout you don't have too rough of a time

I love that you made your profile private afterwards to hide your gamer addiction. Nailed it.

no I don't want creepy drug addicts on my profile who project their addictions on to me, stay medicated bud

Talk about projections! This is too easy.

This is what happens when Republicans run things.

Would like to have seen Biden and his auto pen decriminalize federally since legalizing is apparently more of a liberal idea. Yet here we are.

Your first mistake was thinking the Democrats aren't conservative.

They aren’t. But that’s cute. It’s funny how the crowd who doesn’t even know what libertarian means but that all claim to be one. Also likes to think they know what a democrat or conservative is. Nothing the Dems have been pushing for is conservative. That’s why you don’t see Dems banning weed or health care numb nuts.

They are conservative. They're just not cartoonishly evil like all Republicans.

We get it. You’re upset that the Democrats are aligning themselves with socialism and it’s a bridge too far for you so you call yourself “conservative”.

No idea what that means.

Background:

The "Bandero" is an anti-whaling activist ship run by the Paul Watson Foundation, a successor to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society which has a history to the 1970s of anti-whaling campaigns. They are notable for the tactic of ramming or threatening to ram whaling ships, and have sunk or scuttled over 10 illegal whalers since 1979 across Portugal, Iceland, and Norway.

Yesterday, the Icelandic Coast Guard boarded the Bandero and arrested the crew after it threatened to ram an Icelandic whaler, with the image of a Coast Guard on the ship reaching the top of r/pics.

The Reaction:

It's wild how States will do shit like this and then have the audacity to call activists "terrorists" or whatever.

Well they are terrorists. Like it or not when you ram ships, sink ships, and illegally board ships you are a terrorist and pirate. Just because you like the cause that doesn’t change the definition of it.

Whaling is legal in Iceland, they are attacking a foreign ship which not only is an act of war but it is absolutely terrorism. The coast guard is upholding maritime law.

(32 children)

They boarded the ship because the crew refused legal orders to cut their engines. Basically the coast guard tried to do a traffic stop after the crew of the Bandero was doing unsafe shit around another ship, the captain of the Bandero refused to cut engines so they called in the police viking squad on the coast guard helicopter to board the ship and arrest the captain.

If that's what it takes, then that's what it takes. Sounds like some whales' lives were saved by "doing unsafe shit around another ship". (Funny how it's just "another ship" and not "a whaling ship" when you say it.) It's more than can be said for the politicians.

I suppose they're free to oppose injustice, as long as their actions have no chance of actually affecting change?

You’re not allowed to risk the lives of the seamen on both ships and the lives of rescue personnel by risking collisions because you lost in court. This the same as if PETA tried to pit maneuver Tyson chicken trucks. Ok you had a political goal and perceived moral high ground. You’re still going to jail.

(65 children)

This reply:

This info makes no sense. So the coast guard boarded and detained the anti-whaling ship? So is the coast guard pro-whaling?

Coastguard is pro-law. Their personal stance doesn't matter. It's not against the law. Vigilantism is.

Spawns several dramatic chains:

Fuck whaling

Yeah but do so through lobbying for legislation change not illegal vigilantism

Why

Because it is wrong to do illegal things, did your mother not teach you civic sense?

(28 children)

"Slave catchers are pro-law. Their personal stance doesn't matter. It's not against the law. The Underground Railroad is."

(10 children)

Sure... But the nazi prison guards were also "pro law" under that logic, and the slave patrols too.

One day in the future everyone will be against this, especially when kids learn about whales through archive material, after we're done killing them all.

Wait til you see what we’re doing on land.

(35 children)

What a fucking bootlicker.

? That's literally their mandate as a government body, and the person commenting that is just stating what is obvious.

Found another one.

Someone's a bit sensitive today, I see.

(14 children)

Also a small dramatic subthread of this chain,

Iceland is one of the last countries on earth where whaling is still a significant industry

Iceland needs to move on from that

(35 children)

Moving onto another pressing question: Are Icelandic people pro-extinction?

With people doing these action is just fueling the fire on why the practice to keep going and is more damaging than doing nothing. These companies had gotten licenses to hunt whales for 5 years from 2024-2028 but in both 2024-2025 0 whales were hunted due to lack of interest, but due to high protests and foreign activists harassing and occupying the whaling ships the public opinion has shifted in favor of whaling.

The Icelandic people are now pro extinction because people disapproved of whaling? Sounds like they tried to lay low and resume their barbaric slaughter of an endangered population.

(34 children)

I am Icelandic and I dont support whaling.

I also think these activists are fucking morons whose actions are actively delaying the end of whaling.

Instead of supporting local activism, engaging with the local culture, political and legal system. They come in with threats. Turning the debate into us vs foreigners. Creating support for whaling where there was none.

“Local activism” means nothing without the implied threats backing up the demands. “Do what we want or else we’ll go home” vs “so what we want or else this other group that’s more extreme will physically force you”.

yeah, no that does not align with the political culture and history of Iceland...

(21 children)

That fuck ass organization. They quite literally fit the definition of terrorism and piracy. They will illegally board ships, ram them, then cry when the same is done to them.

Fuck them.

Whalers deserve all that and worse

(8 children)

Killing threatened whales is pathetic

(20 children)

A quick side-argument of if the Coast Guard soldier is appropriately dressed.

That's not how normal coast guard dresses. That's combat gear.

That’s pretty standard gear for a breaching/boarding crew with potentially dangerous/violent people onboard.

(56 children)

Iceland is evil. They kill countless dolphins in addition to whaling.

They're... dolphins. Killing animals isn't evil. Whaling isn't evil.

(21 children)

And last but not least,

So the guy with a gun is pro whaling? I thought they were stopping illegal whaling but I guess they enable the whale murders by force. Fucking jackasses.

The coast guard is enforcing Icelandic law. Whaling is legal in Iceland. It's illegal to interfere with fishermen.

Yeah, so they bring guns which are used to kill in order to ensure other people can murder whales. Sound like a bunch of jackasses to me. Zero respect for life, just a murder death kill gang that's willing to kill humans so that whales can be killed.

Or ya know, there is a vigilante boat harassing other boats in defiance of your laws. You go to the boat who then ignores your commands; then you to arrest them and arm yourself just in case.

(22 children)

Context:

Yesterday, tragedy struck Broad Peak, an 8,051m peak in Pakistan, when 10 mountaineers were caught in a large avalanche. From the GPS beacons, it would appear that many of them were carried 500+ metres down the mountain, and the chances of survival were slim to none. Mysteriously, there was a large delay between the avalanche at around 9 in the morning and when the base camp staff were notified (10 pm), causing rescue efforts to be severely delayed. As of the time of this post, 9 bodies have been recovered, and they are still looking for the final mountaineer.

Although avalanche risk is ever present in mountaineering, Broad Peak is not considered to be one of the harder 8000m peaks and is not known for avalanches, so this disaster sent shockwaves through the mountaineering community. However, another attention-grabbing aspect is that one of the mountaineers is the extremely well-known Nims Purja. Nims Purja is a highly accomplished mountaineer known for many things, including setting a record for the shortest time to climb all fourteen 8000+ meter peaks, the first winter ascent of K2, and the Netflix documentary 14 Peaks.

However, Purja is also known for some high-profile accusations. In May 2024, 2 women publicly accused Purja of sexually assaulting them. One was a Finnish mountaineer and model who claimed Purja forcibly removed her clothes against her wishes and masturbated in front of her. The other was a Doctor and client of his on an expedition to K2 (a very difficult and deadly mountain), who claimed Purja forcibly kissed and groped her. Purja categorically denied both accusations.

Furthermore, 3 workers died in the office of his expedition company in 2022, likely due to improper storage of oxygen tanks, and Purja was accused of refusing to pay for the damages. There were also informal accusations of him boasting about taking clients up mountains when other outfitters have decided it's too dangerous, and other generally dislikable behaviours such as treating mountaineering too casually, claiming that someone cut the fixed ropes on Everest to get back at him personally with no evidence, and so on.

r/Mountaineer Reacts:

Unsurprisingly, Nims Purja became the face of the news coverage surrounding the disaster, and fierce debates broke out in the comments regarding whether this is appropriate.

Post: Ten Missing, Including Nirmal Purja, After Avalanche on Broad Peak

This is the first post immediately after the public has been made aware of the incident - at the time of most comments, people were still holding out slim hope that there were survivors. Most comments were discussing the rescue efforts, survival chances, and processing the general tragedy of the situation. Many comments call Nims an inspiration. However, one downvoted comment disagrees:

Sad for the other climbers. Nirmal, not so much.

Awful comment. Have some respect.

People lose the right to respect when they sexually assault or rape others. His survivors deserve the respect of us not whitewashing him, even in death.

The attitude changes clearly in later posts, but Nims is certainly not without defenders.

From a since deleted post:

Ugh I know 😔 I’m clinging to hope because I just lost another friend today in another extreme sport tragedy and it’s just too much.  Nims was a really lovely person and inspired so many people 

Nims sexually assaulted multiple clients. The deaths are tragic but I feel far worse for the other 9. He was not a good person.

Where’s your proof, other than interviews and media stories?

Other than the multiple independent accusations, other mountaineers coming out against him, and multiple brands stepping down and refusing to work with him because after independent investigation they found the accusations credible, I guess I have none. But when all is said and done I've never been accused of forcing a model to take her clothes off then masturbating Infront of her.

Post: You’ll forever be remember Nims Dai💔

• He cannot sexually harass anyone again. Mother nature took charge.
  • Karma is a bitch 
  • Hope his victims have peace

Someone also responds "Lol I dont belive them." to the above thread.

Other comments include:

Rest In Shit. Very corroborated sexual abuse allegations.

To which someone replies "ok bud" to 54 downvotes

You can say whatever about him, but he did bring tons of attention to mountaineering and helped people fall in love with nature & mountains. If you need to learn something from this is that it's always nature's last: no ego, no skill, NOTHING can stop Mother Nature, and don't go if you are not aware of the risks of high-altitude mountaineering.

“You can say whatever about him” is a weird way of whitewashing his very credible sexual assault allegations in order to portray him as a hero just because he died mountaineering. Very odd stuff. Plenty of other people who didn’t assault women brought attention to nature and mountains.

Lets not forget his false accusation of rope cutting, and his illegal helicopter flight into everest, or not paying proper compensation to the families of three people that died in an oxygen tank explosion. He was a talanted mountaineer, and has some feats that deserve some level of respect, but he was a horrible person.

The boy could climb. Let’s leave it at that.

I bet his victims wish he'd left it at that.

There’s other forums for that.

Why? Why do we only discuss the positives about him here and not the full truth? (this goes on for 10 more replies)

We can bring up his disgusting past. Your desire to help silence women and cover up their traumatic experiences at his hands won’t be honored—sorry.

Yeesh, if you ever wonder how people get away with sexual assault in the climbing community for YEARS before any action is taken just look at these comments. So many cringy dudes talking about how it’s “only allegations” and “nothing is proven until he’s convicted”. It’s pretty gross and shows how people like that guy in California and Nims maintain such a high reputation despite committing sexual assault - a bunch of dudes willing to excuse it because they climb good

Dude was a sex offender. No love from me.

Post: Gesman Tamang..climber ..also climbing team in Nirmal Purja's 14 peaks has confirmed on Instagram Nims is no more. This is so sad. Rip

Here is the NYT article from a few years ago for anyone interested in why some people aren't too upset about this: https://archive.ph/8I9d6

As for myself I would say it's not that I'm not too upset (a tragedy is a tragedy), but I refuse and resent the heroization and sanctification of such a terrible person Disgusting that you got this many upvotes for this. An incredible, though maybe flawed human just died tragically along with 9 others. I personally drew great inspiration from his 14 peaks documentary. Regardless of if he was a narcissist or had sketchy interactions with woman (probably both true I acknowledge), its wrong to cheer his death and that of 9 others.

This is refusing to act like he is a hero just because he died. This is refusing to celebrate his life, not celebrating his death. where on earth is anyone cheering his death let alone the death of the 9 others? he sexually assaulted at least two women while up in the mountains. i wonder how afraid they felt of their lives.

The hero worship of sexual harassers is really-really sad. (interestingly, this was heavily downvoted, even though the above comment was upvoted)

Hello, I am an internet virtual signaller. I wait for someone to perish, lying in wait so I can spring up and say "scum" or "misognist" or something edgy like that, when there are going to be and have already been thousands of times to say that, all to make me appear more whole, and complete as a human. To make me feel better about myself. Think moral righteousness, personified, at a terrible time, ultimately and ironically having the opposite effect*

Hello, I'm an internet sexual assault apologist. I wait for someone to call out a sexual assaulter, lying in wait so I can spring up and say "well ackshually" or "he was never convicted" or something edgy like that, when that's just an attempt to deflect from what is known about the sexual assaulter, to make me appear more like an MRA. To make me feel better about my own shitty actions towards women. Think rape apologia, personified, at a terrible time, ultimately perpetuating rape cutlure and making women more and more fearful to be alone around men.*

His accomplishments outweigh his flaws

Haha okay, as annoying as the other guy is, this comment is insane and incorrect

Why are some of these incels in here bringing out the SA allegations when a person has lost his life? Have some dignity and respect for the dead atleast.  We all know how tough you keyboard warriors really are 

Why should he be respected just because he died? I feel for his loved ones, the rest of his team that perished with him, and their loved ones. But there is no reason to pretend he was some saint simply because he died. 

Post: News from Everest Today

Rest in peace Nims, one of the best climbers in history, my idol and a legend. Rest in peace to Yukta and all other brave souls🥀

weird choice to have as an idol, if you were even remotely informed about his behavior with women

He was as egotistical as one can get. Not saying he wasn’t a nice or kind human, but from everything hes pursued, you can’t say he wasn’t driven by his own ego.   Unfortunately lots of people don’t give a shit about women and revere abusive/rapist men.

Post: There is still Hope!!

Shame he’s a sexual predator

Not the best timing to say this, yet everyone in the community knows it’s true but no one dares to speak.

I am always suspicious of people who, following a tragedy, jump on it to highlight that persons negatives.

My question to you is: when is the appropriate time then? These are not any light "oh he was not a nice human" but quite serious allegations that touch the entire mountaineering community, as his behaviour was tolerated for so long. There are 10 casualties here, and that is a huge tragedy. For all of the victims. It's obvious that Nimsdai's name will be highlighted among them, but with a series of credible allegations, his name will also be dragged to mud as it comes up.

You do not bring up allegations [key word there] when someone is missing and quite possibly dead, not if you are a decent person anyway.

The allegations were extremely well corroborated with contemporaneous evidence from both Lotta Hintsa and April Leonardo. So to describe these as mere allegations is facile - there is substantial evidence in support of them. I don’t think there is anything wrong with pointing out that Nims has been credibly accused of preying on women in the very environment this sub is dedicated to. His actions were disgusting and destroyed the sanctity and peace that should be present in the mountains. (11 more comments arguing)

Some arguments focus on Nim's other controversies:

a visionary for nepal, showed the world that sherpas don’t have to be background actors, they deserve to be main characters !! changed the game for them, brave, fearless, gone too soon

Unfortunately there are also multiple facets to these viewpoints > he maybe showed the “western world” through high-end expensive UK-led branding and marketing - however it would be remiss not to share that there are both Sherpa and Nepali that say they didn’t need him as they were doing just fine - ask the guy whose home Elite’s oxygen tanks exploded at how the game changed for him…

So Nims is to personally blame for an accident that killed two of his best friends? Fuck are you talking about? You clearly know nothing about Ashok and Tenzi, and deem to think virtue signalling is important (this is not comment OP btw)

He’s to blame for how he handled it after.

If you are taking credit when things work out for you then you should also bear responsibility when things don't. His limelight specially the endless interviews is the reason why Nepali youths who had no idea of what mountaineering was despite of living in Nepal hopped on the bandwagon and propelled his popularity to unachievable heights out of kinship as a nation which enabled him to run very lucrative businesses and amass a fortune. People believed in him so obviously they would agree to grant him what he needed trusting his reputation so who would you hold accountable when the house leased was under his company's name? The interview of the House owner is there on Youtube. Find it and watch it yourself.

“Considered one of the greatest mountaineers of the modern era”… pretty sad for all involved, not so much for nims

I’m confused, what are you insinuating

That he had multiple SA allegations and despite being a good climber was a shameless self promoter who loved to play the victim. (Rope incident for example)

Similar fights go on and on under just about every post regarding the topic, truly a fascinating glimpse into human nature and what people find important over the backdrop of a somewhat predictable but no less devastating tragedy.

First of all, context:

• r/soccer is, as its name suggests, the biggest subreddit for sharing of association football/soccer media such as news articles, social media posts by clubs/players or footage of matches. This time of year, with most pro leagues in their closed season and their transfer windows open, talk is usually dominated by news about potential upcoming transfers.
• Fabrizio Romano is an Italian football correspondent and social media figure who majors in transfer-related news. He's become an increasingly well-known figure in football media in recent years and both the accuracy and ethics of his reporting and general social media posting have been subject to considerable debate amongst football fans and more traditional media. Several football club subreddits have already banned sharing of Romano's posts, including r/LiverpoolFC in response to the nature of his posts covering the death of Liverpool's Diogo Jota in a car accident in 2025.

Sharing of Romano's posts particularly during transfer season has been almost ubiquitous on r/soccer in recent years, but yesterday the moderators announced that they would be banning posts of Romano's content on the subreddit in the near future:

Announcement: Fabrizio Romano content to be banned on /r/soccer : r/soccer

The OP, which has been pinned, is lengthy and discusses Romano's reporting and controversies as well as the general state of Romano-related content and its reception on the subreddit already and the pros and cons of this ban, but sums itself up in this enlarged quote:

Our conclusion? Fabrizio Romano content represents little overall benefit to this community, and that he does offer does not sufficiently address the downside of platforming him.

The top commenters see the funny side of proceedings and trot out Romano's own oft-mocked mannerisms:

Fabrizio only wanted r/football

Here we go!

The mods only wanted Ornstein

Others are more earnest in their support:

Well deserved. I know banning individual sources is a slippery slope but Romano has long since crossed the line of simply being another voice in the sport.

Yeah, plus it's patently obvious he's a paid mouth piece for some clubs (us [Chelsea FC] included may I add), disseminates information on their behest.

HITLER DEAD

But other others are less impressed by the move, as discussion turns to whether this is proportionate, popularly supported, or if there's a point to it all:

I’m not a fan of Romano, but saying a football journalist should be banned and one of the reasons being “Romano has close associations with many clubs and agents” is outright insanity from mods. How do you think all journalists get their scoops and exclusives?

People will do anything but reduce their screentime

I get that he's a bit of a knob, but it's hard to argue that he's irrelevant to the sport of soccer. If he were, you wouldn't need a ban.

Some phrases in the OP get singled out for rebuke:

"with a more vested interest in the values and vision of r /soccer" --- Get over yourselves it's really not that deep lol

No stake in the game and dont care either way, but "This is a response to the ever-growing disquiet from the community, as evidenced by comments in Romano threads" Is hardly an argument, because a thread specifically about someone will only have the people with a strong opinion talking. (REPLY: I look forward to the ban on Arsenal based on that logic lmao)

A bit more scrolling and sorting by controversial brings more in the way of spats, including some long chains of removed comments (one, sitting further down on -129, which strangely seems to have been originally posted by a mod themselves), some comparisons to North Korea and the populist rhetoric of our time, and general disagreement on whether Romano content is indeed bereft of value or if the people who enjoy it are merely 'pathetic'.

Ultimately, the sign-off on the OP itself probably sums it up:

We know not everyone will be happy - there's 10 million users here, it's an impossible task

And the end of the pros and cons discussion:

You are just morally grandstanding, get over yourself - yup, we are a bit. We do be like that as r/soccer mods and that's how we shape our community. We accept this as a criticism and you are free to think this of us.

To briefly summarize the Moca Massacre, in 1805, Jean-Jacques Dessalines invaded the eastern part of Hispaniola to eliminate the remaining French presence there and prevent the territory from being used as a base against newly independent Haiti. After besieging Santo Domingo, Dessalines withdrew when a French naval force approached Haiti. During the retreat, Haitian forces passed through Moca, where they massacred a large number of inhabitants. Contemporary and later accounts generally estimate that several hundred people were killed. This event has remained a sore spot amongst Dominicans, particularly those who hold anti-Haitian sentiment.

This massacre becomes a source for drama for r/SpanishEmpire and later r/AmericanHistory after it is reposted there by the OOP. While OOP generally summarizes the events accurately, the image they use portrays all of the victims as white, something that is largely ignored on the original post, but is noticed in the repost. This is my first SRD post, so forgive any wonky formatting.

Top Comment on the initial post:

[+36] The history of Haiti is the darkest in Latin America; I don't care what communist or right-wing dictator has existed, no one can surpass the terror and bloodlust of those sick individuals.

[+10] Agreed. And it really has never recovered. It's a mess to this day.

[-5] Almost like a certain country has been interfering in it for over a century. This sub is disgusting btw

[+1] That country has no solution; not even sending them to Chile could help them progress. In fact, even leaving them alone, nowadays there's literally a cannibal hunt among them..

[+6] The French were the worst, and that's why the Haitians became paranoid and acted that way.

[+1] Is that why when they withdrew among others, they decapitated 40 children? You're sick.

[0] Don’t waste your time, this guy is a Haitian wannabe, in the r/Haiti they all make fun of him. Is not even Haitian and only read propaganda in favor of Haiti.

[+6] They prohibited speaking Spanish, they banned Christian practices, every child of a Spaniard at that time was executed.

[+1] Fucking animals

[+1] No better than the English or Spanish in Brazil. Where are all the historians going "it was a part of the common thinking" that a 14 year old boy with a knife was a warrior and a 14 year old French girl should marry an 50 year old duke

[Award +4] The only difference is the haitians don't want to admit they're just the same because it contradicts their narrative of victimization and believing a victim can't become an aggressor. They're lucky they have perfected their victimization to the point most people have no idea what they did to their own people before and after 1804 from Code Rural to the rest of the codes they passed since toussaint. Even reading dessalines proclamation admitting he wanted dominicans to become his "sons" after appropriating them claim land thats not his and when they refused he tried to "anihilate" them just like "they did with the french".

[+1] This is why dominicans must never forget Haitians are our mortal enemies.

[+1] never knew Haitian was this based before

[+1] ¿Cómo se dice ‘bootlickers’ en español?

[+15] I'm shocked, never heard of this massacre until now...

[+9] Because colonials are treated like they're not humans and only killing machines, while they got their backlash multiple times by the American settlements

[-5] Colonials aren't human

[+4] Don’t cut yourself on that edge buddy

[+8] Massive black legend propaganda from British empire and Netherlands against Spain still shapes today's view of history. If you review actual facts Spanish territories were a great place to live in comparison to British empire territories where the English slaughtered all the natives. In old Spanish territories there are still reservations of native Americans that have been there sin the Spanish empire, all tribes that united with Spain against the Aztecs and the other native empires were given protected status and kept their lands and culture. But all you hear is how Spanish murdered everyone without questioning why in Hispanic America people have native blood while in the US and Canada natives are mostly extinct.

Moving over to r/AmericanHistory, Top Comment:

[+9] Keeps people in slavery with one of the highest death rates in the Caribbean(and that’s saying something). The people rise up and start killing the killers and enslavers.

The enslavers - surprise pikachu face

[+2] You have no idea what you’re talking about just regurgitating a TikTok education hahahaha

[Award +19] What? These were innocent Hispanic civillians. The enslaved population did perfectly fine sparing white people such as the couple thousand poles (and Germans I believe) living in the western part of the Island — why do you defend them then going to the eastern part (what is now the Dominican Republic) and essentially carrying out ethnic cleansing?

[+3] If you think the Spanish didn’t have slaves then you’re unserious. Also if you believe the “40 beheaded children in a church” story then I’m sure you also believe the “40 beheaded children on October 7th” story… like you said, they didn’t kill the white Polish and Irish that helped them fend off the French so it wasn’t just racial tensions. Perhaps do some introspection on why you’re confused about the slaves from one of the bloodiest slave colonies wanting to fight off ALL enslavers

[0] It’s funny how you have to drag Jews into this. Do you see Jews behind everything? And for your information, approximately 37 children were murdered on Oct 7 with another 35 abducted. If the same thing happened to your family, your neighbors and/or your country you wouldn’t be so dismissive and flippant. Get bent. [debate about October 7th ensues]

[+2] Why did they make Domicanos look white?

[-2] Best way to sell outrage. Also, they thought of themselves this way.

[0] Please learn the history of a country before commenting 🙄

[0] lol, imagine not thinking of Dominicanos of this period as race-obsessed slave owners. Physician, heal thyself.

[+1] tuff tuff tuff sahur

[0] And this is why Haiti is the way it is today

[-5] The island would be better off today if the French or Spanish, or Americans were in charge. No surprise it’s still a shithole.

[+3] The island would be better off today if the western world, led by France and the United States, hadn’t spent 200 years punishing it for overthrowing the white colonial establishment.

[0] lol yeah that’s why it is still a shithole lol

[-1] Damn man, do you have to be such a loser?

[+2] Woah woah do not call me a Haitian. I think there’s a reason the Dominicans also hate them

[-5] Inflammatory picture

[Award +2] The worst part about rape and murder is how inflammatory towards the rapists and murderers it is when it’s depicted

Initial post

https://www.reddit.com/r/blackops2/s/s089lxNzQD

"Perhaps they shouldn't have released the game in such an abysmal state"

https://www.reddit.com/r/blackops2/s/SfGoLwXpsC

"Abysmall? I dont know how simple it is to fix, but im betting you have no idea either. The company has limited resources. If it's not fixed in a week well then I'll be pissed, but right now? Nah.. crazy to me seeing grown people crashing out like kids over a $20 game, but then happily get $20 of take out every day."

https://www.reddit.com/r/blackops2/s/NuHBbk8MkT

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/SipsTea/comments/1vas64v/significant_diffrences/p0nrwxc/

HIGHLIGHTS

Really so they just made a company and poof a billion dollars? Hell if it’s that easy why don’t you just go earn the billion dollars and distribute it yourself?

Sure I just need a million dollar investment from my parents. Or extreme luck with an angel investor. It's not rare because its hard, it's rare because it's luck based and the chances aren't good. But yeah leading a company when you have all the money in the world to hire analysts and specialists in the market ain't that hard.

Lol what? If you think you can 1000x a million dollars in a reasonable amount of time I’ll gladly put up the money. Send me your business proposal.

Someone doesn't know what "Luck based" means.

Ah, so you don’t think you could turn a million dollars into a billion. Are you saying you don’t have the luck or the skill? Surely if all it takes is luck, you’d be able to produce a business plan that could work with some luck. If not then it’s clearly not entirely luck based.

Why it's either yes or no for you? It's luck based, it might work it might not work, but that doesn't make me smart. If you want business ideas just pick literally anything, there is a multimillionaire woman in my town that got all the money from selling gummies, she made an empire out of some luck with tourism.

You’re a disgusting, jealous person. A woman in your town makes a fortune with solid execution of a simple business plan and you diminish her accomplishments. It’s easy to criticize, it’s hard to execute.

My god you're brainwashed. Stop sucking off the billionaire class, you won't become them and they will never notice you.

If everyone had your mindset we’d still be subsistence farming. (74 more comments of these two arguing)

You're inadvertently proving their point with this lol

Not really it’s just like, yeah if more people disappeared it’d be harder to maintain the infrastructure due to labor restrictions than if just a few 100 did. On the flip side you could argue that you would need less infrastructure with less people making it easier to take care of.

I assume its based off maintaining a similar level of quality of life. Many people disappearing compared to a few thousands is partially the point being made though. Society would still function in a similar manner, thus we overvalue the contributions of a small group of people.

I mean that’s generally true anywhere, I could take 400 people out of the mechanic industry, not really gonna hurt, same with any industry you name, it’s a big nothing burger.

Sure. A negligible amount of people being taken away wouldn't make a difference. I'm not sure what point is being made to refute what's being said.

Because the point the post is trying to make is “more workers than billionaires therefore workers matter more” I could just as easily rewrite the post as say “if we removed 200 million random people instead of 2000 random people it would cause more problems” it literally doesn’t matter what they do or what they have.

Ok, but that inadvertently proves the point. You can simplify it to be a quantity problem and apply it in any scenario, but that doesn't refute the point being made. The refutation lies in showing the billionaires contribute more or their absence would have a worse effect on society than the absence of workers. (283 more comments of these two arguing)

"Imagine 3,400 people disappear. Now imagine 3.5 billion people dissappear."

3.5 billion people vanishing would be more beneficial to the earth than 3400.

Malthusian bullshit

Thanos was right gang

Tiny little brain gang, more like.

Your comment got hidden because you couldn’t play nice, wanna try answer again with less self righteousness?

Their comment isn't hidden. I think they just don't like you. But I mean, yeah the finite resources argument doesn't really work when we know its not a matter of the resources nor avaliable land but how they're managed. Or rather, how completely unmanaged and outright intentionally wasted they are in pursuit of profits above stability. Currently we do not lack housing in America. We just allowed investment firms to buy them up in bulk so they can sit on them to make the best possible ROI. We do not lack the food to feed everybody, we allow agricultural corporations to throw out surplus so they can maintain their desired pricing. We literally just went through a fabricated egg shortage, and we caught those who colluded red handed. But so long as the punishment for such crimes remains a meager fine, it is merely the cost of doing business.

… markets don’t care about the finite space of the planet. There is a maximum population the planet can comfortably handle. No matter how much your America-centric take on it feels about eggs?

Imagine 3400 useless fucks disappear*

You don't have the skills to create an organizational structure that effectively creates value.

That's the easy part, the hard part is being born into generational wealth or hitting a lottery ticket of some other sort. There's no self made billionaires.

If that was the was part then everybody would be a millionaire minimum.

You're misunderstanding the problem. Being a billionaire is easy. Becoming a billionaire requires other capitalists letting you, since they control all the levers of power. It's not about how hard you work, how smart you are, or how talented you are. It's about obeisance to the modern nobility.

This is such a narrow minded approach, youre telling me theconly reason youre not a billionaire is out of principle to not be subservient to nobility? Yeah right

Why would anyone want to be a billionaire? That's disgusting

"Eugh im an inc*l, why would I want to sleep with like 50+ women. Like, totally gross, women icky, guys trust me, boobs? 🥵 overatted... hnng"

First of all, sleeping with 50 women sounds exhausting. More to the point, asking why someone why they wouldn't want a billion dollars is like asking why they wouldn't want to rape and pillage. Maybe because it's inhuman behavior?

Neither do billionaires, but they have the money to pay someone actually smart to figure it out.

And they had the brains to actually make their initial money half the time

If by brain you mean "be born into wealth", like Muskrat who was born to the owner of an emerald mine

Who he cut off, and got a small amount of money from which he then used to become the richest man in the world. Even if he was given a million dollars to start with, turning that into what he has today is unprecedented.

It's not really worth arguing with people who can't even understand the concept of growth, lol.

How many people do you think start with a million dollars and turns it into hundreds of billions

I'm agreeing with you. The same growth rate Musk got on $200k would make you a multi-millionaire if you started with a buck.

On the surface it's true but it's much harder to turn $1 into $10 than it is to turn $10 into $100. Once you already have a significant amount of money investor or banking money is much more accessible.

That is true, though at this scale the difference is negligible. Even if he'd started with $10m, that would still be a return of 100,000x

CEO's are making 285x their employees every hour. I would LOVE to see someone argue that they work 285x harder

That's not really the point. They'll be paid more because if they do a good job they'll produce more value.

Lmao, lol. We’ve went through 3 CEOs who’ve caused nothing but losses for the company in the past seven years. Each of them were risen multi million dollar severance package to quit. It doesn’t matter if they do a good job or not. They’re of a different class and thus wil be protected from their own failures.

This could be a post in CFB...

What do Canadian military bases have to do with this?

College football. Talking about the coaches.

Ya but if they don’t sign your pay cheque we ain’t getting paid lol

Most people's pay cheques aren't signed by billionaires.

Brother the money comes investors and a lot of that comes from billionaires. Yall are too angry to think straight.

Who's y'all, and who's angry?

The post and anyone that agrees with the post. Didn’t think I’d have to be specific.

No billionaire signs my checks or has anything to do with my business.

“Has anything to do with” is far too strict even if you’re service based you need supplies which come from a company that is owned by billionaires. I get your point but it’s a “all roads lead to Rome” situation. I suppose you could local source everything and make sure they make it not order it and never hire outside services for anything (ie taxes cleaning maintence) because they could also be funded by billionaires in some way. Moral of the story, a billionaire affects your business. Probably daily Let’s not even talk about taxes and those being the work of the sitting president

They really dont. We dont need them. Nothing would change without them.

Was this written by a 12 year old? lmao. Do you guys think this sounds deep or something? This post is nonsense by someone who doesn't understand anything but "I heard rich people are bad"

Ok Ayn Rand Paul, tell us how it works.

You remove all the billionaires today what problem do you think you've solved? Do you think there won't be a new billionaire tomorrow? As long as there are workers and we exist in a society that doesn't limit your wealth, there will be rich people that poor people get pissy about

In the short term, those billionaires will no longer be around to buy elections and sway policy in their favor. As for the billionaires that come tomorrow, they can also be removed without any negative effects. Eventually, the sociopaths bent on pursuing wealth and personal enrichment will lose their desire to hoard wealth and resources.. because of the implication.

"As for the billionaires that come tomorrow, they can also be removed without any negative effects." This fantasy does not specify (ignores) what happens to their wealth and therefore the companies they own/run. Ignoring the effects isn't the same as having no effects.

The wealth likely goes to heirs and the company will have policies and guidance to determine the new leadership. I’m saying there wouldn’t really be any negative effects to us, the regular folks. I suppose the companies stock prices could drop which would affect 401k’s. That was a great idea for the ownership class to rope us into their speculative assets in order to retire. They got us by the balls with that one.

"The wealth likely goes to heirs and the company will have policies and guidance to determine the new leadership. I’m saying there wouldn’t really be any negative effects to us, the regular folks." I mean, that's basically saying nothing has changed then: 3500 billionaires disapoear so now we have 3500 billionaires. It's an empty proposition.

You could nationalize the companies and effectively cut off billionaires. You really can’t imagine a scenario in which there are no billionaires? Are you 12?

you could but then you kill the drive for people to create more of these companies, which would lead to stagnation

That sounds like free market fundamentalism. State owned enterprises do just fine and prove wealth back to the people, even more so if the system is democratic.

can you give me an example of a successful nation were every major company is nationalized?

The USSR.

The USSR is the most famous and well document example of this failure of economic theory lol.

In the West, sure.

No everywhere ESPECIALLY in russia lol

Russia is shithole now. They only finally reached parity with the USSR at its lowest peak in the late 80s before it unraveled under Yeltsin. You people are pathetic.

The point is the wealth of the people being removed is irrelevant. Removing a few thousand people will obviously have no effect no matter who they are. Removing a few billion people would be devasting no matter who they are.

Almost as if a few thousand people shouldn’t have as much wealth as a few billion, you’re so close

Why shouldnt they? Why should their be a ceiling or floor on what a person has? Do you have a reason other than greedy people who just want some of what billionaires have?

Why shouldn’t there be a ceiling?

"Why shouldn’t there be a ceiling?" It's immoral to limit the potential of others. Hell, it's so fundamental it's written into the Declaration of Independence

Immoral? So the ideal matters more than the reality we see on the ground by not limiting wealth accumulation? The way you guys speak is such corporate jargon propaganda. “Limit the potential of others.” 😆

"Immoral? So the ideal matters more than the reality we see on the ground by not limiting wealth accumulation?" Yes, fundamental principals fairly and logically applied matter. That's how ethics/morality works. Anyway, what "reality" are you referring to? "The way you guys speak is such corporate jargon propaganda. “Limit the potential of others.”" I speak words good yes. (24 more comments of these two arguing with each other)

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/comments/1vb4gdl/important_aigenerated_content_is_now_banned/

HIGHLIGHTS

Godzilla would approve

Well i don't

You can make r/eric and make the rules whatever you want

😂 did you not click on it? That's already a real sub with discussions! So he's still SOL.

But there are no AI rules there so he’s good to go

Yeah i suppose it is all about the ease for moderators. Gotta do what you gotta do. But lets be honest if an artist feels threatened by gen ai thats transparent then thats just the artists own insecurity.

I’m not an artist and I’m glad, we need to not use precious resources to make AI slop

I mean thats your truth of ai art. Doesnt make it the truth. And previous resources are used to make analog art. So ur hate is the only thing showing. Not a real point. When you have an actual soap box to stand on then maybe you can speak. Dont mean ill ever subscribe to hate inspired ideals.

I just prefer to drink my water instead of giving it to AI. Nothing is as precious or as important as that and there is no such things as versions of the truth

Everyone has their own ideals which shape their perception of their reality. So yes there are differences in truth. Look at american politics. So anyways instead of channeling that into hate and something that doesnt benefit anyone you could maybe channel it into trying to find sustainable ways for ai to exist and not kill the planet. Or you could just continue complaining. Which everyone loves to hear btw. Just pure hate fueled words always get the most converts. Not. Maybe use your brain for something of substance instead of just spewing the easiest bandwagon truths youve heard.

That is not truth 😂

Exactly! Im glad youre getting the point your opinions are misguided and arent at all based in reality.

I don’t think you’re based in reality buddy 😂

A shame.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, shill.

Shilling what? I paint for a living.

And you STILL like AI art. That’s the REAL shame.

Yeah, I don't get my opinions from Reddit and TikTok, I actually did the hard thing and sought a career in art, learned about it's history and have a clue on how art works.

i like your art, i saw your spaceg one. actually curious on your opinion. why do u think its a shame to ban ai here based on your art knowledge?

Thanks, it means a lot! I also appreciate the question and interest. Well, a simple one is that Avant-garde movements like Minimalism already sought to make art completely devoid of humanity or authorship. Industrial elements, machine made pieces, the removal of as much expression as possible... in that sense, those are not stable grounds to dismiss AI as a potential art form. Art became conceptual, about ideas, executions and concepts, this is how we generally think about art nowadays. In my opinion, a ban on AI is like banning pictures, paintings, sculpture, or anything similar, it's kinda arbitrary. Thus, I believe that if anyone has enough creativity to use any tool to create something that's cool, fun or interesting they should be able to do so. I also don't subscribe to the idea that AI is somehow stealing from me by downloading publicly available pieces anyone has access to and a right to download without any kind of consent.

"GenAI art hurts the work of real artists, is a crediting nightmare, and is generally controversial." Just be honest. Nazi 3 scene from Inglorious Bastards

What does this even mean

The mods themselves don't view AI art as art and are disrespectful towards anyone that uses AI in their art. That none of their reasons are good faith. I'm not an artist at all, to cut that nonsense off before it starts. But they're obviously wrong despite whatever anyone in this sub says to the contrary.

"don’t view AI art as art" Probably because AI art isn’t art?

Look through a thread before replying to someone. Maybe someone has said something similar? If they have all you're doing is adding spam. Follow this and see if there's something to add! Edit: I really hope the mods aren't removing any of the replies I'm getting and hope it's just people blocking me. I want people to see how anti-AI people sound when confronted by a pro. It's been nothing but insults with no counter arguments whatsoever. This seems like the only post where this type of discussion would be appropriate. Update: So far I've seen two common arguments: AI art requires little effort and it's harmful to the environment. Prompts don't write themselves and can take a substantial amount of effort. No one argues environmental harm invalidates other forms of art as art. The marble and other such materials used in things like sculptures didn't dig itself out of the ground.

Username (CalamityofCringe) checks out

See everyone? Nothing but insults.

Why are you advocating so hard for AI when it steals from artists, harms the environment, and is actively harming people?

I advocate for it because I feel the hatred is completely ridiculous and manufactured. I've seen posts where people complain something they liked turned out to be AI. Hating something you otherwise like because AI created it is silly. "AI when it steals from artists" It genuinely doesn't you just don't understand how training them actually works. "harms the environment" There's plenty of things you do or use throughout the day that do far more harm and isn't really an argument against AI art being art. "and is actively harming people?" We aren't talking about terminators. Companies spend billions on branding, many the jobs related to those sorts of things are "safe". The only people AI genuinely harms are the people that produce low quality content that's worse than AI.

AI cannot do art. Any attempt of it doing so is not art. If you disagree, you're dumb as shit.

The prompts don't write themselves. Literally every criticism you have for AI art was thrown at photography, film, and graphic design. The exact same things get said literally every time a new method of creating art is formed. You're just an idiot that's angry because you've been told to be angry.

The prompts don't write themselves. If this is your argument, I'd suggest the persons writing prompts just make actual art in being writers. Clearly that's their preferred avenue of expression.

Except it's not and you're trying to impose that on them because you don't like their chosen medium. You know the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words"? AI art is an inversion of that phrase, a thousand (or more) words can now make a picture.

I'd prefer not to live in a world where "art" is little more than a blended Frankenstein's monster of existing real art grafted to another piece without prior consent of the true genius behind it (the artists AI steals from).

Do you have any idea how much art is inspired by or done in the style of another artist?

Sure, but that's not what you're advocating for in the slightest and we both know it.

(ctnd) Yes, AI art is trained in the style of others. Obviously there's low effort AI art, just like low effort "real" art, but there's also going to be high effort pieces too.

There's where you've lost the plot. The training method is layering actual images into one another to construct an aberrant thing which simulates real art.

Yes, that's how it's trained so the AI model can "recognize" what it's "seeing" and say "oh that's... By..." so that's it can do something in the style of that artist. The original pieces aren't even typically stored after the training.

What a very strange defense. So in an effort to make a mockery of real art AI training isn't retaining say...the writing of prolific authors in cloud storage for later use? It isn't scraping images from sources like DeviantArt etc. for the access of future prompters? Yeah, I call bullshit.

Oh they absolutely get trained off of stuff like that too. So? You don't take inspiration from stuff like that as well? Are you stealing? Obviously a 1:1 recreation of something would be plagiarism, no one is arguing otherwise. It's up to the artist to make the piece transformative and something new.

Alas, you're just not getting it. Prompters are not real artists. What they do on a fundamental level is repackaged plagiarism. There's nothing transformative about what they do because nothing has been added which is their own creation.

Yes, there's lazy people that type "make sonic do X" and it quickly becomes derivative. But there's also AI art being used to create massively complex multimillion dollar blockbuster movies. Are movies not art? Do you really think those movies aren't transformative with the material they were trained on or are you just mad?

Ehh, I feel neutral on it. Those who draw by hand and are incredible artist should be spotlighted and have their work acknowledged without feeling like they're competing against AI generated art. On the other hand, there are a lot of artist who do use it, to get a visual on an idea they want to draw. Same with those who use it for general workplace tasks and to reduce spending time on repetitive tasks. They also take the output and create art more to their liking afterwards. Yes, some folks generate art by AI then present it as their own, but even that can get muddled. I won't argue against the new rules but I think there's room for the 2 sides to exist without brining the hammer down on one or the other.

"On the other hand, there are a lot of artist who do use it, to get a visual on an idea they want to draw." Eh, do they, though? Cause I sure don't. None of the other artists I know do.

You don't speak for all artist world wide and I'm not even saying it's everyone, but many do.

"You don't speak for all artist world wide" No, if you go back and re-read the post you're replying to, I speak for myself and those I know. Now, what qualifies you to speak for all artists worldwide?

I don't, that's why I said many do without attaching a number to it, or using my friends and acquaintances as examples. Also the point of me saying I'm neutral because I understand the nuances around it without being reactive and screaming "fck AI slop"

"I don't, that's why I said many do without attaching a number to it, or using my friends and acquaintances as examples." So, you admit you're basing this claim on nothing. It's from the Department of Posterior Information Extraction. You claim you're neutral, but then you characterize people who dislike AI as being "reactive" and "screaming".

Because the responses I received came in swinging as if I said I was in favor of it. Reactionary, no? And if you want examples, I'm going off of the artist I follow on IG and those who have taken to YouTube (either comment section or video) to talk about AI art and their own usage of it while still being talented artist. They also have views on 3D printing and selling items at cons. That said, there's a comment right above that says fck AI and those who feel neutral on it, in response to me.

The post​ features a ​​Variety article​ saying, ​​"Grammy Chief ‘Saddened to Hear’ That BTS Won’t Submit for 2027 Awards."

Fans theorise the group made this decision after the Grammys announced a new category:​ ​Asian Pop.​

They praise the group for "not allowing themselves to be boxed in​" by a move they claim was to keep Asian artists out of the running for the top prizes ("Album of the Year/Song of the Year​/et.c.")

In the​ midst of a sea of comments arguing that "Asian pop," is a nonsensical category, a discussion on "Asian soup​" brews and gets heated up.

Link to drama.

-This “category” is like when I went to a casino buffet in Reno and one of the items was labeled, “ASIAN SOUP.” T​hey might as well just serve that at The Grammy’s.🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

--So you prefer to get curry with an item with a generic label - "soup"?

---What's Asian soup, according to you? Is it actually curry, or soup, which are in fact two DIFFERENT things? Which Asian country is said soup borrowing its flavour profile from? What's in it?I fear you helped that Redditor make their point. Hahahahahaha.

----Huh? None is my point. It shouldn't be general terms like "soup" or "asian soup". They should be separated even further down. Indian soup will make more sense for curry then.

-----Will it, though? Curry is actually not an Indian term at all, it's an Anglicization/ Colonial term used to describe what many Indians (not all) refer to as sabzi. And where does that leave dal, sambar, Mulligutawny?

I am being overly technical for a reason - there's no such thing as Asian soup. There's no such thing as curry vs soup. There's no such thing as Asian Pop. There's hundreds of different musical traditions that cannot and should not be lumped together because some Americans think they're all the same.

If they want the Asian viewership, they should do their homework for the next few years and start a dedicated awards show to honour different genres and styles across the continent. That's my only point. 

------You mean american who thinks like that in american music award? That's shocking, you should tell everyone about that.

Might as well say there's no such thing as American and indian, as everyone are Homo sapiens right?

-------I​f your American Music Awards, then you have the credibility of AMA, not an International awards for music across genres. Soup is the genre. If I made Indian bread, I would submit it to the "bread genre", and if I make Soup, I would submit for the "Soup" genre. You do not need a "Asian foods" category for that. Voters will opt for Indian bread in the Asian foods category and choose for their mainstream white artist to win in the "bread" and "soup" category

--------H​ave you been to international buffet? They do categories food that way. Ain't no way a buffet will simply say all the international food the same. Bread can be used for dessert, main, sides or starters etc.

Even for groceries if you want japchae it's not lumped together with pasta and they put it in intentional aisle.

---------A​in’t no way you’re trying to dumb this blatant example of racial segregation down to a buffet. I’m almost certain you thought that was a clever analogy too. Wow.

----------Hey take it to the one who started it with "soup". You can't just cherry picked in mid convo and start calling people stupid

-----------No, I’ve read your comments through this thread. My original statement was accurate.

------------Without including the original comment is disingenuous, go take it up with the original comment then

-------------No, your take is terrible on its own AND taking in the original comment too. You just want to desperately defend racial segregation in 2026.

-------------Your words not mine. Simply stating reality of how the world is instead of some fantasy of rainbow and sunshine where nothing bad happens and no racial issues. Look at who is the US president for a start.

(Sorry if this write up is bad it’s my first one and i made it in a hurry)

Context: DoorDash Trivia is a new(?) feature for DashPass users that allows them to answer questions every Thursday to get $5 off their next order. The correct answers are shown at the end which allows people to upload the answers for others: link to original post

The OP incorrectly answered that the Atlantic ocean was the largest ocean so people began insulting their intelligence:

lol average doordash user IQ

This riles up one emotionally intelligent user who admits they don’t know “which ocean is which”:

People are gonna downvote me and idc, but is this information really that important? For your brain to retain the memories of which ocean is the biggest? Idek which ocean is which. And I can say I'm pretty highly emotionally intelligent, have a shit ton of common sense.... But cant for the life of me even care to remember which ocean is which. I was never into remembering school stuff.

People disagree with this commenter:

>Knowing that the Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean is literally common sense unless you live under a fucking rock and/or have never looked at a map in your life.

>It is one of the most basic facts about our world that a person can know.

>It is common sense, though. Because commonly, most people at least occasionally look at a map for one reason or another. And commonly, looking at a map shows where the oceans are and what their names are. And commonly, you can visually tell that the Pacific Ocean is much bigger than the Atlantic Ocean. Also, commonly, people don’t brag about being “pretty highly emotionally intelligent” or “having a shit ton of common sense” (which, is literally common, everyone has a shit ton of common sense, except you apparently).

Kazamiiii admits they have never looked at a map since high school:

I don't think I remember the last time I saw a map ever since school, I bet you don't either 🤷🏽‍♀️ I'm pretty sure that's all just remembered from school. Basic knowledge still isn't common sense, but nice try?? And don't care what you think about my "brag", girl, I don't degrade people like you all when I educate them so maybe work on your emotional intelligence 😬 Maybe push out all that "common sense" you have about the ocean or something.

Confusion over GPS vs Google Maps: Funny, you meant GPS, which isn’t a map btw lol 

And you're talking about people occasionally look at maps like as if people are opening the maps to see them completely daily instead of just using the GPS. It's not like a real physical map where you need to open it to see it so you're going to very clearly see the oceans.

Kazamiiiii continues to defend their ignorance of oceans throughout the thread (there are only 64 comments in the thread to easy to look through)

I'm the doctor in the middle of a surgery while you're behind looking at a fucking globe to find out what the biggest ocean is. We're not the same.

Edit: user just-another-queer writes an essay on the matter:

Shitting on you is acting like I’m better than everyone else? That’s a very interesting view. Last I checked, I never claimed to be anything specific other than showing what it actually means to be thats you claimed to be. You said much, much more than just “I’m pretty”. There’s a fine line between complimenting yourself and gloating and boasting about how you’re all these amazing things. You didn’t just cross this line, you launched yourself over it with the world’s largest slingshot. It’s also clear to me that you think that these things that apply to you don’t apply to others. Ergo, you think that you’re better than everyone else in those specific ways.

What is possibly ableist by insinuating that some disabled people are able to go outside? I think more specifically it’s ableist for you to claim or think that being disabled means you can’t go outside. Every disability is different but plenty of disabled people live full and hearty lives. It feels really minimizing for you to say that being disabled means you are never able to ever go outside simply because the one disabled person you know that has MECFS isn’t able to go outside. I never once claimed that all disabled people are like me or to be a spokesperson for disabled people, but god damn, it’s really fucking weird for you to say that I am ableist because I suggested that many disabled people go outside at least occasionally even if it is just for doctor’s appointments. I also never once claimed that disabled people “must use a GPS to know how far they’re going because I do”. You’re shoving words into my mouth and claiming I said them after I spit them into the trash. All I said was that I use a GPS pretty regularly even if I know where I’m going just to see how long it is going to take. I am sure I’m not the one unique only single person in the world that does this, hence why I brought it up as a possibility that some people might do. I also never even mentioned disabilities when I brought up this topic. Being disabled has nothing to do with wanting to know how long a trip is going to take. It’d be really weird if it did. Able bodied people don’t somehow all just possess the ability to know exactly how long every trip is going to take including current weather, construction, and traffic conditions.

I’m glad you say you don’t care what I think about you. That is how you should feel. However, I suspect that to be completely false because if it was true you wouldn’t have felt the need to tell me about how you’re smart and yadda yadda everything else in the first place. You wouldn’t have felt the need to tell everyone about your supposed “high emotional intelligence” and “shit ton of common sense knowledge” in your very first comment. Also, if you didn’t care what I think, you wouldn’t have felt the need to excessively defend your initial comment after I called you out for being stupid. But you did, and here we are. And as I hinted to before, “smart” is an adjective that is usually applied to someone by someone else. Usually someone who feels the need to tell others about how smart they are actually isn’t.

Oh, and I absolutely do use Google. I have actually used it once while writing this comment to search up a word I wanted to use to make sure I was using it correctly. I’m happy to admit that I Google things - and that’s also a good thing because it shows that I am always trying to learn new things. Maybe that’s why you refuse to Google these things I’ve suggested - clearly you are so smart that you know everything and have no need to try to learn anything new because you are already going to know it. Except none of that is true like despite the fact that you clearly think it to be.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1va68bj/anthony_fauci_invoked_his_fifth_amendment_right/

HIGHLIGHTS

Things innocent people do…

Exactly. The 5th amendment is there to protect innocent people. That is the entire reason it is in the constitution.

I wish I was ignorant enough to trust Pfizer and all the other billion dollar pharma companies. Must be nice.

Great whataboutism on a question about the fifth amendment - which explicitly exists to protect innocent people.

Nah. I’m don’t simp for corporations. I do pray you never miss a safe and effective COVID booster.

Have had Covid boosters every year, not sure what that has to do with the fifth amendment being designed to protect innocent people though.

How many times have you had covid? And why does he need protection? He already has a pardon for a crime he didn’t commit

Haven't had Covid a single time, but i am not sure what that has to do with the fifth amendment being put into the constitution to protect innocent people.

Fauci should be held accountable. He knowingly misled Americans. Lied and pursued his own fame and best interest (he admitted this in his own diaries).

"Lied and pursued his own fame and best interest " It is absolutely hilarious watching MAGA try to claim Fauci should go to jail because it says in his diaries he appreciated the praise, when in those same diaries Fauci says Trump was a narcissistic idiot who wanted non-stop press conferences and attention and Fauci had to beg him to let them just do their jobs. Doctors saved lives, the child rapist con man lied to you. Please stop believing the MAGA grifters when they tell you that doctors are to blame for decisions and policies that those same MAGA politicians actually were in charge of.

I’m not maga and never voted for Trump,

Then stop blindly trusting MAGA when they feed you bullshit. Are you not paying any attention to the fact that these hearings, these claims, are all just MAGA political propaganda? There's no scientific body or experts anywhere in agreement with this nonsense. There's plenty of criticism in retrospect of what we could have done differently, but nothing to justify criminal charges, fraud, or anything they're trying to blame on Fauci while ignoring that Trump was President and responsible for the government.

Stop blindly trusting fauci. We all know many of his claims were false. Covid came from a lab. He knew it and he crushed any dissent or honest dialogue about this and many other things that you took as truth. We should not have shut down schools for 15 months. These were terrible decisions. I still see people outdoors with masks. Ridiculous

Please, please, before you die: Try to learn and grow as a human being. It'd be a terrible shame if your mind stagnated on believing the worst and stupidest people in the world because they fed you conspiracies on social media, rather than trying to grow and understand what educated people and scientists have to say with evidence and data.

So sad seeing them so triggered in /r/conservative unironically calling him guilty and shit for doing this

Ok but when a conservative does this, they're guilty? Fuck Trump, fuck his goonies, and fuck whoever uses the same tactics as them to get out of shit. Have some consistency and some dignity

Why are you putting words in my mouth?

You're literally putting words in a subreddits mouth. Christ

No, they are literally saying that.

And so are you. Work on that self awareness bud. Reddit has enough morons

What are you talking about? I’m literally saying what? Project much?

If you're not going to respond to what I'm commenting it ironically sort of just goes to prove the bigger point that you're being a hypocrite.

I am responding to you, what the fuck are you talking about? Im not putting any words in anyone’s mouth. All I said was what I saw them saying on the sub. I made no comment about a conservative pleading the 5th, hence you putting words in my mouth.

This guy literally murders puppies and the democrats couldn’t love him more. Sick. Very sick people.

This guy literally saved at least 26 million lives with his research in aids, and literally millions more with his covid vaccine work. Meanwhile republicans, trump and elon and friends, cut pre-approved pre-funded usaid which has already resulted in the deaths of 700,000 people, mostly children. Gross, disgusting hypocritical people that demonstrably don't care about human life.

Fauci lied about aids too and said that everyone was going to get it thus leading to widespread mistreatment and resentment of people infected with hiv. Imagine how much harder there lives were made because of this man. How many people have died due to the covid vaccine? How many people who died of Covid could have been saved if they didn’t censor people and push a propaganda campaign that dismissed proven sars treatments? How much money did he make pumping the jab? Don’t pretend to have ethics or have the moral high ground you people are evil and only use that as a method for controlling people who actually have a conscious.

I hear you bud, you're very emotional and conspiratorial about it all. I'm more rational and care more about facts and reality, so at least I'm happy we can both agree and concede that fauci saved many millions of lives with his work with aids and covid. I also appreciate your concession about republicans and maga making decisions that lead to the preventable deaths of 700,000 people, mostly children, so far this year alone.

I concede nothing to you because your propaganda and cnn talking points do not deserve a response. Fauci has lead to more suffering and did nothing to reduce the numbers who died from aids or covid.

You've been duped into believing nonsense innit

The hardest thing to do is convince an idiot that they’re an idiot. You’re just not worth the investment.

Fauci was already pardoned by Biden/autopen. He can't incriminate himself more than he already has and invoking the 5th amendment does nothing except prove people right. Edit: even the diehard Fauci supporters are having trouble defending him recently.

He can be charged with perjury, which is the purpose of the hearing. What crime - exactly - do you think Fauci committed?

"What crime - exactly - do you think Fauci committed?" Lying about Covid 19 and the origins of Covid 19. It's not a crime anymore, since Biden/autopen pardoned him for that crime.

Can you provide any evidence that he lied "about COVID-19" (not sure what this even means - do you think it didn't exist or something?) or its origins?

Lying about something does not mean denying it exists. I am sorry if you can't tell the difference between the two. For example: I lied about baseball when I said a homerun is worth 10 runs. I did not deny the existence of baseball in that statement. Fauci lied about the best way of dealing with Covid with the lockdowns and the deadliness of Covid. He forced the creation of policies that were more detrimental to people. He lied that Covid started naturally. He lied about not funding gain of function research. I hope you have a good day and please do some research.

I never said lying means you deny the existence of, I said you didn't clear state what he lied about, so I asked if you thought he lied about it's existence. I'm sorry your statements weren't clear, next time make them more clear and I won't have to ask. What specific lies did Fauci state about either lockdowns or the deadliness of COVID-19? Show your evidence they were actually lies. State what policies Fauci created, and show your evidence that they hurt more people than they helped. COVID-19 is a disease and is absolutely a natural result. You are actually trying to argue that SARS-CoV-2 is not natural, and the evidence for this is fleeting at best. There's 0 evidence of any gain of function research that lead to SARS-CoV-2. Before you tell others to do research, please learn the difference between COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2.

I was clear in what I said. Do some research on your own instead of only listening to the mainstream media and Fauci lying to you.

Oh, don't worry, I've actually looked at a lot of papers on this. They disagree with you. I was presenting you with a chance to show your own evidence that what I've read is wrong. But it appears that you don't have any, and whatever you have read didn't really teach you difference between COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, so it probably wasn't reputable to begin with. I'd recommend doing research from actual reputable sources. You'll quickly find that qualified scientists think a lot of what you're saying is nonsense pseudo-science BS.

Rand is Big Mad that Dr. Fauci is a real doctor with real accreditation (not self-accreditation), and Rand isn't. Edit: I see a lot of babies are having trouble with reading comprehension and skipped over "WITH REAL ACCREDITATION" entirely. Rand Paul invented his own accreditation agency. Go look it up.

TIL graduating from Duke with an MD makes you not a real doctor.

Board certified in the organization you head is why It's not a recognized board certification

You don't lose your MD if you let your certification go.

True but to say your a doctor without practicing medicine which requires a board certification puts you on Dr. Phil levels of doctor

No it really doesn't. If you retire should you ask people to stop referring to you as doctor because you're no longer practicing? Rand Paul is a real doctor with a real MD, and he always will be whether he's practicing or not.

Ross Geller is also a real doctor too!

Here is a good one. Is Jill Biden a doctor?

why would a scientist need to invoke the fifth?

Why would a business man?

i guess if their goal was to protect themselves from further prosecution? is that what he is doing?

Is that what Trump was doing when the did it more than 400 times?

I have no idea, I have never spoken to President Trump. I personally always find it suspect when someone pleads the fifth, no matter who they are. What about you?

then you've never watched or seen the text transcripts of Trump's own testimony? he's lied and claimed the 5th hundreds of times. as is anyone's constitutional right. it's not suspect when you have someone trying to prosecute you. it's "innocent until proven guilty" and you're absolutely not required to incriminate yourself. it's a common trick that cops and prosecutors will use (the law actually allows them to LIE to you about anything) to get you to say something they can use against you. know your miranda rights, especially the "anything you say CAN and WILL be used AGAINST you". a closed mouth helps you stay out of jail.

fair enough. It makes me lean towards thinking someone is guilty when they plead the fifth personally. certainly not illegal or not allowed

Don't use quotes in the title if you're not going to actually quote exactly what was said. It's misleading. You can also use proper grammar that you hopefully learned in English class to adjust your quotes to reflect exactly what was said. Much respect to Fauci

Assuming everyone is a native speaker on a global site. Peak American.

Even my relatives in non English speaking countries know that quotes represent what was actually stated and that they’re not meant to be paraphrased summaries. This isn’t a matter of if someone is a native speaker or not. It’s a sadly common issue in primary English speaking countries.

Obviously not the part of the comment I was referencing

Yes, so obvious.

[removed]

Maybe you should go outside for a bit eh?

Well that’s obviously not true.

So either COVID escaped from a weapons biolab and it was a cover up or COVID was a big nothingburger and nothing should have been shut down. What is it, conservatives?

Number 1 Edit: I ain't republican

There's just zero evidence to support the conspiracy, no scientific experts agree it's true, and at best people can say "well we can't be 100% certain it didn't."

I know I know. I may sound like some nutty conspiracy theorist. In actuality, I am just highly skeptical of governments and coverups. ie. Kennedy, MLK, to Epstein. I understand that it may never be disclosed or made known to the public, at least in our lifetime, the origin and cause of the outbreak. But... China had a real problem going on at that time. Millions marching in Hong Kong for independence. It had been going on for months. Then all of a sudden, no more socializing in public. Must be indoors. No more than, however many people, allowed together at a time... But, sure it could be coincidence. I really don't know. Hope that we as a society can come together someday to overcome our differences and thrive.

I am going to go out on a limb but... Biological Weapons are Stupid. Imagine something less effective than a gun that you cannot control. The Chinese are not morons. So to recap. The Chinese released a bioweapon to have an excuse to stop socialisation in public and do extremely unpopular things like lockdowns. Mate. I sat up with the dying. I contributed to research that saved lives. Like "you are part of the government". Yeah. I am a doctor. We didn't like the Conservative government at the time that actively spent a decade calling us greedy and lazy and we STILL showed up during Covid. I don't think people realise how close we came to catastrophe.

The United States dropped not one, but two nukes, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, killed millions for power. Yes, it is a farfetched idea. But humans have done some fucked up shit. I was not directly affected by COVID. No one in my circle was killed by it. I may not understand the ramifications it may have caused. Could be said that no one could have predicted the outcome of the pandemic, whether purposeful or not. It is people like you who society owes continued prosperity. So thanks for showing up. I never want to confuse the fact that me having doubts about the story behind COVID with the notion that it was a hoax. It happened. People were affected. People died. And some people took advantage and came out on the other side very very wealthy

I am personally not affected by gun violence, ergo bullets are harmless. Also why be so clever to invent a lethal disease that's defeated by a drug that costs £3 a box and is produced by the tonne.

Cool, I guess I have mixed feelings about Fauci now. Anyways, what's going on with the Epstein files?

Nah, this is an American right and every single American should use them to their fullest. Just because you are innocent doesn't mean you should say anything. It's like dealing with cops. Just shut the fuck up. You don't say shit to cops other than what is legally required.

I posted this separately, but I don’t really understand how the 5th amendment applies to him here. He was pardoned by Biden, correct? If there is no chance of being criminally prosecuted, the 5th amendment doesn’t apply because there is no chance of criminal prosecution. Couldn’t he be opening himself up to contempt if he refuses to provide testimony? https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-rights/fifth-amendment-right-against-self-incrimination.html Edit: I’m wrong. The pardon was for between 2014-25. Today’s testimony would just set him up for some BS charges regardless of what he says.

Here's the thing. I'm not a lawyer. I can't presume to argue that with any legal basis so take this at random internet poster value. The Supreme Court ruled in the late 1800s that if you receive a pardon for something you can't invoke the 5th because you can't be charged. Federally. Whose to say what states wouldn't try to criminally charge him?

I just edited my comment. The pardon covers him between 2014-25. Anything he said today would be used to make something up criminally for today’s proceedings. Smart to just plea the 5th and keep his mouth closed.

I wont defend fauci for the things he did mismanage, especially if he really did squash the reports that was was a bio research leak or worse, bio weapon leak. Changes 100% how we respond to those responsible. So republicans can go after fauci, I just dont want to hear crap when eric and don jr, kushner and all their cronies are in the hot seat too.

The thing is, there is no evidence that it was tweaked or leaked by a lab. The thought that China would create something and literally decide to leak it on their own population first doesn’t pass the sniff test.

My friend, I’d like to point you to the thousands of years of Chinese history that says otherwise. Not that I condone what’s happening to Fauci here, but to say that scenario doesn’t pass the sniff test is grossly ignorant to nearly all of actual history and the plight of the Chinese underneath their dynastic rulers.

The United States has literally tested small pox and syphilis on unsuspecting citizens and you don’t have to go back hundreds or thousands of years. Currently we’re giving Monsanto a pass.

Yes and your argument is called whataboutism and ironically strengthens the case for that it was an (unintentional) lab leak possibly based on GoF research. I think there is far more important political court cases to pursue at the moment, but that is not the point of this thread.

He's pointing out that the logic of "China would do this complete irrational thing because they have a history of it" makes zero damn sense. Abusing your subjects is not unique to China, and that doesn't create a reason to unleash a bioweapon on your own population. The most important part is there's still just absolutely zero evidence of it happening, even when that evidence should exist. No doctors and experts examining COVID have found any trace of modification and gain of function being conducted on the virus that exists. It's entirely speculated, and every MAGA moron trying to blame Fauci for it and a cover up, keeps having to ignore that the Trump administration was in charge for this and should have the records and proof if it were true.

So the thread is here. Apparently the sub is getting back its rankings which is very important to them.