erin

No amount of substantiation can justify bigoted worldviews. There is no amount of research that makes standing against equal rights more justified, it’s the opposite. How could you truly understand any opposing worldview if you still remain in opposition to the basic human rights of others? That person is either dumb, misinformed, or malicious.

Please, do not repeat this, because it’s terrible advice that causes people that otherwise could benefit greatly from antidepressants to avoid them completely. Don’t spread misinformation.

It’s true that antidepressants don’t make you happy, but they don’t categorically make you feel nothing. Every person works differently, and a drug that for some regulates emotion and prevents stress in others suppresses emotional extremes completely. For me, Lexapro made me feel nothing. For my mother, it made her feel normal again. I have a combination of drugs that make me feel normal, but for my wife, might make her feel awful. Antidepressants don’t “make you feel nothing.” Some might have that effect, but it’s the job of a psychiatrist to find the right blend for each person. It took a few tries to find mine. If your antidepressants make you feel nothing, you need different antidepressants.

I understand not being able to allow proxies at official events, but your attitude towards printing cards seems to go further than that. I refuse to give WotC my money. My pod has printed every card we play with. We aren’t “counterfeiting,” as none of our cards are even trying to pass as official. We proxy most of our cards with thematic art and designs completely divorced from the official MTG frames and art. Our LGS allows anyone to play with whatever cards they want outside of official events, as long as everyone at the table agrees. Proxies do not only exist as stand-ins for cards you own. The MTG community uses that word to mean any non-official replacement card. Fun should not be gatekept behind artificially inflated prices and draconian business practices.

Well, almost half of women that voted supported him! Guess we’ll just have to abandon the whole lot. Problem solved.

There are leftist and progressive streamers making a lot of money. I would guess that more than half of streamers are not conservatives. Most successful streamers are very supportive of progressive causes and inclusivity.

Regardless of the stuff about Ada’s tone, it seems like your ultimate point was the classic “paradox of tolerance.” I certainly do not see enforcing a safe space as policing identity. Regardless of how respectfully done, deciding when it is okay to respect someone’s identity is against blahaj rules. The consistent moderation with no room for chipping away at the edges is what attracted me to the instance. This person broke blahaj rules. They may have broken it politely (I disagree. Tone does not excuse content), but they broke the rules. Banning them for repeated invalidation of others’ identities is not policing their identity. Your identity cannot be predicated on the invalidation of others. We have every prerogative to be intolerant of intolerance.

Again, regardless of Ada’s tone, the point stands. You keep dancing around that. The rules were broken. This user acted inappropriately for the space they were in. They are not forced to use blahaj communities, and chose to do so while violating the rules. They have no right to our safe space if they cannot ensure it is safe for others. I strongly dislike the “just asking questions” polite veneer of your comments while very intentionally dodging the elephant in the room, which is that the user did wrong for the space they were in, regardless if you agree or not.

This might not really apply to you and your beliefs, but I think it’s a discussion worth having and considering.

There are (were, I guess) trans woman competing. Why would their presence change their right to compete? Additionally, the studies are few and far between due to very low sample size, but there isn’t good evidence proving that trans women have a statistically significant advantage in women’s sports after being on HRT long term (2+ years). Most trans women that previously competed in men’s sports perform similarly compared to women after HRT as they did to men before.

The conservative “evidence” for trans women having an advantage is simply pointing and going “see!!” any time any trans woman places better than any cis woman, even if they’re well within the statistical range of women. If trans people are allowed to compete, are they allowed to ever win? In professional sports, getting lucky in the genetic lottery plays a large role in determining success. Katie Ledecky is incredibly successful due to her practice and training, but wouldn’t be nearly as successful without a body conducive to swimming. What’s the difference between a cis woman being born with broad shoulders and longer arms and a trans women doing the same? No one is transitioning for a competitive advantage. It’s a ridiculous notion. There really isn’t a good argument against trans women in sports that doesn’t rely on invalidating their gender or vibes-based cherry-picked pseudoscience.

I cannot see this as a valid and reasonable response to “we aren’t likely to see an AI powered socialist dystopia in our lifetime, if ever.” AI isn’t even profitable for the capitalists that run it, and needs to constantly feed off real humans to avoid decay. It’s definitely not doomsaying to see AI as a bubble and generally a grift as it’s presented now, when it’s likely to fit in a much more specific niche as a tool in the future. Art will stay uniquely human until AI can create without needing constant human training data.

Andor was awesome. Considering that the fighters in Star Wars do aerodynamic flight and sound is not just added for effect but audible in universe, I’ve always subscribed to the head canon that in the Star Wars universe, space is a gas of some sort. We also see people in space that die of suffocation, not pressure shock. The name S-foils also implies a similar purpose to airfoils, but the canon isn’t even consistent on that. Some TIE models explicitly use their S-foils aerodynamically in atmosphere, but other ships are ambiguous.

High effort troll, though insulting people’s intelligence while sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich is certainly a strategy. Good luck with that and your fascinating approach to discourse.

Mission failed. Try responding to my longer message on its merits, instead of dismissing anything that causes cognitive dissonance.

Is this the one response you have to everything that challenges you? Imagine if you addressed the points being made instead of implying that the reason you’re incomprehensible is the reader’s competence, instead of your bizarrely antisocial comments.

What on earth are you on about? I have no interest in being your friend or influencing you. I’m having a good time making fun of a troll acting ridiculous.

You seem like an insane person. Imagine a hypothetical community that has a bunch of positive and uplifting content, but about 10% of posts are just making fun of trans people, or immigrants, or supporting Nazis, or what have you. Someone calls the community moderator on that content, and they go, “Read again. Slowly. Look at all these positive posts you’re IGNORING.”

Do you not understand how online communication works? This person was not referring to those other posts, so you bringing them up and acting all self-righteous about it just seems kinda silly and ridiculous. It’s like pure rage bait behavior, but it seems like you actually believe it. They don’t have any issue with those posts, didn’t bring them up, and they don’t excuse the harmful content you’re hosting. I don’t understand why you think the existence of positive posts makes the negative ones okay, or why you have a bizarre expectation that they have to weigh in the non-hateful content when judging the hateful.

“This user just posted Nazi apologia, but they have a different post supporting gay marriage so it must be okay!” This is what you sound like.

Oh, I wasn’t complaining about any of those things. I think they’re awesome. X-Wings and TIE fighters are definitely not using their S-foils for reentry gliding though. I’m a huge Star Wars fan. I think it requires a level of suspension of belief to engage in the storytelling, because it’s not supposed to be at all realistic. There is also plenty of Star Wars media that is definitely not for kids or fits closer into sci-fi, but even Andor, the most sci-fi of the Star Wars media I’ve watched, was definitely still leaning on its fantasy roots.

I don’t think a defense of the most-hated parts of the prequels is a great argument. This comes across as George Lucas misreading his audience and trying to defend a product that missed the mark for most of his serious fans.

SW is for children is not a great take. It’s just not sci-fi, and shouldn’t be judged as such. It’s a space fantasy, and it leans into the camp and the suspension of disbelief. They use wings and aerodynamics in space. Destroyed ships “sink.” The good guys never get hit and the bad guys die in one shot. Now, the new movies were absolutely disappointing, but Star Wars was never sci-fi, at least not in the ways this discussion is defining the genre.