This article is a great example of the struggles of living in our highly constructed world. It has been thousands of years since the mathematically average human lived a natural lifestyle and the rest of us trying to make big interconnected settlements work have been blundering it because what a big society needs is for us to constantly work against many aspects of our nature. No one can just live by their instincts and expect everything to work out, and anyone encouraging people not to think are literally trying to take advantage of what people tend to do when they forgo rationally considering key decisions.
It is very uncomfortable and distressing to hear about major disasters my government is responsible for, and it would be much more natural and fulfilling to me if all I needed to know was how to master my local environment with the rest of my band, but we have historical examples of atrocities being allowed for long periods of time due to nothing more than popular carelessness. If more people had the moral courage to expose themselves to the realities of our government and their own beliefs, I can’t imagine Hillary, Trump, or Biden would have come anywhere close to winning their respective primaries over the past so many years. These elections took place as a consequence of trusting that there were no ulterior motives for any information offered by the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News by most who cared to vote and the rest simply closing themselves off from the process. Just carelessness. Simply hearing about the information spread by these outlets second-hand is probably even worse since it will be filtered through an individual’s interpretation of it. The solution can’t be to try to close oneself off from the outside world.
Uncritical reading of the product of highly compromised information companies is a bad thing, as this article discusses. The solution is not willful ignorance, but the more difficult and less comfortable path which is ultimately more beneficial to oneself and their society. Continue to read the news and in addition, be critical of it. Understand that the news starts with a reporter and then goes through a process of edits influenced by the editors’ biases, the advertisers’ desires, and the orientation toward maximizing profit. Reading foreign news coverage of the same events filtered through an often totally different set of biases can make the important information itself more clear. Just as important as what the major news sources are covering are important events they aren’t covering which tend to get picked up by independent outlets with fewer restrictions. The American media blackout of the Standing Rock protest was particularly notable. I have always wondered how that event may have turned out if it were given more coverage than page 7 of the AP one time.
It almost certainly is better for our mental health to block out unpleasant information. We weren’t built for this society we have. We have a lot of work to do before we can approximate a natural lifestyle in our constructed society. There are powerful forces creating an information environment to manufacture our consent, and ignoring that they are doing that will not fix anything.
Is it possible to have some communities be exclusive to Beehaw users? I’m not advocating for cutting off the existing communities, rather adding in a few walled gardens? That would filter out anyone who doesn’t want to bother explaining why they value what Beehaw is and include anyone curious enough to create a Beehaw profile to see what the less active but more Beehaw communities are like. Something like “The safest space” which is going to respectively attract and deter the people you would want.
As for having to deal with what y’all deal with at all, which the above would do nothing to diminish, I have thought for a while that y’all need more help. You guys are doing a ton of work and in my opinion a little too much work each. I don’t want y’all to get burned out and not be able to continue at all. Maybe an appeal to the community that y’all can’t continue like this without more help would encourage those with the ability to lighten the load?
The reason Afganistan has had so much trouble with superpowers during the last few centuries is that they are an extremely important geographic location which would provide great strategic advantage to the power controlling them. That’s why American media has been trying to push the public to be sympathetic to a re-invasion until recently. Fortunately for Afganistan, they are very difficult to conquer for very long.
I’m not at risk of losing my job so I’ll be explicit. The group who is committing genocide is the current Israeli government and its supporters throughout the world, including many US politicians who are primarily Christian. The condemnable group is not Jewish people in general by ethnicity or religion throughout Israel or the world, of whom there is no kind collective action or even agreement. People of all ethnicities and faiths throughout the world, including many Jewish people, want to stop the siege and mass killing of primarily civilians currently being performed by the Israeli government.
I’m not sure you’re understanding me, so let me try my best to clarify what I’m saying. Please approach my arguments in good faith rather than assuming I’m automatically wrong because I hold a motivation you’re assuming I have. Most mass shootings in history have been done for political reasons. Most of the time it’s the government acting through use of their militaries against other militaries and often against civilians, and also often by individuals or non-government groups committing acts of terrorism to affect some kind of political change. Some mass shootings, such as the one committed by Charles Whitman, were committed for other reasons but did not inspire others to follow their example.
The Columbine shooters were inspired to commit an act of violence by Timothy McVay not because they agreed with the radical libertarian political ideas he committed his act of terrorism for, but because they saw it made him notorious in the media. The Columbine shooters were inspired mainly by their desire for infamy and fame. This is clear from mountains of evidence of the shooters claiming that this is the inspiration for their act of violence. Since the Columbine shooters, an additional category beyond political violence has become common for mass shootings which is the desire to become infamous. Since Columbine this category of non-politically motivated mass shootings has been significantly more common than prior to Columbine mainly in the United States but also elsewhere such as Australia. There may have been mass shooters with the Columbine shooters’ motivations prior to Columbine, but they were rare and did not inspire the trend which Columbine inspired. It is extremely likely that since Columbine, the desire to become infamous is the motivation of a mass shooting which is committed for non-political reasons.
Media groups including the BBC have decided no longer to name and reveal information about mass shooters to deter this inspiration from possibly being fulfilled, hence why this article gives no details of “The gunman.” I am relieved whenever I see this and support it.
The US right wing protects mass shooters which the Australian right wing did not which is among the reasons why Australia does not have the same amount of issues with mass shootings as the US does. Because the Czech Republic has a strong right-wing element it may be possible they take measures to protect future mass shooters as the US has.
I specified non-political mass shootings by individuals, not mass killings in general. Obviously mass killings in general existed prior to that, and there were a few mass shootings prior to them becoming extremely common. The event that caused them to become common was Columbine, not the Charles Whitman mass shooting or any other historical mass shooting which had occurred rarely and sporadically until that point.
Zionism is one of those political terms that is assumed to have a universal definition agreed upon by all when in reality people are using the same word to argue completely different concepts in many cases. It’s a sensitive and inflammatory topic because of ongoing prejudice and atrocities committed in living memory so there are obstacles to overcome to have a good faith discussion.
Israel’s constituition establishes a secular state which does not privelege one ethnitcity or religion over another. Benjamin Netenyahu represents a far-right contingent of Israeli politics and has enacted policy which does real world harm to Palestinian people. Criticism of his administration can be motivated by anti-semitism, but if we’re seriously talking about geopolitics and apartheid on the left I think we’re more focused on making sure the human rights of Palestinians are respected. Netanyahu’s political opponents in Israel who do not wish to continue expanding settlements into demarked Palestinian territories are most likely not motivated by anti-semitism. Critics abroad making the same arguments against the actions of Israel’s secular government similarly are probably less motivated by anti-semitism and more motivated by some sense of universal human rights. Although there are some imperial-minded people that oppose Israel’s actions because they have some sense of not wanting their most hated group of people to grow more powerful, I honestly don’t think anyone in this comment section or from the linked article has that motivation. Anti-semitism is a very real problem which needs to be taken very seriously, but framing a left-wing political argument in favor of human rights as only possibly motivated by anti-semitism is completely bad faith which does no favors to anyone except the far-right.
Freedom has two components: Positive Freedom and Negative Freedom. Negative Freedom is a lack of restriction from doing something, while Positive Freedom is the ability to do something. For example, I am free to go to Mars through the lens of Negative Freedom but not through the lens of Positive Freedom.
Restricting Negative Freedom can enhance Positive Freedom. If a terrorist hate group is not allowed to exist, then those who would have been their victims can be free to live their lives without having them cut short by this disallowed association. This is a pro-freedom move in the direction of greater fairness and safety in Germany.
Fresh produce in the grocery store is a marketing gimmick. The reason it’s there in the front of the store is to look nice and give you the psychological cue that you have fufilled your obligation to buy healthy things and may now buy what’s in the aisles with less guilt. Similar to how grocery stores don’t profit on rotisserie chickens which you have to walk through the aisles to get to so you will usually end up buying more than the chicken. They may control costs by displaying what loses them the least money, but direct profit from the fresh produce isn’t why it’s there.
Frozen is cheaper and healthier if we’re talking what to buy for nutrition. Fresh is really only fresh locally. Yes, it’s sad that fresh vegetables from your own locality can be unaffordable. The reason for that goes far deeper than the supply chain disruptions from the past few years.
Exactly. That’s the only mention of any Hamas fighters killed by the bombing campaign I’ve heard of in a month. Ibwould think the IDF would be more proactive announcing any success they’ve had which they can confirm. It’s just been explaining their suspicions after they bomb a hospital or refugee camp without confirming if their suspicions were correct in most cases.
You’re right about the events of 10/7. 60-70 is from since the bombing campaign began. The fog of war keeps things hard to find so I couldn’t find a recording, but here is at least a news report.