Sorry, nobody serious actually thinks the lockdowns were too short. Only the laptop class who were insulated from the economic effects. Once the vaccines were available there was no rational purpose for any lockdown. Even authoritarian China had to relent once it was proven they simply don't work.
People who post lot on hacker news during the work day aren't "working class", nor do their politics align with a low/middle income worker, at all. This is like the DSA claiming they are fighting for the "working class". It's laughable.
What fantasy world is this in which a government is able to keep every human locked in their house for 5 years? What are you smoking lol.
As someone who struggles with my position on some of these topics, one of my major self criticisms/fear is the tyranny of the majority. Even if (and that's a hypothetical if) my values would reject transgenderism, my values of freedom and fairness conflict with forcing another human being onto a specific path, especially with the use of force (government). So even if 90% are cisgendered (I didnt look up the real stat), that doesn't mean we vote to make our world cisgendered... A right and fair leaning is to create the freedoms we'd want if the tables were turned.
I say this all to say it surprises me how many republicans I know are pro freedom until it hits certain topics... Pro 2A and anti-(an adult can choose a different hormonal profile for their own body) is an odd pairing in my mind. Pro free-speach like Alex Jones / Citizens united but anti-(choosing to wear clothes or other adornments/appearance of the other gender) is an odd pairing in my mind.
The number of people abject enough to end up with transphobic views is thankfully nowhere near that. Most people, as it turns out, are not creepily obsessed with other people's genitals. Most people also aren't driven by a horrible urge to find minorities to torment. Though those who are would sure claim otherwise, of course; trying to normalize their awfulness is part of the playbook.
Yeah, I don't get this. If they're niche irrelevant issues that affect ~nobody, why not just concede them? Republicans could hardly dominate the discourse with these topics if there was nobody to discourse against.
Because then they'll move on to the next victims and in having surrendered without even a fight you've granted them momentum for no good reason whatsoever, and you'll have fewer allies left too.
Is there a reason to believe this is how things work? Rather than "within a democracy as long as 'trans rights' means something that most people disagree with, it will be harder to advance the pro- side of the issue"? Is there evidence of 'momentum' being a real thing in politics, as opposed to the 'pendulum' that I've witnessed over the last decade?
Everything related to the right wing and fox news? We never had a big "swing left" - clinton was the democrats showing they can do economic conservatism as well. Modern acceptance of trans folks isn't a pendulum, most of the people espousing anti-trans views weren't pro trans 5 years ago.
Trying to abstract history into major shifts that are attributable to inanimate objects is just very ludic fallacy.
I'm confused by this. Are you saying that everything related to the right wing and fox news is evidence that momentum is a good model or that trying to model history with momentum is fundamentally fallacious? If the former, you've really got to be more specific- was firing Tucker Carlson evidence for momentum somehow? Did Republicans conceding gay marriage or Trump conceding abortion give Democrats momentum?
If you go back 15 years or so, you hear the exact same "concerns" about gay people pretty much word for word. Now that they're no longer an acceptable target for most people, they've moved on to regurgitating the same baseless fear mongering but targeted towards trans people. If society manages to progress further, they'll eventually come up with another group to serve as the "other" that they can blame everything on.
This isn't a fight we can avoid by retreating. They would just advance and the same battle would happen on different ground. If we abandon the trans, the culture wars will be about the gays. If we abandon the gays, the culture wars will be about blacks or hispanics or jews or god only knows. There's something to be said for picking firm ground to fight on, but there will be a fight and it cannot be won by retreating.
Why am I being interpreted as advocating for abandoning the trans? I don't want to do that and I don't need to be convinced by my empathy for gays or blacks- I care about trans people themselves! I'm saying if an issue doesn't matter- according to the trans people in this thread- and it's a losing issue, why are we insistent on fighting it anyway? Who benefits from this?
Hmm, yes, I see that and that the person I was responding to is getting read the same way, but not clear why that's the case. We're both in this conversation under [1]. The sports issue is the one that's 90/10 [2], while the bathroom one is maybe in the neighborhood of 60/40 [3]- I do think there is a chance of winning ground on the latter and should have been more specific. But nobody is saying there's 90/10 in favor of transphobia- a substantial majority views trans people favorably[3].
> Yeah, I don't get this. If they're niche irrelevant issues that affect ~nobody, why not just concede them?
Because there's about 1% of people who are trans in the US [1] and most other populations, on top of that come a further about 1.7% people who are somewhere on the intersex spectrum [2].
Democrats aren't willing to throw literally millions of people under the bus. Republicans aren't just willing to cast them aside - they are knowingly driving trans people to extinction.
But this is not throwing millions of people under the bus. At least according to this thread, there are fewer trans women in sports than bills stopping them. If this issue does represent throwing literally millions of people under the bus- driving them to extinction-, why are you saying upthread that it's niche and irrelevant?
Bostock affirmed core civil rights to transgender people in housing, employment, etc. The fights now are about other things (not "rights") and as such, are much more unpopular. In fact, a majority of people, even on the right, support the core rights affirmed by Bostock.
> In fact, a majority of people, even on the right, support the core rights affirmed by Bostock.
A majority of people support wage hikes [1], anti-trust laws [2], higher taxes for the rich [3], at least a general responsibility of the government for healthcare insurance [4] and even a full or barely restricted right to abortions of pregnancies [5].
But neither of this gets done despite bipartisan support, because Republican megadonors and their networks heavily keep the GOP in line. And for trans people, it's the same. The anti-trans rhetoric in the GOP gets pushed primarily by Evangelical influence groups, the rest of the GOP does not care, and neither do the voters.
Years and years of dependence on the US for financial, technology, and military advancement + protection has come to this. Happy to see they are waking up, but is it too late? Will their nonsense labor laws curtail such developments? Only time will tell.
Those "nonsense labor laws" are immensely popular. They aren't so nonsensical either, they've served Europe as well as the alternatives have. And, given how few jobs are in the DC build or operate phase, I don't see how they are relevant anyway: if AI is net jobs positive, they will be good jobs on European terms and if AI is jobs negative then the labour laws are irrelevant.
What % of people replace a battery over the lifespan of an item? Does the increased complexity and size of the unit make up for the slightly longer lifespan? What makes it "better" for the environment, exactly when it all ends up in a landfill after 5 years anyway?
There is no proof that user-replaceable batteries meaningfully reduces e-waste. A lot of tech is upgraded due to obsolete CPUs, etc, not batteries. Plus, batteries last a long time now.
Also, landfills work really well. Most recycling doesn't work and pollutes more.
It is understandable that you think this is the case as someone who is not above the age of 50. You will see that health and life insurance premiums rise precipitously once you reach certain milestones. Once you reach 90 years old, you will find that car insurance companies will discontinue your policy based on a single traffic ticket.
We replaced preexisting condition coverage with age-based tiered pricing. If you doubt me it's trivial to validate this using your state's ACA marketplace.
The promise of tech has been that if we let it rip, we'll have a better democracy and living conditions for all. That promise has failed to materialise, for a variety of reasons. There is increased surveillance, enshittification, huge subscription fees, and upward pressure on climate change (directly linked to bitcoin mining then AI data centres). Then you get Musk lobbying against a city's plans to build a public transport network, so he can build an unsafe single-car tunnel for the rich.
I think people are quite justified in being skeptical of new technology, especially when the track record has shown that the promised societal benefits often never actually materialise. Worse, still, the money earned from selling the new technology is used to make conditions worse for most people. Big tech has a lot to answer for.
I'd be less skeptical if the values of tech capitalism shifted to become more pro-human. They really haven't, and they probably won't. So for now, consider me bearish on new tech.
Sorry, "tech" is not some catch-all for all the new things. "Tech" has given us wonderful new medicine and safer cars and faster internet.
Subscription fees? So "tech" should make producing a film ... free now? What exactly is your point?
Who exactly promised all these so-called benefits you keep saying you were lied about? The companies make products and services. Many, many people buy those things. Both sides are happy, transaction over. What "greater good" are you complaining about, exactly and who promised it to whom?
Quite amazing how progressives continue to try to dismantle public education in the name of "equity". This will just push more to private schools, further harming public education.
The economies of scale will still allow specialized classes for those qualified in the public system.
A special program to tell people they are special is probably not the investment needed at this time.
Tell people they are special? Are you joking or just uninformed?
These programs provide challenging material to kids who are more capable while leaving room for teachers to create more appropriate coursework for everyone. Do you think those kids should just nap all day?
Your preferred system seems to be to lower the standards instead of raising everyone up. Interesting, I wonder why.
You are factually wrong. According to actual studies which follow these things, high IQ students do not increase their scores when in gifted programs compared to being in general education. It's a wash. The ones who benefit most are disadvantaged kids. I know, you hate the idea of equity. But universal screening showed that Hispanic kids participation rate in gifted programs increased by over 100% when all kids were screened for access to gifted programs instead of relying on teacher + parent recommendation. For black children, they increased by around 75%. *Those* children were the only ones to actually see improved scores from gifted programs.
Where are the personal attacks? I’m simply responding in kind and tone to your original ignorant message. I thought we were supposed to be the snowflakes.
I have no issues w public schools offering advanced engineering, calculus, Latin, and other uncommon languages the many thousand students in the school system will give them an opportunity to have these classes for highly advanced students.
I do not think blowing smoke up kids asses by telling them they are so special is the best way to go. In many areas, these kids may not be so special but their inflated ego may not pick up on it.
My anecdotal observations of my youth was too many of my mentally gifted minor friends became potheads and sadly wasted the great opportunity they had.
Public schools generally don't receive enough funding to provide the bare-minimum. If the gifted/talented coursework was preventing normal students from graduation, why should they keep it?
Mostly the is down to conservatives being completely incurious to the science of education and actual data around it. Especially because of the news sources they use. For example Seattle wasn't ending gifted programs. They were redistributing them so that students could go to the school they lived closest to instead of being bussed across the city. The article doesn't mention that the decision was reversed in 2025 and they are going to operate a hybrid model where the cohort schools still exist and parents can opt into either model. But go off on a deliberately misleading headline from an obviously biased source. It's the conservative thing to do.
I'm progressive. I don't view them as bad. So you're wrong again. Where I do think they are problematic is when they are introduced incredibly early. No kindergartner needs to be segregated into a gifted program. Especially gifted programs which don't have universal screening which allows teacher bias to influence class demographics.
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