Andy @ andrewrgross @slrpnk.net

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41

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Joined

2 yr. ago

I can't help but notice that the article describes conditions that are clearly intended to kill, cause serious bodily harm, and deliberately inflict on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

It really seems like there's a word for that. It's weird that the article describes those conditions without using any particular word that those conditions describe.

I normally like the Guardian, but that article feels weird because I don't know why it can't just say that Gaza's condition is that of an unambiguous genocide in progress.

It's an interesting article, because to be honest, it feels like an attempt to create news more than cover it. Two-hundred or so objectors is paltry, frankly. If anything, I think the lack of dissenters in Israel is a more notable point of news.

But then again, refusing to serve and criticizing Netanyahu can be a very frightening and risky thing to do. The culture is brutal, and the head of police in particular, Ben G'vir, is a hardline fascist who doesn't tolerate challenges to the ruling government. So we'll see what happens.

I'd like to just clarify a point which I think @froh42@lemmy.world is making as well.

My concern about censorship is not based on "fairness" or being sympathetic to voices I disagree with. I'm strictly speaking about effectiveness.

Creating rules about what ideas aren't allowed to be expressed has a particular set of strengths and weaknesses that have to be understood in order for this tool to be used effectively.

The strength is that it can slow dissemination of dangerous ideas. Restrictions on certain types of speech can be very effective for that. The weakness is that it cannot eliminate the infectiousness of an idea. Additionaly: suppressed ideas which have appeal may spread widely without opponents knowing about it, and opponents of these ideas may not develop counter-messaging that diminishes the appeals of these ideas. Lastly, restrictions on speech can create an evolutionary pressure on words and ideas to specifically find the weaknesses in the restrictions. A ban on saying certain words inherently creates a list of things you can say instead.

Taken altogether, prohibitions on speech or ideas are a lot like antibiotics. They're very powerful and effective, but they lose their efficacy with use. And overusing them can actually lead to a complete breakdown in their efficacy. So they must be used in concert with a wide array of ecosystem health measures to limit their need.

You might say 'Why worry? They've worked so far.' But if you do, that over reliance can lead to a catastrophic failure.

What's the use of that information? They have that problem now.

It appears to be an internationally occurring problem.

That might be a good idea, but I think that folks need to examine fundamental factors underlying the rise of the far right and the ways in which limiting speech may be a weak remedy.

Someone correct me if I'm mistaken, but aren't these a massive undercount because they're only counting combat casualties and omitting the starvation and excess mortality of complete civil collapse?

According to the Lancet, indirect deaths are typically 3 - 15 times direct deaths. So a conservative estimate is that the actual death toll is around 200k, or ~10% of the prewar population.

It should be noted that northern Gaza is in a deliberate famine during winter. Words just fail me.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

Whaaaaaaaaaa???!? /s

Yeah, somehow there really do be people who haven't seen bluey. Crazy. It's 2025 people.

I believe it means "whiner". As in one who whines and complains.

I don't know where @CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net hails, but I just know this because I am a dad, which means I watch Bluey, and sometimes the dad on Bluey will tell the kids to "quit whinging".

This is so tragic.

It must be pretty stressful to be the president of a country like Azerbaijan in this situation. What are you going to do? I'm surprised he has been this frank in his anger. Calling out Russia under Putin in a situation like this seems like it has a lot of downsides and no real upsides.

Good for him. People shouldn't die like this.

This is very common. If you really must "solve" it, the solution world be a shadow box layout. You empty it, lay stuff down where you want it, then take a picture or trace the shapes onto paper. Then model and 3d print an insert to give everything a dedicated cutout or cut it from foam or mill it from wood. This is what folks do in workshops. I've never seen it for a kitchen large utensil drawer, but that's what to do if you must.

I think it seems hard to believe that the show really will end here. It just has the energy of a show with too much power behind it, both among fans and the people who made the show. And I think Newsome appears to agree with that take:

As far as the people creating it, we all would love to do that. I don’t know who writes the check for that, so I don’t know if they think it’s possible. But Mike has stories upon stories in him for these characters. He could do 10 more seasons. He is not done. None of us are done. Me, Jack, Eugene and Noël and not to mention the rest of our bridge crew and our recurring characters. Everybody’s like, “Yep, sign me up. We’ll be the next ‘Futurama.’ We’ll come back in 10 years, whatever you want.” So we’re all game.

Yeah, Also, this really lets people make their own future for the characters.

Those two don't need to necessarily fall in love and having a conventional monogamous romantic pairing. Just seeing a best friendship evolve is fun, and who knows? Maybe they have a fling and decide to remain platonic. Maybe they have a down-low FWB thing. This one little moment where they both see each other in a new way lets people imagine anything.

It’s Zeus and company antagonizing Hercules, not Michael Burnham being central to solving five (?) entirely unrelated but galactically significant disasters, apparently by pure chance.

Yeah, there's a lesson in good writing right there.

I think another way to approach this is demonstrated in The Expanse series and in a lot of Captain America stories: after you save the world, more big world-ending events get brought to you by people looking for help and enemies looking for revenge.

I think most of this show's jokes are great moments rather than lines, but there were definitely plenty of lines, too.

I loved "Science besties!"; "What is the viscosity of the goo?"/"Does it have anything nice to say?"; and of course "Engage the core!"

I can't help wondering if this gets renewed.

Yeah. Also: there has been throughout the show a nice little undercurrent of labor consciousness that was often lacking when we only follow "leadership" in stories.

This has been my favorite Trek in a long while. I like these characters a lot, and their personal and professional growth was well written.

Overall, I think it was foreshadowed enough. In the first episode of the season, we see him having transitioned entirely to inorganic parts to fully bury his emotions, and in the end of this we see him deciding to go the other way. And I liked it.

I'm often a little critical of what seem like anti-transhumanist takes that assume organic parts are inherently superior, and mechanization is a defilement of god's creation. But in this case, I didn't feel like his choice was that. It felt like -- and this is a complicated comparison, so follow me -- an examination of what is often called "detransitioning".

I say "often called" because I don't think a transgender person adopting a prior gender presentation IS "detransitioning". I think it's just transitioning further. There's a sort of irony, to me, in the taboo within trans-allyship toward transitioning back towards a prior gender expression, because bigots will always say that anyone who does so is proof that their transition was a mistake, and then claim that every transition is a mistake. I think this is ironic, because I celebrate anyone living their truth, and truths are complicated, and they change as we change.

Which is to say that I like cyborg Rutherford. And I also like non-cyborg Rutherford. And if Rutherford got cybernetics again or got biopunk mods, I think I'd like that Rutherford too.

I hope we do get to see more of all these characters.

I feel like this finale did a very impressive job of tying things up, not in the way that they are concluded and done but that we see a transition in which that which we know has ended, and now the characters are going off toward grand new things. Which is a great approach to providing resolution without essentially killing and mounting your characters like butterflies in a collection.

But also, I sort of wonder if part of the intent was to loudly tell the fans and the network that if anyone was curious, the writers had a ton of juice in the battery. This is pure speculation, but I feel like the thematic message of this finale was something to the effect of 'Just in case anyone wondered if we're finishing because we didn't have more to say, wrong, WRONG, WRONG. We could've made another five jam-packed high quality seasons of this easily.'

That's what I felt watching it. Tendi and Rutherford's bond was always strong, but I long wondered if a romantic pairing was a possibility or not. It didn't feel obvious or obviously out of place. Seeing Rutherford remove the implant provided in just a single scene a lot of fodder to consider what we could learn about him as a person and technology in seeing how he is the same and how he is different without the implant. And seeing him essentially look up from his cell phone and realize he has a crush on his best friend he was long avoiding thinking about is a great direction for him to go, imo. I think that would be a great story, regardless of whether it culminates in a lasting romance or leads to a decision to remain platonic.

I'd never quite liked Ransom. I don't hate him, but his gimmick always annoyed more than endeared. But in the last minute, I had to admit that it has worked. He's supposed to annoy, but also to remain hard to dislike. You want to dislike him, but he won't quite let you. "Engage the core!" landed very well with me. That's a catch phrase that kind of gets both more tired with use, and funnier as it gets more tired. I'd love to see him deliver this incredibly groan-inducing line in a moment of genuine high stakes drama, at which point you'd have no choice but to admit... it's become iconic (and you'd hate him for doing that).

Anyway, 3 out of 5 stars (Jk, I loved the finale. Paramount should just announce that they've reassessed and green-lit another season. Seems like an obvious thing to do, but we'll see).

I largely reject the notion of "canon".

Others can enjoy canon if they like, but stories don't need it, and plenty of great ones have well known, obvious paradoxes.

I'll just add the famous Dwayne McDuffie piece on this, "Six degrees of St. Elsewhere". RIP McDuffie.

Probably Anarchy. Like, the political philosophy.

Andrewism on YouTube is doing so much to make a compelling case for it. But it's a real bummer when you get a group of anarchists together and go, 'Damn, hanging out with these people makes me want to implement some rules and structure so we can get things done. This group is totally leaderless and directionless. I'm gonna go see what the socialists are up to.'

It's sad. In my experience, no one ruins anarchism more than anarchists.