utopianfiat @ utopianfiat @lemmy.world

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23

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369

Joined

2 yr. ago

I don't really like this- for one, it's based in the fact that homophobic people who also engage in queer behavior in secret tend to be outrageous in their hypocrisy. Thus, because it's such juicy news people tend to assume it's more common than it actually is. This is called the availability heuristic.

For another, it individually pathologizes the condition of being homophobic as being rooted in psychological reaction formation- thereby denying that homophobia is something encultured by the broader homophobic social system that we live in. The condition of being a gay homophobe isn't a psychological one but a sociological one- it's not (just) shame but a very real fear of the very real consequences which recruit them to uphold the very system that oppresses them.

Amtrak gives you room and privacy. Fuck cars, build more trains.

Immunocompromised people exist at every age. People with asthma exist at every age. And 150k dead per year is not a small number.

I don't even understand what you're trying to argue, as if it would be less worth fighting if it only slaughtered the elderly. What a horrible standard and a horrible message to send about the kind of society you'd like to live in.

Why would anti-vaxxers or COVID conspiracists be talking about having Long COVID? They're more likely to represent it as a minor cold, not talking publicly about being disabled by illness.

Bruh you're the one who cherry-picked "falls" and represented it as more common than COVID. 💀

The bulk of "unintentional accidents" are motor vehicle fatalities, which are actually extremely significant in America. Though I don't really want to get into whether or not the blood price of not giving a shit about the ongoing pandemic is a bargain, because that seems to be morally reprehensible in any event.

Didn't think I'd see the "disabled people are just looking for attention" card being played on Lemmy but here we are.

Being the 4th leading cause of death in 2022 is far from "posing no issues"

I'M SURE THAT THE DISABLED, ELDERLY, IMMUNOCOMPROMISED, AND JUST PLAIN UNLUCKY ARE HAPPY THAT YOU'RE VOLUNTEERING THEM FOR DEATH!

Isn’t there a way to spend the money you’re going to spend on that to spend it on like food availability, or affordable housing, or education…?

I think this sentence is what I was trying to point out. Basically, it's not a question of "pay for X or Y" but a question of "do we have the votes for X, will Americans reelect us for Y". Let me detail:

Americans don't care about or understand the deficit

There has never been a true austerity party in the US. Bush Sr. ran on cutting taxes. Bush Jr. ran on massive tax cuts. Trump's taxation policy was a massive billionaire tax cut. Every single time a Republican has been in office for the past three decades they've exploded the deficit by cutting revenue without substantial enough spending cuts. They still win reelection.

Americans "concerned about the deficit" typically fall into two camps: those who erroneously compare it to a household budget, and those who engage in vague pronouncements about its "impact on our children". So one who seems to have a concrete idea of what will happen but is wrong, and one who seems not to know what the consequences will be but are worried sick about them.

The reality is that the immediate and long-term impacts of the deficit are small, and the immediate and long-term impacts of failing to invest in infrastructure and social spending are very high

What Americans should be concerned about vis. the future of our children is producing a new generation that is healthy, educated, productive, housed affordably, expanding in size, and comfortable in illness and old age. We should care about being able to get around the country fast without boiling the oceans. We should care about being able to survive natural disasters, global pandemics, terrorism, war, and resource shortages. These are all things worth creating deficit for. The adage "you have to spend money to make money" makes sense here.

In summary

I agree that we should be spending money on social support- but the failure to do both isn't because there's a limited amount of money we have to spend on one or the other, it's a lack of control of the levers of power and a failure of will.

It's not really bipartisan. They call things "bipartisan" now because there's a handful of Republicans who are willing to come to the negotiating table and extort pork or deregulation for your goals, and it doesn't cross the filibuster-proof majority in order to pass in a Republican house. The majority of Republicans are going to default to opposing any kind of consumer protection legislation just because their fundamental ideology favors large corporations cheating individuals and families repeatedly.

Why do you think every American gets 15 robocalls per day and the government refuses to do anything about it? Republicans are getting their kickback from the robocallers.

The fact that if they're not baiting and switching people, folks might actually be able to shop around for the best listed price rather than getting swindled by the "cheapest" up front. Particularly for poorer people, surprise fees can really hurt your ability to treat yourself once in a while and still meet your financial goals.

I see you've bought into the Republican myth that the reason Americans have a shoddy social support infrastructure is due to budgetary tradeoffs. It's not. It's a failure of will of the American people to do what's necessary to stop preventable innocent casualties.

"Some of you may die, but that's a risk I'm willing to take" -- @fluke@lemmy.world

I'm sure that the disabled, elderly, immunocompromised, and just plain unlucky are happy that you're volunteering them for death.

Corporations are spying on you and governments are using your tax money to buy the information from them

Yes, because making them pessimistic and nonparticipatory is literally one of the goals of the corruption rings.

My point is that you're not truly understanding reality as it is right now. My argument is that the blackpill perspective is an unnecessarily pessimistic outlook without a real theory for change, which is effectively nihilistic and helps fascism.

They almost certainly did, I doubt anyone could nail chatbot language as well as that

Unfortunately if you don't like bread you probably have a much lower carbohydrate intake than the rest of us, resulting in a healthier weight and better overall metabolic condition. When you eat crust you gamble with death... but it's worth it