European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1272
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Silvanel
Poland4693 Posts
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maybenexttime
Poland5455 Posts
On July 15 2020 00:35 plated.rawr wrote: It does give an impression of trojaning in conspiracy theory of "liberal LGBT plot" through a pretense of lessened extremism. Somewhat along the lines of "Okay, so not EVERY LGBT person is a part of the conspiracy, but there's some of them, and there's DEFINITELY STILL a conspiracy going on!" It all tastes of classical stupid conservative conspiracy theories to me, anchored in masculine fragility. ROFL @ the masculine fragility Sounds an awful lot like the white supremacy conspiracy, doesn't it? ;-) | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On July 15 2020 00:35 plated.rawr wrote: It does give an impression of trojaning in conspiracy theory of "liberal LGBT plot" through a pretense of lessened extremism. Somewhat along the lines of "Okay, so not EVERY LGBT person is a part of the conspiracy, but there's some of them, and there's DEFINITELY STILL a conspiracy going on!" It all tastes of classical stupid conservative conspiracy theories to me, anchored in masculine fragility. Honestly, the bait in this post is probably a better example of toxic pro-LBGT posting than any examples any of us provided to Drone. Not exactly an answer to Drone's "what's the LGBT equivalent of radical feminists" but certainly along the correct line of thought. | ||
plated.rawr
Norway1676 Posts
On July 15 2020 00:48 maybenexttime wrote: ROFL @ the masculine fragility Sounds an awful lot like the white supremacy conspiracy, doesn't it? ;-) Which white supremacy conspiracy? | ||
plated.rawr
Norway1676 Posts
On July 15 2020 00:55 LegalLord wrote: Honestly, the bait in this post is probably a better example of toxic pro-LBGT posting than any examples any of us provided to Drone. Not exactly an answer to Drone's "what's the LGBT equivalent of radical feminists" but certainly along the correct line of thought. You're right the post was baity and thus not very constructive, but considering the extreme jump to conclusions ("LIBERAL LGBT CONSPIRACY!") based on vague anecdotes (some stupid cunts have done stupid shit, and they happened to be LGBT), I'm expecting the actual reasoning of the argument to be something other than what's been presented. Thus the response. | ||
WombaT
Northern Ireland23961 Posts
On July 15 2020 00:55 LegalLord wrote: Honestly, the bait in this post is probably a better example of toxic pro-LBGT posting than any examples any of us provided to Drone. Not exactly an answer to Drone's "what's the LGBT equivalent of radical feminists" but certainly along the correct line of thought. It becomes a sort of self-fulfilling problem though no? If there’s a narrative of some insidious cultural plot that mostly hangs on disparate incidents and anecdotes, often across international borders, which can’t be really whittled down into specifics and the incredulity of skeptics becomes an evidentiary part of said proposed conspiracy. Seems a bit circular to me. Anyway that aside pushback on such things seems very erroneous on all sorts of levels, from basic human compassion through to (imo) faulty zero sum framing. Extending rights outward doesn’t take away from mine, nor does it have to societally erode ‘traditional family values’ and the likes. There’s a whole lot of other factors doing the latter that don’t come up nearly as often in discourse. Poverty in general obviously puts huge strains on people and that applies here, the increasing prevalence of irregular, antisocial working hours too. Not sure how other Western trends have spread to Poland in this regard, but to me there are a hell of a lot of other more pertinent factors pushing against the likes of traditional family units than LGBT folks. | ||
maybenexttime
Poland5455 Posts
It's not necessarily about the issues the LGBT community is fighting for, but rather the ideas certain ideologues of the movement are claiming are inherently tied to LGBT emancipation. Probably the most controversial one is the dismantling of the nuclear family, which some postulate, which I forgot to mention originally. I get the impression that the LGBT activists are more inclined to adopt a big tent approach instead of distancing themselves from views that might antagonize the wider society. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28565 Posts
To be honest, I think it's a wholly disingenuous argument, one that does not want to address specifics it 'feels bad about disagreeing with' or feels like it's impossible to disagree with without exposing ones internalized bigotry under the guise of opposing a wide-ranged societal corruption. In principle, it's like being opposed to reducing pollution because you don't want to impose forced veganism upon the entire population. Sure, there might be environmentalists who want to eliminate the entire meat industry, but if someone proposes 'let's stop being so dependent on coal and instead opt for renewables so we can reduce emissions', 'forced veganism for everybody' is not the argument you are dealing with. Also, I think there is a very big and significant difference between wanting acceptance for the non-nuclear family and wanting to dismantle the nuclear family. I'm very happy that I have a mom and a dad who are still married, but if someone for whatever reason isn't in that position, I want to make life good for them, too. | ||
CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2526 Posts
On July 15 2020 03:29 Liquid`Drone wrote: I think more than LGBT-activists being a unified movement whom all want wide-ranging changes to society there is the impression that there is a big tend approach from anti-LGBT activists because that enables them to be opposed to even the most simple requests. (Accept that some people are homosexual.) Which I don't get. I am very pro LGBT rights. I don't want male to female trans-people to be allowed to compete in women's sports. And to me, it seems like the only 'rational' explanation for why opponents of LGBT rights claim there is this big unified movement they need to combat is that they don't want to give even the most basic rights. For me, there's no conflict between supporting LGBT rights and opposing the more obscure wishes from a small percentage of trans people, much like I can identify as a feminist (person who wants equality between genders which mostly takes the form of increased rights for women because they have historically been and in some ways continue to be the discriminated part) without agreeing that men should be eliminated. It's the same nonsense we see from NRA in the US - refuse to give in to even the most reasonable requests because some people who support those reasonable requests also have wishes that go far beyond that. To be honest, I think it's a wholly disingenuous argument, one that does not want to address specifics it 'feels bad about disagreeing with' or feels like it's impossible to disagree with without exposing ones internalized bigotry under the guise of opposing a wide-ranged societal corruption. In principle, it's like being opposed to reducing pollution because you don't want to impose forced veganism upon the entire population. Sure, there might be environmentalists who want to eliminate the entire meat industry, but if someone proposes 'let's stop being so dependent on coal and instead opt for renewables so we can reduce emissions', 'forced veganism for everybody' is not the argument you are dealing with. Also, I think there is a very big and significant difference between wanting acceptance for the non-nuclear family and wanting to dismantle the nuclear family. I'm very happy that I have a mom and a dad who are still married, but if someone for whatever reason isn't in that position, I want to make life good for them, too. I agree 100 % with this post but I also think the media in general and media with ties to anti-lgbt activists in particular amplify the problem. No one wants to read an article about accepting gay people so it doesn't generate clicks. Instead we get a lot of reporting on minor fringe issues (such as sports and gender changes). Most people accept LGBT because they don't really see how someone being gay would be bad or affect them or society either directly or indirectly. For most rational people it's completely illogical to be against something that you can't see any negative impact from and that doesn't effect you at all. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the LGBT community is comfortable with this level of acceptance and don't feel any real need to "convert" people. Thus the need to find false areas where LGBT could possibly have a negative effect on normal people and the very large focus on fringe opinions. I have no problem with things like bringing up LGBT or feminism in education or in training at work because it's never about forcing something on you and more about shining a light on situations that could potentially be problematic. Which is great because we do that for many other groups of people (children, elderly, immigrants etc). If you genuinely care about other human beings generally you want to do the best you can in making them comfortable, especially if there is little or no effort involved on your part. I guess for anyone who is an intolerant asshole such a seminar could be unfcomfortable. | ||
Sent.
Poland9108 Posts
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KlaCkoN
Sweden1661 Posts
On July 15 2020 04:45 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: I agree 100 % with this post but I also think the media in general and media with ties to anti-lgbt activists in particular amplify the problem. No one wants to read an article about accepting gay people so it doesn't generate clicks. Instead we get a lot of reporting on minor fringe issues (such as sports and gender changes). Most people accept LGBT because they don't really see how someone being gay would be bad or affect them or society either directly or indirectly. For most rational people it's completely illogical to be against something that you can't see any negative impact from and that doesn't effect you at all. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the LGBT community is comfortable with this level of acceptance and don't feel any real need to "convert" people. Thus the need to find false areas where LGBT could possibly have a negative effect on normal people and the very large focus on fringe opinions. I have no problem with things like bringing up LGBT or feminism in education or in training at work because it's never about forcing something on you and more about shining a light on situations that could potentially be problematic. Which is great because we do that for many other groups of people (children, elderly, immigrants etc). If you genuinely care about other human beings generally you want to do the best you can in making them comfortable, especially if there is little or no effort involved on your part. I guess for anyone who is an intolerant asshole such a seminar could be unfcomfortable. The confusing part to me about trans rights is that there definitely ARE activists who push things that seem unreasonable to me, like sports participation (see e.g. this video from The Economist: + Show Spoiler + On the other hand, and more importantly, there are also people who think that employment discrimination against trans folks is OK, that gender affirming care should not available even to adults etc. So in terms of civil rights I definitely want to fight for trans peoples right to not face workplace discrimination and harassment and their right to healthcare. But I also think that it's not inherently bigoted to use the word 'women' when talking about birth control issues, and I think it's fundamentally unfair for trans women to compete in women's sports. Politically I'm pretty sure the 'left' broadly speaking is the side most compatible with those views - the right seems to enjoy ranting against trans activists using sports etc like a wedge, but their actual agenda always seem to go much further than that. | ||
Simberto
Germany11343 Posts
On July 15 2020 05:37 KlaCkoN wrote: The confusing part to me about trans rights is that there definitely ARE activists who push things that seem unreasonable to me, like sports participation (see e.g. this video from The Economist: + Show Spoiler + ). I guess part of me also find it annoying to watching well-meaning friends suddenly struggling to find the vocabulary to talk about issues like hormonal birth control without being offensive. On the other hand, and more importantly, there are also people who think that employment discrimination against trans folks is OK, that gender affirming care should not available even to adults etc. So in terms of civil rights I definitely want to fight for trans peoples right to not face workplace discrimination and harassment and their right to healthcare. But I also think that it's not inherently bigoted to use the word 'women' when talking about birth control issues, and I think it's fundamentally unfair for trans women to compete in women's sports. Politically I'm pretty sure the 'left' broadly speaking is the side most compatible with those views - the right seems to enjoy ranting against trans activists using sports etc like a wedge, but their actual agenda always seem to go much further than that. Any sufficiently large group of people will have some different views on stuff. And in a reasonable world, we would be discussing stuff like how to deal with trans people in high end sports. But sadly, we also have people who clearly think that they shouldn't exist, and if they do exist, that they should be treated as shit whenever possible and ideally hide the fact that they are trans and simply live under their assigned birth gender. And those people also use these issues which one can reasonably disagree on to further their disgusting agenda. And that is the absurd thing. I would love to concentrate on the topics which are actually questionable, and where reasonable people can disagree. But instead, the actual topic being discussed is "should we accept people as people", which is just stupid. | ||
JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Biff The Understudy
France7814 Posts
On July 14 2020 22:56 Liquid`Drone wrote: Can you provide some specific examples of issues LGBT people fight for that are toxic and hateful? (I know that there are some extreme feminists who can accurately be described as such, but I've never seen this from the LGBT community. ) I actually have met LGBT people who tried to transform everything into their little private battlefield against the patriarchy and actually caused not only a lot of irritation but also quite a lot of damage. In my - very specific - case it's LGBT militant tango dancers, some of which are absolutely obsessed with "subverting" this symbol of the patriarchy and machismo and insisting on how much sexism there is in the community and so on and so forth. I have danced for six years at a fairly high level and have never encountered anyone, gay or straight, men or women, who felt that way, and as far as I can tell, it's a completely fabricated reality to fit an agenda. Yet it finds its way to the press in articles that horribly misrepresent the community and the dance, here for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/world/americas/argentina-tango-gender.html It's a rather trivial example, I don't think it's all that terrible, and I have a lot of sympathy for the LGBT cause that I support wholeheartedly. But there is, here and there, toxicity, at least in my experience (and let's be clear, EVERY cause has toxic zealots - that says nothing about the cause itself). | ||
Acrofales
Spain17855 Posts
On July 15 2020 12:23 JimmiC wrote: I dont know enough about 5g to understand if the concerns are legitimate that China could use Huawei for espionage or not. But the UK has reversed its decision from January and wont allow any.more Huawei in there 5g network and all of it gone by 2027. The US was certainly putting on pressure and China agressive moves in Hong Kong probably also played a roll in the decision. And given the project dragonfly the Chinese government was doing with Google at least locally there was reason to fear. This will end up costing the UK 2 billion pounds maybe more. https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/technology/uk-follows-us-in-banning-huawei-from-5g-network/ar-BB16IDOF?li=AAggpOk Obviously 5g technology can be used to spy on the people sending data through it. Unless you encrypt all your data, and even then they still have metadata. Can they inconspicuously collect that and send anything actionable to China? That becomes a lot trickier. But given the amount of weird hacks and backdoors China has actually demonstrably created in the hardware they export, it makes sense to be cautious. And Huawei is essentially controlled by the Chinese government, so it's not like they can operate independently and say "no" to incorporating backdoors into their tech (the way Apple did when the NSA tried to get them to). | ||
WombaT
Northern Ireland23961 Posts
Why were Huawei given the contract in the first place? I don’t work in cyber security but even I know there were legitimate concerns raised on how they handled data and how they could potentially use it. The kind of competent governance I have grown to expect. | ||
Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
There's only three (four if you count Samsung) major suppliers of 5g hardware and Huawei clearly is leading the market. This has put huge incentive on European producers to innovate, and eliminating that competition away is a horrible move. | ||
Acrofales
Spain17855 Posts
On July 16 2020 00:11 Nyxisto wrote: Up until now, as usual, there's been lots of smoke but no fire about Huawei hardware and not letting them operate seems to be mostly at the behest of US intervention rather than warranted security concerns which can be addressed without flatout banning the company. There's only three (four if you count Samsung) major suppliers of 5g hardware and Huawei clearly is leading the market. This has put huge incentive on European producers to innovate, and eliminating that competition away is a horrible move. There is no direct evidence they *are* doing it. But there isn't really anything stopping them from doing it, and I don't trust China at all when it comes to being responsible with regards to privacy. So giving them the tools to access all of our mobile communications seems like it is an unnecessary risk. As for the "but how could htey do that", here is an example: https://www.wired.com/story/plant-spy-chips-hardware-supermicro-cheap-proof-of-concept/ Everybody even remotely involved denies that supermicro hack actually happened, but this article is about "how hard is it to pull off" and the answer is: rather easy. | ||
Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
From the wired article: With only a $150 hot-air soldering tool, a $40 microscope, and some $2 chips ordered online, Elkins was able to alter a Cisco firewall in a way that he says most IT admins likely wouldn't notice, yet would give a remote attacker deep control. "We think this stuff is so magical, but it’s not really that hard," says Elkins, who works as "hacker in chief" for the industrial-control-system security firm FoxGuard. "By showing people the hardware, I wanted to make it much more real. It’s not magical. It’s not impossible. I could do this In my basement. And there are lots of people smarter than me, and they can do it for almost nothing." For this reason hardware should be treated as insecure by definition and we ought to make sure that our communication across it is encrypted, then you can buy hardware from whoever you want and they can listen until they're blue in the face. | ||
Simberto
Germany11343 Posts
On July 16 2020 00:38 Nyxisto wrote: There's no real economic incentive for Huawei to pull any stunts because the moment they were caught would be the day everyone throws their equipment out so I honestly don't see it as a major risk. Not to mention that they're already supplying tons of 3G and 4G network capacity all over the world including in Europe, and we're constantly communicating across it and will be in the future so it's kind of a futile exercise anyway. From the wired article: For this reason hardware should be treated as insecure by definition and we ought to make sure that our communication across it is encrypted, then you can buy hardware from whoever you want and they can listen until they're blue in the face. There might not be any incentive for Huawei to spy, but Huawei is a chinese company operating from china. If the party tells them to spy on people, they will do so, or they will stop being a company (or maybe start being a company owned by people who do what the party tells them to do). | ||
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