Here’s the war you requested, Mr. President: Open thread

Whelp, the good news is that Iran seems to have “concluded” their military actions for now, and Trump seems to be standing down as well, interpreting this as a “win”. I’m guessing the Trumpanzees will think of this as a win as well. What they are forgetting is that Iran now has no obligation to observe a nuclear deal and will probably quietly push toward developing nuclear capabilities in order to gain a deterrent against further action against them.

So in the end this is rather a loss for everybody involved.

@Jesalin
I don’t think that’s going to be enough. Anyone know a burn ward?

Fry: I just made out with that radiator woman from the radiator planet.
Leela: Fry, that’s a radiator.
Fry: Oh. [He clears his throat.] Is there a burn ward within 10 feet of here?[2ACV06]

@Moggie

Also, if you have “expert” right in your handle, chances are your knowledge is mediocre at best.

Well, at least you’ll get a demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

@Rhuu
Alignment charts are popular these days, though I’m not really sure why. I thought about trying to make one of us vs. manosphere, but most of the boxes would be empty because there’s no real neutral and the entire manosphere is basically “chaotic evil.”

@Diego Duarte –

Whelp, the good news is that Iran seems to have “concluded” their military actions for now, and Trump seems to be standing down as well, interpreting this as a “win”.

Fingers crossed. Yeah, this wasn’t a good move by any stretch of the imagination but I’ll be happy if it doesn’t escalate into war.

@Rhuu – Oops, I didn’t refresh the page. My last comment refers to the one you wrote at 9:56 AM (according to the site).

@in general: lol at the “let me mansplain this thing” / “I AM A PROFESSOR IN THIS THING” exchange 😛

@Rhuu, thanks for your clarification, it helps me see more clearly

Ok, I got up an hour ago and wrote about 2000 words in response
in my editor which is about 4 pages A4 and I’ll try to post
enough of that before I have to head off untill later
tonight (5/6 hours I guess, could be longer, I’ll drive)

You are posting A LOT, and very
quickly.

Yes, I try very hard to keep that in mind. I’m just so used to
talk when stressed out that I find it hard to control myself when
the discussion turns too cynical for my taste. I try to probe how
much cynism and risk for me and friends I can accept while still not feeling like one of those chain-smoking super-cynical medical professionals but this leads to misunderstandings that hurt. I have been having this problem a lot in my past and especially in recent years
because I eventually chose to focus on my studies even in 2017
instead of doing what I consider to be the right thing. I was
focused on the fact that my mother was dying and honestly wasn’t
as shocked to see that not only where other transgirls on twitter
begging for medicine to save their lives on twitter but my
queerer friends started dying at an alarming rate. Everyone wants
to be helpful and those willing to sacrifice themselves are
allowed to do so even though none of their friends wants them
to. I should have shared my concerns and said something sooner.

This isn’t a super active forum, and people will (in
this space) typically apologise if they’ve posted twice in a
row. (“Sorry for the double post!”)

You posted typically three or four times in a row!!

Yeah. That must be pure stress for everyone else. Sorry. For me
it seems to be some sort of psychological treatment. Talking
feminism with people who are likeminded but have their own
rulesets helps me dig up my memories. It hurts a lot but that is
way better than sitting around and waiting forever to act.

Your comments are also difficult to parse. I
believed you mentioned english was not your first language, so it
would make sense that your language wouldn’t be as clear as a
native speakers.

Absolutely true. I am used to speaking with a fluency that was
lauded as brilliant yet unorthodox. Writing while stressed out
and having a nonstandard keyboard on some devices thus making
mistakes that seem strange is humiliating.

Thus I sometimes go for a clarity that probably comes of as
cynical.

I would like to suggest that you write in a note app,
on your phone or computer, so you can do some
editing.

I am doing that. I had been trying this before and it did not help reduce the level of misunderstandings but with all that has happened in regard to my concept of space and time recently, I have decided to give it
another go.

Perhaps also try to condense your 3-4 posts to
one. Edit out the repetitions. Your sentences will have more
clarity overall because you reread and edited them.

I’ll try, thanks.

Something about how people look to computers/technology as a magic fix all, and that’s not good (… i
think? Admittedly, i have no idea what a “user problem” is, and
“layer 8” just makes me think of photoshop files someone has
given to you where they DON’T NAME ANYTHING, NAME YOUR
LAYERSSSSSSSS, I don’t know what layer 8 does, is it
importanttttt ahhhhhhhh)(but i digress)

Not what I meant at all. I was talking about some half-knowledge
regarding network-protocols and the fact that as an advanced user
you are sometimes blamed for every problem on any layer of the
network when all you want to do is use a computer in your own
way. Think of it like that: You can disable parental
controls (that is was kids do), fiddle with your network or even
get a vpn subscription in order to research better — less issues
with a bubble commercialy co-designed by yourself and full of
blinking advertisements and with less stress. I am doing that. I
am not one of those technicians who feel so sure about the
consequences of this trickery that having an internal factor for
acceptable damage to the lifes of migrants / kids / addicts /
civilians /…. by allowing other, more dangerous data to flow freely
and covertly is the logical step to take. Discussing this level
of mastery with such people shocks me and it is clearly not what I
aspire to do, while at the same time, I do not want to use an
as-is-internet-connection where I do not get to post or read
anything because the fact that people are talking about the
apocalypse in a setting with flashing advertisements and strange
rules enforced algorithmically on platforms designed for a mass
market is stressing me out. I get stressed out by disagreement
and I still have some issues with flashing ligths and similar
thanks to those things being distracting and dangerous as a
teacher and as a medical technician. I would like to talk about
the apocalypse in a calm and orderly manner, the speed of twitter
and the tone of everyone around me stresses me out so far that I
just want to close my laptop and shut up. Yet the best I can come
up with at the moment without having a proper email account or my
own site is writing long and/or stressfull paragraphs.

So I use my own setup on my laptop and a comercial vpn solution
that isn’t much of an obstacle to serious investigation by police
or similar while allowing me to feel a bit safer on the
internet. It’s a devils bargin nonetheless and I know that a lot
of people use way more advanced cryptography than that. I hope
they know what they are doing.

I am very thankfull for you folks helping me see past the limits
I imposed on myself in order to study more. It was the wrong
thing to do. I would like to help you out and I like to talk
about violence, technology&science, psychotrauma and education as
well as medicine as far as those things concern me. You seem to
be nice people to talk to regarding those issues and I think I
can still stay profesionally true to being a student and a
medical technician who has studied computers.

I think you will find general agreement here that computers/tech
will not solve all our problems, and for many reasons.

Great.

Lack of diversity present in tech, for one. New problems can
easily be introduced when people don’t think how shitty people
will use tech to hurt others, because they have never been on the
receiving end of it. (Twitter/FB/etc)

You don’t need to tell me me about that. I lost more than two hours of time because someone thought it a good idea to communicate via facebook what could have been just as easily been word-of-mouth or a
phone-call. She is one of my friends and I only gave her a stern warning. Other people are way worse. My personal problem with technology is that it allows other people to stress me very effectively.
The real problem is that can also hurt vulnerable people on a great scale.

People also put off doing what we presently can do to try to
address problems currently, because the solutions are imperfect,
and surely Tech Will Invent Something, right???????

Every technical solution has it’s market and focus group and can
be some kind of optimum for them….

But the problem with saying (as i read it, but it was unclear so
perhaps this isn’t how it was meant) that computers and their
ubiquitousness is, in itself, the issue is that you are not
seeing how many ways computers are actually part of a solution.

I am very computer-sceptical, even though they where one of the
coolest toys when I was a kid so I would very much like to read
about this.

As an example, read this thread for an example of a
space that went ‘no devices’, and how that means that a whole
swath of people can’t go there.

I’ve skimmed that thread and it thought me little new. It’s twitter and is not very userfriendly to me.

Apps that control insulin pumps, or hearing aid levels. Apps that
help with magnifying the menu, so they can read it. Checking the
menu for allergins. Using a phone to recenter, because someone is
autistic and the situation is overwhelming, but can be coped with
if they have this device. Etc etc etc etc.

Yeah, cool stuff. Should be made safe and secure and cheap. In a capitalist system this means finding a market. A problem is that a lot of people like to use and abuse such technology without needing to do either because it is comfortable to them. Think of google glasses and how some hipster assholes who did not care for the privacy of others ruined a thing that autistic kids could have used. Happens all the time. I know a bit bout this stuff because my mother was an advocate for the rights of disabled people. We often fought even though we should have been on the same team. *sigh*

They can really help people, and insisting on their ban can shoe
some privilege.

Yeah, that is why I advocate against a market model for medical devices. Medicine for the poor, unfit or misfits is one of the things that
are very likely to go away the further we move towards war. It
always has been…

Re: feminists shouldn’t have children???? Because they know
better???? Climate change??

You got that wrong. Sorry.

Yeah, it’s close, but it’s not what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that
both models have their pros and cons. If I think of humanity and
if I reflect back on my life, I am happy not to contribute to
overpopulation. At the same time women having kids is a perfectly
fine thing. They should be able to make that decission for
themselves without being forced.

Of course when I talk about the pros of being infertile after so many times when I nearly cried when holding a baby or talking about procreation with cis women and having to hold my tongue when it was about kids, I sound sour. There are other medical technicians who are better at dealing with expecting moms. I live this to them. The kids still seem to like me.

Advocating for women to be able to work if they want/need to
MEANS you advocate for them to make the choice on if they are a
SAHM (or parent, but mom for this discussion) if they so choose.

Yes. I advocate for that choice but my personal statement is that I embrace non-procreation. Gender minorities should be able to work together in this regard.

I think you were saying this in regards to climate change, and
how we already have enough humans, so why not just not reproduce
to limit the species and… yeah?

It’s what I do, I try not to get too preachy about it because it hurts feelings. I just want to live a bit greener and I am sick and tired of
having to make excuses for my existence when talking to feminsts or reading their books.

Feminism has made it so women *aren’t* limited to automatically spawning more humans as their only purpose. Many women (and other AFAB folx) have chosen not to have kids, because they never wanted to, and now have the option not to!

I think that this is a valid and perfectly fine way to life. More
feminism generally means more choice for people who can have
kids. This leads to society slowly and gently shrinking. Much
better than nuclear war.

But some people want children, and if kids could only happen where they are wanted, that would be really great

New kids help stabilize famililies and bring change to the
world. Also a fine model. I am cool with this if the people
bringing kids into the world are not coerced to do so.

I remember reading once that the cheapest way to combat climate
change was making a condom, which would stop yet another human
from being born, and adding to the carbon usage of our species.

Yet there are religious arguments against condoms and a lot of
people feel that they enable the wrong people, for example promiscuitive people who do not care about the quality of their blood even though it is a ressource that could save lifes in a war. Also sex workers…..and so on. I guess you can figure out the rest.

Birth control and abortion help this.

I agree 100%. I find it sad that they are an option for the priviledged and a coercive measure towards the marginalized poor. That did not change much either.

I believe that feminism was a huge reason that these things happened at all, so i’m not sure what your point is, here.

I wanted to talk about my feelings because it was a topic I want to know more about. As you can see they require a lot of text and generate a lot of stress. I hope I can become more calm in the next days.

* Ok, I’ll now drink some tea to calm down then head off. Feel free to moderate stuff that is problematic.

@weirwoodtreehugger:

Clearly the media, politicians and the rest of the establishment haven’t learned shit in the past 20 years.

I disagree. They’ve learned exactly what they can get away with, and they’ve learned that they can treat ‘When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross’ as instructions rather than a warning.

Sorry to be posting here again. I’m not much qualified to write about American politics amd here in Spain the Iran thing is obscured by more urgent national concerns. But the study quoted by Moggie made me react.

I know two Iranians, both excellent people. One is not religious, the other one is a staunch Muslim. But even the staunch Muslim, I can’t imagine him referring to others as “less than human” or “cockroaches”.

Also, that argument that “they are guilty for not overthrowing the ayatollah regime”. That majority of Americans referred to in the study should begin to get used to the idea that they don’t own the world. That the rest of the world has absolutely no duty to cater to “American interests”. By saying which I’m not defending the ayatollah regime.

I hope the Americans participating in this blog don’t get upset over this I’ve written. It’s not about you.

Finally, and because some called the Iranians “fanatics”: I think that being a patriot is a very dangerous form of fanatism, and that it’s only considered a virtue because it’s functional in maintaining the power structures as they are.

I NEED MOAR SCREENSHOTS OF MR EXPERT

WHAR MOAR SCREENSHOTS????

Seriously, though, I’m very curious about what they were talking about before that prompted Mr Expert to say that they should spend time in the classroom. Honestly, that’s just as funny when that guy said,

Random Internet Dude: THAT’S NOT A VULVA IN THAT ART SHOW, IT’S A VAGINA! VULVA IS WRONG. CAN’T YOU EVEN WORD?

Vagina-haver who also has a vulva who also is the english-speaking world’s expert on female genitals and teaches and writes about this shit like literally all the time: Um, the word “vulva” is actually correct. While it may seem less familiar to you, it cannot possibly be “wrong” since it literally, actually, precisely names exactly the body part portrayed in the art show.

RID: WHAT THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW? IT’S A VAGINA! VULVA IS WRONG! WHERE DO YOU GET OFF EVEN HAVING AN OPINION?

V-hWAHAVWOITESWEOFGATAWATSLLATT: I get off having an opinion maybe because of this degree and all these books I’ve written. Maybe that?

RID: IT’S STILL A VAGINA! VULVA IS STILL WRONG!

If anyone can find even more screenshots of Mr Expert’s weather discussion with Dr. Gill I will love you forever.

I mean love you even more forever.

Also, @Moggie:

if you have “expert” right in your handle, chances are your knowledge is mediocre at best.

yeah, I thought seriously about not talking about my expertise in trans* & intersex D/SV in that thread with Sapphire, but it would have just killed me to hear Sapphire (or anyone really) jump in and tell me that I don’t know anything about integrating previously segregated anti-violence services and it can’t possibly be easy, because it just can’t.

I just didn’t have the spoons or even the evens to fucking survive that, so I put up my pre-emptive wall of “Yes, I actually am the expert.” I knew it would sound bad, but I ultimately decided my psyche just needed the armor. I would probably cringe so hard I’d break my cheekbones if I ever re-read that in the future, but what are you gonna do?

((Sneaks up to where Lyzzy is sitting and slides a Welcome Package in front of them.))

Here. Used to be that new commentators got one of these to help them fit into the culture here better faster. It’s not been updated in, like, forever, but it should still give you a decent idea on how and why certain things are done here. Also still has some good links in, I think. (Haven’t checked those in a while. :/ )

Hopefully this helps you fit in better, faster.

@Redsilkphoenix

Sneaks up to where Lyzzy is sitting and slides a Welcome Package in front of them.

It could also be helpful to give a link to the comments policy.

It’s not been updated in, like, forever, but it should still give you a decent idea on how and why certain things are done here.

It would be great if someone could update it, but I don’t think Cloudiah is still maintaining her blog Artistry for Feminism and Kittens that hosts it.

Maybe someone could create a new one based off of the old one?

Have I said thank you yet, Maglfar?

Bcuz thank you.

@Crip Dyke:

I just didn’t have the spoons or even the evens to fucking survive that, so I put up my pre-emptive wall of “Yes, I actually am the expert.” I knew it would sound bad, but I ultimately decided my psyche just needed the armor. I would probably cringe so hard I’d break my cheekbones if I ever re-read that in the future, but what are you gonna do?

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with letting people know your credentials when they’re relevant to the discussion. But Mr Weathersplainer is, figuratively speaking, walking around in a hat with “EXPERT” picked out in flashing LEDs. People are going to assume he’s over-compensating.