Nothing you said was accurate. I called you protestant-brained, with the clear implication that you’ve been culturally tuned to associate nudity with sex, not that you are religious. Public restrooms have always had private stalls, I’m not sure where you got that impression they didn’t. The bigger picture is that you will never find a “solution” to this “problem” because it’s not based in reality, or science, but on straight bigotry. The solution to bigotry is not to meet them halfway. It’s to clearly state that their beliefs do not reflect the community’s beliefs.

Extremism for migration and race probably hinges on whether you believe in due process

Wtf? That is so protestant-brained. People just need to not be transphobic. We don’t need to do away with the concept of locker rooms and nudity. Private changing stalls are already common, and in the worst case toilet and shower stalls can be used, but they should not be mandatory for anyone, cis or trans.

I’m not upset about a work retreat held during a Senate recess that was likely scheduled at the beginning of the year. This trip has likely been planned long before the threat of a shutdown, and the focus on ‘Tuscan vibes’ or whatever and ‘wine caves’ strikes me as pure rage bait.

In what world? This is the first post about it in the community and the first post by this user in at least a little while.

Why the fuck did you expect me to defend capitalism? I answered the best I can.

I’ll take that’s a slip of the tongue and I’ll answer the question whether democracy leads to fascism, given that I’ve clearly stated I’m a socialist.

I think it’s kinda bullshit to say that democracy hasn’t done amazing things for the human condition. In any given region, democracy will come and go, nothing lasts forever. But where and when it exists, science, human rights, new ideas, and new culture, will always follow. The fact that things might get worse if we give people agency, as in, they might choose ‘wrongly’ and give up their democracy, that is not a reason to stop trying, or to try to take that agency away from everyone, yourself included.

I very much dislike people who don’t realize that agency and democracy are the foundational human right, the one from which all other rights stem. Without the ability to play the “opinions game”, as you call it, whether or not you go hungry is up to the leadership, not you. If you don’t have a right to your own opinion, you do not have any control. It’s pretty fucking simple. You can’t make things better without agency. Nothing will ever get better by just passing the buck to totalitarian leaders and hoping they fix everything for you.

It all comes down to, do you believe that it’s possible to mislead people? And relatedly, can you deceive a whole population? I have seen so much evidence that propaganda works, living in our shared capitalist hellscape. I cannot see a >90% agreement, on pretty much any question ever formulated, without a loooot of programming. Nothing is ever that popular naturally. These are not populations that are routinely exposed to differing opinions. Totalitarianism, in all it’s forms, has these same indicators: screwy election numbers, cults of personality, government enforced and socially enforced orthopraxis and orthodoxy, etc. It is not a system where you have anything resembling agency.

So, just “you’re wrong” again. Great discourse we’re having.

You’re right, it’s not like Russia, except they are both totalitarian.

I didn’t say they lied. I implied it’s illegal for citizens to disagree. Putin also wins with similar percentages, and maybe there’s some fuckery, but our best evidence is that Putin is similarly extremely popular in capitalist totalitarian Russia.

Great argument, once again. By the virtue of simply disagreeing with me, you’ve proven yourself smarter. Wonderful job.

That’s a great statistic, >90%. Shows up all over the place in communist literature. I’m sure it’s a sign of a well functioning democracy with diverse opinions represented.

Do you think that you specifically, as a worker, would have more power under totalitarian communism? Your voice and your opinions would be taken into account by the unaccountable leaders? Do you really think you would even be allowed to critique party policy?

Lots of things can be argued in academics. The largest communist experiments have been totalitarian. The idea that democracy is a core component to a communist society is now more commonly referred to as democratic socialism.

You are acknowledging total control in both systems, but are arguing against the word totalitarian to describe them. What is your actual argument?

I was wrong, just remembered incorrectly.

Signal is not open source.

The modern Christian God is mostly a passive observer, whenever him or his agents have visited us there have been tons of miracles and magical shit, but that does not happen very often, and we’ve been basically alone for millenia while He is busy in his own realm. If Christ visited again, it would likely portend the end of the world, at least in a lot of Christian world views.