Still let’s not forget the right-wing policies from their manifesto:

• Increasing military spending by 13 billion

• Increase police funding

• More border security force to “stop the boats”

• Build more prisons

• Pour money into polluting industries (car gigafactories, steel production, “carbon capture”)

• Keep oil and gas production in the North Sea for decades, with the only focus on jobs and none on environmental issues.

So yeah I guess it’s better to have an authoritarian social-ish democratic state than an outright fascist one but that’s not a very high bar and will only work until the climate crisis boils us all alive :)

Isn’t this just a DIY brushless dynamo? Am I missing something? Still cool tho

I mean you could have asked why Israel attacks refugee camps in the first place (even before Hamas)?

Or do you think that atrocities like "women and children were stripped, lined up, photographed and then slaughtered by automatic fire" doesn’t breed resentment? (not that Hamas didn’t do the same on 7.11 but let’s not pretend Israel isn’t at least as complicit as Hamas in the overall conflict)

I’ll admit using civilians as shields is indeed dreadful - but my main point is acknowledging that violence only breeds more violence and that the first step to preventing more deaths is dismantling the current terror state form of Israel, not killing more and more civilians as some form of extirpation…

I’ll leave you with this - if there’s no oppressor to rally against, what would give Hamas power?

I mean you came in swinging with the whole “but why is Hamas holding hostages in a refugee camp” line which is actual whataboutism when the thread is about the IDF killing over 200 people.

Why not ask why the IDF doesn’t have procedures in place to prevent civilian casualties? Why not ask why is it impossible to send ground troops instead of carpet bombing Gaza? Why not ask why does Hamas exist in the first place? Is there a single thing you’ll admit the IDF/Israel has done wrong that isn’t somehow the fault of Hamas?

Your lack of humanity was already showing, but I didn’t think you’d be so unable to retort that you’d just forfeit the debate…

You accuse me of whataboutism then you just use it yourself.

Yes, I don’t think Hamas should be using human shields but I also don’t think Israel should be settling land even before the partitioning of Palestine. (I mean the idea of a foreign state partitioning land they don’t inhabit is insane, but let’s ignore that for the sake of argument)

How do you not see using civilian encampments as a makeshift human wall just as immoral?

And we can play the whole who started it first game as much as we want but it doesn’t negate the fact that even after unfavorable borders for Palestine were established - settlers continued to take over land with the support of the IDF - where is the defense in burning homes and expelling Palestinians from land not even within the borders of Israel?? (oh but it was contested territory you see so that gives us the right to massacre people, yes I am very intelligent…)

Saying Hamas is the reason the IDF is killing civilians completely misses the history of the struggle - what’s next the Nakba was also Hamas’ fault then?

So then would you hold Israel to the same standard of using human shields that you do Hamas?

If so would you claim the Hamas attacks on the 7th were justified because they attacked settler towns like Be’eri, whose ideological purpose of existing this close to Gaza was specifically to create a civilian border (literal large scale human shield)?

Using civilians to protect any military objective (including the land you’ve settled by force) is appalling - but let’s not pretend only one side is doing it.

If you really care about peace - petition your leaders for a one state solution where both Israelis and Palestinians (no matter their religion) are allowed to coexist and are equal in the eyes of the law and the people.

What if it was so small and light it was only electrons? And what if it accrues its value from the energy expended to create it? Maybe using some sort of cypher to ensure anyone could verify it? Idk maybe we’re onto something…

then again it still syphons value to the top so maybe not…

If you don’t think building chairs or sculptures requires solving “intellectual” challenges you’ve never tried building a completely wooden multi-axial interlocking joint furniture…

which also doesn’t feel justified…

Putting down animals for misbehaving is fundamentally fucked and anyone who does it shouldn’t be allowed around animals - or as they say where you’re from - “While its fucked to kill your own kind, this is a common reason to put down animals.”

Glad to help!

The main book on gender I’ve seen recommended is Suzanne J. Kessler and Wendy McKenna’s - “Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach”

sex != gender

Biological sex determines the bits you have in your pants - gender on the other hand is the social construct we humans have created, on top of that, to assign social roles and expectations to individuals.

The main issue TERFS (or FARTS) have, is that they argue the only thing that matters is what bits you have in your trousers. Which completely ignores the reality of people everywhere that are societally expected to behave in certain ways because it aligns with what society has deemed “manly” or “girly”. They argue that by wanting rights for trans people, that means, we, as a society, end up entrenching the gender norms feminists have fought so hard to dismantle.

However, that fully relies on the idea that gender has already been abolished and everyone presenting the way they truly feel is just “men” co-opting the feminist movement for their own “deviant” benefit.

Which

A. Completely misses the point about equality and solidarity (why does it matter if AMABs present as women if we all have equal rights?)

B. Disregards the reality of transmasc, transfemmes, enby and anyone else that just wants to live life in a form they feel comfortable with (feminine women and masculine men are just as valid as the opposite)

C. Absolutely dismisses the experience of transmasc individuals as “confused girls” - which is not only bigoted but extremely sexist, it implies that AFABs have no agency and are fully controlled by society - “you see they’re not smart enough to understand social constructs and how their lives fit into them - no! they’re just trying to pass as male so they get the patriarchal benefits the current system provides!” - again completely missing the point of equality.

You may think these are strawmen but if you’re familiar with JKs rethoric you’ll see these are genuine beliefs she holds.

This way, the “Trans Movement” (ie. people presenting and behaving in ways not directly assigned to their birth sex) becomes a hill to die on.

Not because of the purported “safety of girls” in bathrooms, sports and prisons (which JK will gladly demonize in her own fictional worlds of trans criminals and rapists (spoilers - people of any sex or gender expression can be awful human beings - saying they’re the reason sex crimes occur just dismisses the reality of abuse perpetuated by hurtful people))

But because it’s an ideology of absolute societal constructs (how can a man pretend to be a woman if the only thing that makes a woman is her genitalia?)

And look, I too am a gender abolitionist - if we lived in a genderless society that didn’t have gender reveal parties or gendered shoes or clothes or interests or literally anything that divides people into binary groups - I’d be on that shit - but that’s not what folk like JK are fighting for.

They see sex as this immutable quality that not only determines your reproductive organs - but how society should perceive you. You have a penis - you are a man. Oh, you don’t like being perceived as a man and you feel you relate to women in a way that other men don’t? Well, too fucking bad, in the man-bin you go. Rooster between your legs says you’re not allowed to sit in a female-only cubicle - get the fuck out.

That’s why this type of thinking is harmful, the goal isn’t to see who gets the “most rights”, the goal is for everyone to get the same amount of rights, always - so it doesn’t matter if you call yourself a man, a woman or any other label you may choose - what matters is that if you give out love and respect you should receive the same in return.

Edit: Sorry for the massive essay, but assumed you might be interested in the context around sex and gender

Not sure how that degree makes you an expert in toxicology or cancer research, but I sure hope you’ve not made your mind up about Roundup being safe. I’m not saying it’s not (the WHO is) but from experience I’ve found that treating potentially cancer causing chemicals with extra care is less likely to well…give you cancer.

But I’m willing to hear your side. Just fyi I don’t think the argument “it’s the best we got right now or people starve” is any stronger than saying “we can’t switch from lead pipes, the people will die of thirst”.