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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 8th, 2023

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  • Reddit was down. I also occasionally come back when I’ve burned through all the articles on Reddit to see if anything different pops up here, and then I see shit like Vegans nutritionally starving their pets and people getting their comments removed for not capitalizing someone pronouns correctly when I come back. Sometimes theres extra shit to read here, so I’ll probably keep coming back when I’ve drained reddit of content, but this shit reminds me why I’ve decided to deal with Reddits BS first before Lemmy’s





  • For me its because if you zoom out, the world is a better place to live in now, than it was 1000 years ago. Progress moves in waves, and right now it definitely feels like a significant low tide, but over time the coastline keeps creeping forward.

    • Humanity is the only meat eating animal that has significant percentage of its population willingly avoiding eating meat and instead finding ways to obtain essential nutrients without it (need to add that I am NOT one of those animals, I’m personally waiting for lab grown meat before I obstain from death based meat, if I ever do)

    • Humanity by and large no longer needs to leave its sick and wounded to die because we invented technology and infrastructure to both heal, and take care of those we cant heal

    • We’ve progressed to the point as a species where in order to bring more prosperity to our community, we no longer have to take from other communities, and that wasnt always the case (unfortunately this is only a recent achievement, and as such, not all of our population has adapted to this, hence our current problems)




  • Here’s a summation from another dutch poster @[email protected] a while back:

    I’m sorry, but this is just really kind of disingenuous to start something like this next to a topic such as this. Your experience with one company or something is purely anecdotal and the controversy around Zwarte Piet is also very nuanced to this very day. The kind of nuance someone not from here will not get from a casual google search. For anyone that cares about actually understanding, here’s a rundown:

    Many people attributed Zwarte Piet as a fun and good role model for kids, not some kind of caricature clown to laugh at. Literally almost everyone grew up knowing and having a fond enjoyment of Zwarte Piet, like a childhood imaginary friend that always showed up when you needed a smile the most. And that creates a strong desire to set that positivity forth by continuing the tradition. It takes really good reasons to destroy something most people attribute to be part of the greater good of their lives.

    We try to understand racism, and strive to effectively reduce it rather than just mindlessly treat symptoms. Many people saw the existence of Zwarte Piet as a way to instill positive experiences to kids who might be isolated from having positive experiences with actual people of color. We know that in part racism comes about from not having enough (or too many bad) real world experiences with people of different skin colors. It is a type of fear of the unknown. As such, this still seems like solid reasoning. (Fun note, rats will also not help other stranger rats with a different fur color to escape even with no direct harm to themselves except when they have already lived alongside aside a rat with that fur color)

    Even people of color were not completely on one side, but for the ones that it hurt, it hurt loudly. Black people in the Caribbean (Also part of the Netherlands) still use Zwarte Piet to this day, because they do not care - They do not see the racism in it. Unfortunately there seems to be a correlation between being affected by racism and seeing the racism in Zwarte Piet, as many of us learned as the conversation marched on. And racists definitely did wield Zwarte Piet to make their racism be known. In a world without racism, Zwarte Piet would not be controversial. And many people were not acutely aware of the racism some people of color faced.

    The majority has wanted to get rid of it (since about 2018, actually), and most places have more accepted solutions in place now. But this does not mean that many people agree because we think Zwarte Piet is actually inherently racist. It’s because we’ve heard the concerns of people of color and weighed their burden to be more important to relieve than the perceived benefit of tradition and instilling a positive message on people that look different from yourself. It also didn’t help that the vast majority of people that still wanted to overrule those concerns were pretty obviously racist, which pushed even more people over the edge, because we don’t want to hold traditions in place that shield racists and bigots. Some countries could really learn from that.






  • I hope you’re right with the Tankies, and yeah, I’m not really going to let anyone take an identity/descriptor from me with my own autism, even if the people attempting to do so are also on the spectrum. I never noticed the ratio difference of Americans to Non Americans, although I guess as a Canadian I’m not sure where I fall on that ratio xD

    I dunno if I have much further to add in this conversation, I mostly just wanted to respond to show I’ve read and appreciated your own input!




  • On the autist point, is a bit of a side tangent, but I hate that they’ve decided I cant fucking use my childhood diagnosis anymore because the guy who termed it was a Nazi, even though before this decision the name Asperger NEVER made me think of the Nazi, and only made me think of Autism. The DSM retired that diagnosis retired that diagnosis anyways in favour of making Autism a spectrum, so even if the asshats don’t shit on me for continuing to use a term that was a useful descriptor for me since childhood, its still going to fade over time.

    I wouldnt be surprised if conversations on reddit have gotten better if half the people who irritated me on Lemmy used to be redditors since the modpocalypse. I’m still having trouble feeling like I’m rewarding spez for his actions if I end up back in reddit though.

    And finally on the conservative point, at least Conservatives are honest about hating gay people and minorities. The Tankies here screetch the loudest about slurs and protecting minorities and lgbtq people, but they support regimes that dont blink twice while crushing those same populations