Like was it a meaningful debate or a flat out flame war? And what was the main theme you were arguing over?
That women should have the ability to give informed consent at a doctor’s office.
I’ve had to argue for decades that birth control shouldn’t be held hostage until women submit to a pap smear.
It’s flat out unethical to hold a prescription until a patient does an unrelated screening, no matter how good your intentions are. It’d be like doctors withholding Viagra until a guy got his prostate checked annually. Yes, it’s a good idea to do cancer screening but no one should be coerced into any medical procedure against their will, especially such an intimate and invasive one. This only happens to women.
And yet you’d think I told them they should skin their new puppy alive. The amount of vitriol and even sexual harassment I got for maintaining this was mind blowing. And it was always from other women. I was told I’m a little girl, or not a “real” woman like it’s some sort of twisted right of passage.
I wasn’t debating that the exam doesn’t save lives or that people should stop having it done, just that women should have a choice and not be coerced - that it should be treated just like colonoscopies in that it’s entirely voluntary.
It hasn’t been that big of an issue in recent years. But early 2010s holyshit you’d think women didn’t think that they should have bodily autonomy (and a lot of this was coming from fellow pro-choicers!).
This was a thing in the southern US. I know the North half of the country wasn’t as insane.
People on social media get irrationally angry when I point out that all science confirms that physical punishment of children for the purpose of behavior change or discipline is a net negative. For both the development of the child and also society as a whole. And as such, any corporeal punishment of children should be considered assault and child abuse. People will desperately defend their right to exert violence on their own children.
What!? Really!? That’s insane. It’s the whole boomer generation for ya. Millennial and even Gen Z are now having kids and most I talk to are completely against hitting their children. It’s definitely boomers and Gen x (maybe Gen x) .
No, not a generational thing. Everyone, including millennials and Gen Z. It’s more related to familial trauma. Those who lived through a violent childhood are the ones most likely to defend violence against children. They almost always use the old “I turned out fine, it made me a better person because I was a naughty child. So I will do the same.” It’s like survivors of hazing trying to rationalize hazing others in turn.
Oh. I see. My best guess was wrong. That’s okay. I understand where you are coming from.
I recently had a discussion about the bible with someone who actually took the book literally. At least the bits he considered “good”.
He did not even understand simple concepts like “John the Apostle” is neither “John the Evangelist” nor “Apocalyse Fever Dream John”.
I am a fairly new Christian so I cannot relate. I know who John the apostle is but I don’t know about the evangelist or apocalypse fever dream John lol. Never heard those terms. I’ve been reading the Bible consistently for about a year. I still have a lot to learn in order to properly debate anything about it. For some reason I worked backwards. I read revelations first and tried to make sense of it by them reading the gospel and parts of the old testament. I still skip around but never do I take the Bible literally. I mean some commands are straight forward but I cannot wrap my head around the fact that Job was just whipped out of nowhere by the devil and it doesn’t show him like freaking out because the devil either showed up or was whipping him somehow from the spirit world. It was the first book I really connected with.
It is about getting the message out of the text.
Take Noah. Two different stories, two different boats, and both with differing writing styles. Some people seem to believe that the text provides accurate building instructions. Which leads to the issue of which one to follow, and needing steel, because building it from any of those texts with wood and reed in that size is a folly undertaking.
Or take the Gospels. You can basically condense the Gospels to a few lines of text along the lines “God loves you, regardless of who you are, and wants you to do the same”. That some people don’t get this “regardless of who you are” and that some televangelists shamelessly exploit people on the line of “Give away your riches and follow me” are the most painful failures of American Christianity.
Marxism-Leninism.
Across many platforms, I’ve gotten the most vitriol and heated discussion about pit bulls. It’s a topic that has gotten me nastier responses than politics or other hot button issues.
It’s really frustrating. I have many years of experience in rescue, shelters, veterinary medicine, and more. I’ve worked with more of these dogs over the years than I can count. I’ve also worked alongside people with much more experience than me, and I have yet to meet a single person in animal welfare that views pit bull type dogs as broadly dangerous or difficult to work with. I’m sure those people are out there, but it’s not a common view.
You can discuss the wide variety of factors that lead to this sweeping characterization of bullies, ask people to talk with animal professionals in their lives about their experiences, and encourage them to volunteer to get actual experience with these dogs. It doesn’t matter or seem to nudge them into considering anything other than these dogs being ticking time bombs.
I’m not saying everyone should own pitties. Spreading misinformation and continuing to demonize pit bull types can influence other people who could be a perfect home for these dogs to never consider them, though. So many dogs with wonderful temperaments are euthanized and never even given a chance just because of how they look. It’s really disheartening.
Cannot speak for pure breed pits, but I have not had many major issues I couldn’t handle with my brothers pit mixes. Most problem I have ever had is their leash aggression and how one of them really doesn’t like kids petting him. Otherwise, yeah, I don’t have any major problems with pit bulls personally.
i don’t take a lot of hard stances on things so people online love to paint me as the villain their their dramatic ‘you have to pick a side’ way of viewing the world.
and when i do take hard stances, like say, personal choice and accountability/responsibility, that basically gets me labeled a fascist, at least, the past few years. apparently the notion folks are responsible for themselves is part of the fascist agenda, or something.
that voting blue no matter who is bullshit.
and before anyone comes to argue otherwise, that you MUST vote blue on the election or else you vote for the other side, i bid you a ‘jog on’. ESPECIALLY since you have to answer for the continuing campaign of the democratic party against their progressive candidates.
vote blue no matter who my ass. you either have a person i would eagerly vote for or i will find someone else. it is your fault we have these republicans painted blue arguing for policies slightly left of hitler.
don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, is horse shit when good is enriching and empowering corporations, and genocide.
Flat earth, lol. Or more acccurately : space, and our place in it. In retrospect, for most of these conversations I might have been really exchanging with bots. Who knows !
I value my time more these days, but back then I discussed with perhaps a couple dozen people and out of these, a single one listened to me : it was on a publication by some “space” page, and the guy did not understand how stars did not appear to move in the sky if the Earth was really moving through space at 2 million 600 thousand kilometers per day. So I proceeded to give him an idea of the scales involved : the size of the solar system, of our galactic neighbourhood, etc. I left him with a bunch of links for science communicationBtw : all of the flat earthers or otherwise flat spacers I encountered were from the US
Sigh. That under Swedish law, it’s entirely probable that Julian Assange did rape that woman (reddit fanbois are a special kind of special).
That Elon Musk is not a real-life Tony Stark, but is in fact a slightly autistic narcissist who insists on inserting himself into the public eye and has an excellent PR team (reddit fanbois are a special kind of special).
That covid is real, and is bad, and is in fact deadly; and that vaccines are good, not a government conspiracy, and may save not just your life, but the lives of your families and friends.
Probably one of those three.
is in fact a slightly autistic narcissist
SLIGHTLY???
I feel like generally the POV of Musk being a narcissistic freak is now the default tbh, very few see him as the genius eccentric anymore
Unfortunately a lot of people still see him as an outsider tech genius who is standing up to the wealthy liberal elite. This is despite the fact that he is, on paper, the richest person alive. A lot of people I know, family even, curse Bloomberg and Gates as antichrists pulling the strings of the government puppet, despite the fact that Musk, Thiel, Kushner, etc. are literally doing that shit in the open
I would like to believe that, and in the social spaces I frequent Musk’s star has certainly fallen, but the number of people who sunk a ridiculous amount of cash into the SpaceX IPO speaks to there still being a lot of believers in his purported genius.
I know some who dislike musk but are like “he’s just the cash cow that spacex are milking dry, you can support spacex and hate the guy”
Sorry, I don’t know much about Assange but how can it be probable he raped someone “under Swedish law”? Do you just mean Sweden has different definitions for rape and that he might have done something fitting one of those definitions (but we cannot be sure of it because of lack of evidence)? Or something else I’m missing?
There are claims and counterclaims. Both sides sound convincing, but that’s what prosecutors and defense attorneys are supposed to do.
I stated that in a democracy fascist, racist, neo-nazi political parties should not have the right to form, campaign or run for government because - other than the obvious reasons - they are inherently undemocratic. I also added that this is not a paradox of democracy and that claiming otherwise is apologist bullcrap trying to justify fascism, racism or other institutional, totalitarian forms of oppression.
I got death threats.
Edit: maybe this doesn’t apply here since there was no arguing really? 🤔
Yeah, Lemmy is a bit more sophisticated and civil compared to other social media. That is why I always come back.
and that claiming otherwise is apologist bullcrap trying to justify fascism, racism or other institutional, totalitarian forms of oppression.
That’s just making a statement and refusing any challenge to it. Debate means searching for the truth and acknowledging you might be wrong. Now you’re just turning it into a personal attack toward anyone who disagrees with you. It’s intellectually dishonest and in bad faith.
I don’t remember exactly what it was that I said that I got absolutely dog piled on and told I was wrong repeatedly but it had something to do with fire hydrants. 30+ replies telling me I was wrong and stupid and didn’t know what I was talking about.
For the record, I work in water and fire hydrants are very much part of my work. But, a bunch of random people on reddit definitely know better than me. 🤷♀️
did you say that fire hydrants can be other colors than red?
Lmao no but my camera roll proves that. I used to know towns boarders by their hydrant colors before I moved 🤣
Charitably, could there be some kind of regional difference where people living in certain places truly have something different? Over the winter, I came across a thread asking for radiator repair advice, and people from parts of the world with water radiators were very casual “open it up for investigation” while people from parts of the world with steam radiators were like “do not open anything you will die”. Lots of confused comments, too, until someone figured out the disconnect.
I think the thread was region specific but this was a long time ago so I could be misremembering.
They will argue with anyone because there is no consequences behind an anonymous account.
Truth.
If lemmy counts as social media in the context of this question: In one direction it was meaningful, but all I got back was flaming and brigading. But I’m sure they are convinced I have it the wrong way around. I was calling out a tankie for being objectively wrong in their statements, and that their defense of stalinism was stupid.
Seems legit. I hate arguing about politics. I avoid like the plague.
I think as many people as possible should be as well off as possible, with as much freedom as possible, at the expense of as few as possible. I dare you to challenge this standpoint. Sure, how we weigh and balance each of those is up for debate (A debate I am sure neither of us are interested in participating in), but as an outline, I find that only weirdos object to the premise as a whole.
I agree.
Way too many people think trans people’s right to exist is a debate.
The reading comprehension and overall common sense on this website is piss poor.
I struggle to recall any “meaningful” debates.
There is no debate. Everyone has the right to exist. How could someone argue against that. They are just shouting idiocy.
how dare you say we piss on the poor
That all genocides are bad and if you deny Ukraine or the Uyghurs in China being genocides then you’re bad too.
Who believes a genocide could be good? That’s ridiculous.
Go ask the people who love Mao over on ml
I believe a genocide of mosquitos would be good.
Nope. If the mozzies went away, nature would probably collapse. They’re important food sources for a lot of animals
Just the one species that carries disease is enough.
The term genocide implies the intent to eradicate a people. While Russia has definitely used genocidal language in the past, I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as to claim that this is what they’re actually intending to do. As far as I can tell, they just want to conquer the land and rule over the people there.
If you look at what they did in some of the territories they have now left, like Bucha, and at their abduction of Ukrainian children to then be russified, there are definitely genocidal aspects to the war.
The purpose of the whole war is not genocide, but within it are acts constituting genocide.
Stealing Ukrainian children and re-educating/raising them as Russians is definitely genocidal.
There is a meaningful difference between:
- Russia committing specific acts that could legally qualify as genocidal, and
- The war as a whole being accurately described as a genocide.
Under international law, genocide requires the specific intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. This is a very high bar. It’s not enough to show that terrible things are happening to a group. You need to show that the perpetrator’s goal is the destruction of the group.
Under international law, genocide requires the specific intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Yes, and stealing their children and forcing them into your culture fits that description as it has several times in human history, including with Residential Schools in North America.
It’s cultural eradication.
I’m honestly not sure if I would call the overarching conflict a genocide, but Russia is absolutely doing genocidal things with the intent of eradicating Ukrainian culture from the contested regions.
Do you deny that there is white genocide in South Africa? Or that Europeans are being genocided through “the great replacement”? Or is it possible genocide is a serious accusation that requires serious proof and questioning shoddy proof is not bad?
What makes questioning the holocaust (much like the genocide in Gaza) so heinous is the fact that it is so incredibly well documented that the only possibile explanation for questioning, downplaying or denial is pure hatred. On the other hand in Xinjiang, a tourist hub with millions of tourists every year, in an advanced country where almost everyone has smartphones there is essentially 0 evidence of genocide. Unless you believe the Chinese government has secretly developed teleportation or invisibility or some such nonsense that merits questioning that in all these years no reputable organisation has called what’s happening a genocide that there is no real proof and that the 2 biggest faces of the movement pushing for the classification are American intelligence linked Christian evangelical “on a mission from god to destroy china” (Adrian zenz) and a Guantanamo bay torturer (Rushan Abbas).
Or that Europeans are being genocided through “the great replacement”?
You’re a fool. Europeans are deciding on theur own to not have kids due to a variety of socioeconomic factors, but those countries still need labor to keep things running so they use immigration to bring people in. That’s all there is to it.
If European countries would actually address the issues leading to younger people deciding to not have kids, then there wouldn’t be a problem.
But they won’t do that, because then the economy wouldn’t be build to cater exclusively to their version of the baby boomer generation.
That’s the point I’m trying to make dumbass. Just because someone calls something genocide does not make it genocide if you don’t have some serious proof to back it up.
I get it now. You’re just a tankie/wumao that’s salty about someone mentioning the Uyghur Genocide.
Fuck off
Or I am someone who thinks German evangelicals on missions from god to destroy countries and Guantanamo bay torturers are bad sources of information while first hand reports from delegations, the OIC and the UN are more reliable.
have you watched any vlogs from tourists in xinjiang?
I have been there personally
The skewers alone made it worth the train journey.
Since 2014, the government of the People’s Republic of China has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang which has often been characterized as persecution or as genocide. There have been reports of mass arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, family separation, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights.
In 2014, the administration of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping launched the Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism, which involved surveillance and restrictions in Xinjiang. Beginning in 2017, under Xinjiang Party secretary Chen Quanguo,[2] the government incarcerated over an estimated one million Uyghurs without legal process in internment camps officially described as “vocational education and training centers”, in the largest mass internment of an ethnic-religious minority group since World War II.[3][4] China began to wind down the camps in 2019, and some detainees were transferred to the penal system, while others were transferred to forced labor and factory work programs.[5][6]
In addition to mass detention, government policies have included suppression of Uyghur religious practices,[7] political indoctrination,[8] forced sterilization,[9] forced contraception,[10][11] and forced abortion.[12][13] An estimated 16,000 mosques have been razed or damaged,[2] and hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools.[14][15] Chinese government statistics reported that from 2015 to 2018, birth rates in the mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar fell by more than 60%.[9] In the same period, the national birth rate decreased by 9.7%.[16] According to CNN, Chinese authorities acknowledged that birth rates dropped by almost a third in 2018 in Xinjiang, but denied reports of forced sterilization.[17] Birth rates in Xinjiang fell a further 24% in 2019, compared to a nationwide decrease of 4.2%.[9]
The Chinese government denies having committed human rights abuses in Xinjiang.[3][18] International reactions have varied, with its actions being described as the forced assimilation of Xinjiang, as ethnocide or cultural genocide,[19][20] or as genocide. Those accusing China of genocide point to intentional acts they say violate Article II of the Genocide Convention,[21][22][23] which prohibits “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”, a “racial or religious group” including “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “measures intended to prevent births within the group”.[24]
At the United Nations, several countries, predominantly in North America and Europe, signed letters condemning China’s policies. On the other hand, several countries, predominantly in Asia and Africa, signed letters supporting the policies as an effort to combat terrorism in the region.[25][26][27] In 2020, a case brought to the International Criminal Court was dismissed because China is not a party to the Rome Statute, meaning the ICC could not investigate them.[28] In 2021, the United States Department of State declared China’s actions as genocide,[29][30] and legislatures in several countries have passed non-binding motions doing the same, while other parliaments, condemned the policies as “severe human rights abuses” or crimes against humanity.[31] In a 2022 assessment, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that China’s policies and actions in the Xinjiang region may constitute crimes against humanity, though it did not use the term genocide.[32][33][34] In 2026, the OHCHR described China’s policies toward the Uyghurs as potentially amounting to “forcible transfer and/or enslavement as a crime against humanity.”[35]
I could dive deep on the issues of sourcing for this article (like the very first source being Guantanamo Bay torturer and US intelligence asset Rushan Abbas) but I think a more interesting question is why this article’s title was changed from genocide of to persecution of? Why does the OIC say there is no genocide? Why does the UN refuse to classify the situation as a genocide?
The better question is why do people deny genocides?
So you think there is white genocide in south Africa and white people are being genocide in Europe through the great replacement? Or is it possible that questioning things not backed by conclusive evidence is not bad but in fact the good and normal thing to do?
Your whatsboutism is transparent and looks foolish.
It’s not whataboutism. If simply calling something a genocide makes questioning the basis of the claim evil then it only makes sense you believe all accusations. You must clearly stand with white South Africans and white Americans and Europeans against their genocides.
Or maybe questioning claims that are not backed by conclusive evidence is ok.
The treatment of those with disabilities or who are just down on their luck, by the mostly apethic “I’m alright jack” public. I’ve had many arguments with those who thought that just because somebody needed benefits that they were milking the system.
The most disgusting and revolting thing I can read on the subject from somebody is “if I’ve managed to get by fine without state help and support, so can/should they”… And yes many do actually think this way, sometimes even to those who need wheelchairs or other aids.
Sometimes I’ve managed to convince them to care about somebody other than themleves for a change, sometimes I’ve caused them to go away thinking about it, and other times I’ve caused them to double down on their stance.
Either way, the engagements were meaningful and eye opening and I’ll defend this position until the day I die because nobody has any business being that disgusting towards other human beings.
I agree. Sometimes people who value equality forget about equity. That is helping others to achieve their own level of equality. A person in a wheelchair needs a ramp, a person with an invisible illness needs accommodations, too. Equity is almost always overlooked but it is necessary for true equality to occur. I wrote a whole paper about this in college.
