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Thanks for taking the time to type these posts out, an don't worry you were quite civil. Hope you feel better.

l'll start a new thread on serious debate.

EDIT: Also I misunderstood the slavery bit, sorry. I guess that's the internet for you, face to face would have helped with tone.

This is probably the weirdest thing I have ever said and I will probably regret saying it but….

The world would probably be a better more equal place if it was men who got pregnant, like starhorses.

Male sea horses dont get pregnant: they carry eggs in a pouch: there isnt any umbilical connection between them and the offspring so it's functionally as if it were the male kangaroo to be the one with a pouch;.

The ability and inability to produce sperm or eggs is what defines male and female but the evolutionary pressures of carrying a child to term is what caused the sexes to develope much of the differences in physical structure we see today.

Seeing as the majority of societal gener roles are derived from the necessities of that physical difference you'd end up with pretty much the same setup as now, merely a swapping of genetalia and the introduction of an unnecissary complication in the reproductive cycle which would cause issues for the species as a whole.

Tl:dr the swap of gender would be just that: a swap, humanity woukdnt magically develop some grand new equality they'd continue as they always did.

I feel like that heavily depends on the specifics. The way I see it, there's two likely outcomes for it: either it would be a complete, symmetric mirror of current sexism, or a symmetric reduction in sexism. The former if men could get pregnant instead of women, the latter if men could get pregnant alongside women. Though, the former would effectively just be the current arrangement of sexes with the names flipped, so it wouldn't really be a "change".

This idea that men and women's opinions on abortion is so radically different is nonsensical. There's been studies done on it and it was shown that the differences in opinion between men and women were neglible, like 3% different, with men being slightly, very slightly more pro-life than women.

Also, most people do not view abortion as a black/white issue, they view it in terms of degrees – when is it acceptable, circumstances behind the abortion, etc, and across those metrics the opinions vary.

Only like 8% believe it ought to be illegal in all cases no exception, and 19% believe it ought to be legal in all cases no exception. The rest, 73% (almost 3/4th) is somewhere in between.

It seems to me that when this topic comes up the people who are the loudest are the 27% who are black and white on the issue, talking over everyone else. Sucking out the oxygen of any meaningful discussion regarding the issue.

I meant more in general, the consecuences of only women getting pregnant is directly connected to a lot of problems we face nowadays as weird as it is to say that.

Then again you can say the same about many parts of our flawed biology, humans were basically genetically designed to be rather miserable in general.

I for one am glad that my argument didn't hinge on talking about male domination and instead went on about authoritarians and the religious, (although personally, I have a feeling that most woman who saw these comments wouldn't be impressed with us). Subjucation of rights and overriding public health for politics is equal to all.

@Spaghetto

If men provide the sperm and carry the pregnancy, what would women even do in such a society (like the anglerfish)? What about if the physically stronger gender is pregnant (like spiders)? What about one where both genders are debilitated during pregnancy ?

Could be interesting/horrifying for science fiction or an alternate society story, I guess. The Bene Tleilax from Dune are a good example for another scenario for a "sort of" single gendered race that are still born.

@Chewybunny

The graphs are interesting and reinforce your point, but I'd like to point out before talking of meaningful discussion that on this particular subject, I think that you were being black and white on bodily autonomy and the point you were trying to make with it.

I mean, the conversation didn't start as well as with Xtal, so there wasn't much discussion, but no one is immune of being that 27%.

The Bene Tleilax genetically modified the females of their race to be Axolotl tanks that – from what I understand make them effectively nothing but biological birthing chambers. It is suggested later on that some of them escaped, joined up with the Fish Speakers and Bene Gesserit and founded a new order of sex-slavers.

My position on bodily autonomy as something that is sacred doesn't mean I cannot comment on the fact that the bulk people's opinions on abortion are in the gray area – not absolutes. The point I'm highlighting is two fold: 1) Men and women's opinions on the matter are relatively similar, across the board, and the idea that this is some sort of a man v woman issue, or that the issue is rooted in patriarchy is flimsy. 2) That when the discussion about this subject tends to be black and white, which the overwhelming vast majority of people have a grey view of it.

My view is that abortion (when it's not a threat to a person's life) should be viewed as an overwhelming negative in society, a failure of individual responsibility, and to an extent the failure of the community be it family, loved ones, etc. However, in absolute no terms should the government dictate whether or not that decision should be legal or illegal. In absolute no terms should that decision be made by anyone else but the mother. I hope we can come to a point in our society where outside of a medical reason, there wouldn't even be a necessity to have an abortion.

But, I'm also biased from a lot of personal things happening in my life which make me view parenthood and raising a family one of the most important, most sacred thing people can do. I hope I can be there, too, one day.

Yeah, I was afraid to mention it because it's "spoilers", but it's a decades old book. I have to be re-read Dune, I've almost forgotten everything about it.

The issue of abortion is complex, it's why black and white doesn't work well, and it's an issue beyond just individuals. Well, at least I can agree with that.

I think we all have our own biases, and I'll go in length about them:

I've seen an account of an older woman who remembered seeing her father to plead doctors to save his wife since her pregnancy was killing her, and they only decided to go ahead with the abortion when the Jewish doctor threatened to leave the hospital for forcing "Christian" values on what was supposed to be a secular hospital (Diana Miller was the name). It's not an uncommon story, and is repeated in different media.

My personal experience was a former classmate who got pregnant by her useless boyfriend, and her zealot, abusive, piece of shit parents threatened to retaliate if she got an abortion (even when it was legal). The 'wonderful' community then shit-talked her and was cruel to her, and she was left to struggle, because those judgemental enough to hate abortion are also judgemental about single parents. Men and women, as you say. I still don't like a lot of former classmates because of that. I remembered she was very nice and kind, and unfortunately that made her easy to push around. She's doing as well as she can now, but it was tough.

Funny thing is that may contribute to why I don't like the religious, dislike a lot of ideologues, believe that communities have a responsibility and have a special contempt for virtue signalers, since a lot of former classmates then either went on to preach conservative or progressive values (hypocrites). And this was just with me being a former classmate, someone's who more of an observer than anything, no idea how it would be for those who are close and affected.

Abortion is a right, I don't like people being flippant about this. People's lives are important as well, and the lives of girls can be upended by the issue of abortion, it's not a place for easy moralization. That's all I want to say.

I guess this is the danger with abortion becoming personal, it can become emotionally manipulative very easily.

In fact, the person who said that the conversation was relatively civil on the Roe vs Wade specific page was right. Accusations of murder and abuse are too easy.

Bene tleilaz werent a seperate species, merely humans with gnarly gene tech.

Dune doesnt have aliens except the worms (maybe) just a definition of humans that is becoming ever more blurry.

There are only 6 books. Fite me.

With the way the Bene Tleilax modified themselves, were they even of the same species, let alone human? One part of their horror was that they had turned people into biological machines. The navigators also straddled the line on humanity.

To quibble, we also call aliens people from different countries, and most of our states and cultures have had contact with each and live on the same rock. Dune is completely out-there, I'd say even the 'Aliens' of Star Trek are more people with different philosophies than outright different cultures, or alien societies.

One concept of Dune was also that if you go far enough in the future humanity's culture would become completely alien to us, especially when they've lived on different planets.

Sequels by different authors are fanfic.

That's an interesting read since it, among other things, would postulate that humanity has an intrinsic tendency towards organized holy war

Dont get me wrong, I am not like a huge fan of abortion either as it can often be treated like its just a harmless little thing when every single surgical operation can kill you, having multiple abortions can be as or more self destructive than smoking. But unlike smoking you are also kind of playing god. I believe it should be legal I just dont think its always healthy thing to do.

Is just that the idea that is murder and that due to it being murder it should be always illegal that is completely baffling to me. Like you can critize abortion without taking such a drastic and… at least to me…less melodramatic stance as calling it murder.

Yeah….uhm…dont fucking do that…please…. we dont need another Taliban

The girlbossification of abortion has only ever been detrimental to the entire discussion. It's a ridiculous distraction for those in favor of it, and an easy target for those against it.

Also RE your other post:
I don't really see your point tbh, but I don't see Kirk's either. Yeeting religion back into schools doesn't seem like something that would really help root out the small handful of weirdos and predators in the system. There's much more effective options, such as full transparency of curriculum, and perhaps taking some looks into how teacher's unions seem to like to defend convicted predators…

I thought this was satire untill I saw who made the post

>Yeeting religion back into schools doesn't seem like something that would really help root out the small handful of weirdos and predators in the system

'Cause that's not the point. It's an excuse for theocrats to get into power, to have their own little fiefdoms. You think big churches and small cults have ever stopped fucking kids? When has there even been an increase in transparency in the past few years…

It's why I mocked the refrain of "think of the children", because it's such old bullshit. One would think we're back in the 2000's what with Russia also recycling "they'll greet us as saviors" line. I heavily disagreed with Chewybunny's rationale that it's a good move to support the school book censorship (over 1,000-2,000 books now, that's not justifiable) because 'supporting parents would help with the midterms'. You'll find that fundamentalists don't respect the idea that everyone should have their own rights, and there won't be any sympathy for betraying values for an electoral win.

Just as the left will/has regretted enabling Islamists and extremists, those in the right will regret giving oxygen to religious fundamentalists and their extremists.

'll like to point out that I don't think there's any credibility for any pretense of 'justice' in the US. Bush and his cronies got away scot-free, almost no one's in jail for Epstein and some criminals from Blackwater were pardoned very recently, and who have a shit? With aerie there was even a bit a month ago on the overreach of a prosecutor going after a Texas Women who lost a pregnancy, and which even the DA admitted was going too far.

"Herrera’s husband -- who filed for divorce on the same day as her arrest -- is being represented by a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest."

Any semblance of justice seems to be because the perpetrator is too small or it's politically convenient…

The pyre of books done by a backwoods Church just seems rather symbolic now with recent events.

Two priests of two relgions, pointing thier fingers at eachother and shouting in unison: "they cant be indoctrinating kids, that's my job!"

CRT is about analyzing racial power structures. The "trans ideology" is what allows trans youth to feel comfortable and to move out of the closet. This guy is convinced holding him accountable is an act of violence, and that transgenderism is an ideology instead of an identity. What a deranged radical. I hope he gets his ideology voted out of office

Greyblades sorta took the words out of my mouth with this one; the concern isn't over indoctrination itself, but over whose right it is to do it. And indeed, this is a sort of religious conflict, just with the catch that one of the involved "religions" is much more secular.

It's not a good move to support the whole of this current wave of books being banned from school, but it would also be ill-advised to completely reject it; many of the books initially removed from school libraries really were inappropriate, be they because of not-so-subtle racism, positive depictions of sex between an adult and a minor, or, perhaps, just being really, really stupid.

And this whole thing really strikes me as a stronger "return to sender" of a previous wave of schools banning books. One of the many, many things to happen back in 2020 was that some books (mainly Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, but there were others IIRC) were being either removed from curriculum or removed from schools entirely on the grounds of racism. It didn't end up going much further than this, though, because of, well… it was 2020, there wasn't any time to focus on a moral crusade against books in schools. It could also be seen as a sort of reaction to some sporadic attempts to dilute or remove "the classics" from colleges, which were put under fire for being "too white" and thus needed to be saved from "whiteness".

Which I suppose loops this back around to how this is a religious conflict: many of these left-wing types speak of "whiteness" and related terms as Bible-thumpers do of the devil. That is, as an ill-defined evil behind everything they either don't like or don't understand, and the only way to "save" society is to reorganize it to cater to their every interest. I guess it's comforting to know, then, that these people aren't very numerous, just very loud. And not very smart.

https://www.azmirror.com/blog/gop-senate-candidate-blake-masters-wants-to-allow-states-to-ban-contraception-use/

WTF NO! That is the most stupid ban I have ever heard! (Also again we dont need another Taliban)

Ironically, "To Kill a Mockingbird" was also banned under the current effort in some schools. I think that's a good enough sign that a 'religious fight' won't save anyone. Focusing on your opponent to the detriment of one's own values is a defeat in itself, so I don't want this to shift too much to the discussion of the left, because it doesn't change the deal made with fundamentalists.

"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."- Barry Goldwater

Look I recall something like that bit of American Left stupidity after the murder of Samuel Paty, where a lot of the American left-wing went on the attack against France afterwards, blaming laïcité (secularity, so it's not as if that's respected by any of the US). They justified it, said we deserved the terrorist attacks (meaning both the American Right and left have now wished terrorist attacks). Even Macron and his government went against the "woke culture" because of that I suspect, and yet the extreme religious weren't used against them. You don't need to start on another book banning spree to fight the "woke", especially since now even more books have been banned.

Having banned books reach the 4 digits is absurd, this is the point where it's not about countering anyone, it's just using others to excuse one's own agenda.

>return to sender

A pro-life group was firebombed recently. An argument could be made it's return to sender with the amount of clinics firebombed and the efforts of the pro-life in politics. What would you think of someone who made that argument? I'd think it's self destructive and wrongheaded.

Firebombs are more extreme than a fight on curriculum, but the tendency to justify the actions by citing the opposite party is probably the biggest reason for the degradation of the political atmosphere.

Even in the PC 90s, the majority of banning and in a wider context "Cancelling" came from the right. There was the combination of the lingering satanic panic as well as the beginning of the culture wars, a concerted and intentional move by the Republican Party. This struck at not just alternative views from socialism to "maybe gay people are people" but the most famous example, Huck Finn, was attacked by the right as well for, essentially, cursing. The outrage wars over 'taking the lords name in vain' and the word "asshole" was, and is, decades of pure crystal idiocy.

I think we also must bring into account differing views about what exactly went on. There were the deliberate banning attempts based on ideology, but the neolibs and nascent neocons were also attacking any media that attacks the status quo.

They now want to change TV ratings, calling shows like The Loud House and She-Ra 'hyper-sexualized'.

JFC

Looks like homophobia but with a "groomer" label attached.

LGBT people: Exist.

GOP Republicans: Your entire existence is nothing but sex!

And though I joke, I'd actually find it an honor to be compared to Takeshi:

They're so brainwashed by their cult that they believe being anything but straight is a fetish

Hey Y'all! I'm gonna interrupt whatever conversations you guys are having for a few seconds to break this news to you: COVID Omicron is now in North Korea!
IIRC, North Korea just shot their COVID patient so it didn't spread during the initial pandemic, but looks like Omicron sank its fangs into North Korea now!

My advice to you is to immediately go out and buy some popcorn, cause this is gonna be fun!

Well, you came into talks of the ongoing culture war. I've said before that I hated culture wars, but I guess that was before recent news of overturning Roe vs Wade, book bannings and burnings and calling homosexuals pedophiles. The issue is outright existential for those affected.

Looks like even the hermit kingdom didn't get away from Corona. Russia is supposed to have lost the same amount of people as the US with 1/3 of the population, China's starving their cities and all the little dictatorships of the world is suffering, as have the democracies.

This is some bitter schadenfreude, because odds are there may be another mutation.

Between brain drain, and ongoing slow drip of political and economic refugees, and the disaster that was Operation Infektion 2: Oh shit it backfired again, the population west of the Urals may not be able to keep their federation together.

And they still somehow managed to corrupt themselves into a severe housing crisis

So the Buffalo guy's manifesto got out and it's one long pile of white supremacist brainrot.

Carlson, /pol/, Shapiro, this is on you. The deaths of Black innocents are on you, who blame the misery of their white conservative audience upon the existence of Black people in white spaces.

Look at him go,

All the dignity and restraint of Jason Russell in san diego.

Oh boy, it's that tired classic: blindly pinning the blame for a tragedy on people and groups that you don't like. Voodoo homicide, if you will.

You need to get more creative, man. The anti-nuclear lobby caused the beheading of a teacher in France. The "Electric Soldier Porygon" seizures were caused by the gay frog chemicals. Live a little with your conspiracy theories.

Leave Samuel Paty out of this would you? We know what motivated the fanatic who killed him, and looking at this Buffalo guy's manifesto that were reported, it looks loke we got the motive for his killings: "replacement theory".

I hate the gut of Islamists for trying to justify or play down the attack of Samuel Paty, like you two are. Want to conserve your dignity, if you two even have any? Desist from using this white supremacist (is it a conspiracy theory to say that now) as your hill to die on.

This guy glows so hard, he didn't even put effort into his manifesto and literally just copied parts written by the NZ shooter.
I'm sure some will use this to push gun control agenda even though it happened in New York.

Funny, I was going to make a comment betting when someone would make their own conspiracy theory that it's a false flag, but I didn't even finish typing.

I despise the far-right on this site. I wouldn't be surprised if parts of this community were one of the places which radicalized the mass shooter.

Seriously, multiple accounts rushing to defend or distract, and I don't think anyone is even surprised. Why am I even still here?

A lot of you are just poor excuses as human beings, and likely of the same stripe as this mass shooter, and no comment or argument will ever change that.

Humans are genetically predisposed towards evil so this type of shit happens very often sadly.

It doesn't seem to take much to make people act immoral.

Will you shut up, man? This little meltdown of yours is hardly deserving of a rant, so I'll keep this somewhat short. Big's accusations are, in order: possible, but meaningless without anything to back it up; laughable; and hilarious. 4chin is a tired bogeyman, especially since /pol/ hasn't been relevant for six years, and Ben Shapiro is a goon who picks on college students even dumber than he is.

Wanna know what we do know, though? He didn't consider himself inspired by any of those three. He considered Brenton Tarrant and Anders Breivik his inspirations. Both of whom became infamous for engaging in high-profile acts of terror with ethnoreligious motivations (and the former also wanted his acts to trigger extreme responses from governments, but I digress).

You're a dishonest, hypocritical scoundrel with no principles who has the audacity to accuse others of being "likely of the same stripe" as this guy just because not everyone is quite as dedicated to blindly worshiping your (metaphorical) gods as you are. How immature must you be to think that anyone who disagrees too harshly with you must be innately "evil" in some way, lest they wouldn't differ.

Even if we're not all from the States, this site certainly reflects the nature of the extreme partisan divide here.

I'm pretty sure that it isn't too schizo to assume that /pol/, where they peddle Great Replacement Theory, and Tucker Carlson who is a major television personality who has spread theories of a conspiracy against ''white americans'' could contribute to a climate that encourages mass shootings like this.

Please reconsider. The US government is capable of enacting atrocities yes but on it's own soil? Killing ten people? In the age of rapid information sharing? The scale of conspiracy needed to both accomplish this and keep it a secret is astronomical; and the repercussions should it come to light? It's not worth it.

Cruel people do cruel things.

I'm no expert- far from- but the people who are looking at massive immigration to the western world and screaming about "replacement" are, I believe, looking at the solution to an actual problem: population decline and the growing social security crisis.
It is a fact that many western nations, the U.S. included, and eastern nations such as China and Japan, have had some the the lowest birthrates in years, and with an aging population comes a strain on the social securities/pensions/etc which need to be distributed; and with a lack of people replacing those that are retiring, the resources propping up social securities/pensions/etc are diminishing.
This is a long term, difficult problem, and opening a nation's borders to immigration is a short term, easy solution.
One can look at China or Japan in the next decade or so and see what a failure to either relax immigration policies or raise birth-rates is likely going to result in.

Ah yes, everything that would make the right look bad is obviously a conspiracy
just like you said about the abortion leak

Murdering foreigners is no solution. Taking better care of our people by giving them the time and resources they need to start and take care of their families is how it's done, and that can happen if we tax the rich

I'll do you one better: In the domain of all real possible problems and it's corresponding set of all real possible solutions, the element murdering foreigners does not exist. Society as it is now does need some manner of rejuvenation; to make having kids and raising a family a worthwhile endeavor. Getting the grotesquely wealthy to pay for social programs might work, but actually getting them to do it is another matter. Foreign banks exist; tax havens exist; the wealthy will find ways to secure that wealth and if they find themselves incapable? Well, they have the wealth to up and relocated. Now the US has demonstrated that not even the wealthy are completely immune: the Russian oligarchs certainly have found themselves in a spot of bother with the sanctions, but we have to remember where these sactions come from and whose pockets these "representatives of the people" are in. If Trump was right on one thing and one thing only, it's that our political swamp needs draining; until then, criminals will always get away and take the prospects of a good future with them.

I'm tired, man. I'm tired.

We're all tired, man. I feel for you.