It’s a staging area for the US that’s very close to China, so there’s that reason strategically. But really, there’s not a lot of reason to which is why they haven’t done so already. China is, as far as I’m aware, perfectly happy with the traditional US approach towards Taiwan, a policy of “strategic ambiguity” that doesn’t officially recognize Taiwan as independent (while informally supporting them) and which has kept the peace for many decades. China does not gain much from provoking a military confrontation with the US, as things stand, China is winning the peace through economic development while the US is going all in on the military. By maintaining the status quo, China can leave the issue open and kick the can down the road, maintaining the possibility that someday in the future they may be in a strong enough position to press the issue.

Even still, China now has its own academia and engineering, and is larger than Taiwan. Hence, even without the corporate espionage mainland China is known for, wouldn’t investing in their burgeoning semiconductor industry make more sense, rather than spending that money on war?

That’s exactly what they’ve been doing. That article mentions that they’ve actually recruited 3000 engineers from Taiwan’s chip industry to help develop their own chips.

Yet while taking Taiwan would mean access to deep-water ports, it’s not as though Taiwan would ever pose a threat to Chinese power projection—their stance is wholly defensive. If China decided to pull an “America” and send a carrier to the Middle East or something, no one would stop them and risk a war.

Taiwan’s stance is defensive, but the same isn’t necessarily true of the US, which operates in Taiwan. The US has recently started throwing around rhetoric and shifting spending focuses towards treating a hot war with China as a serious possibility, insane as it may be. This is (hopefully) just bluster to justify defense spending, but I’m not at all convinced that if China sent a carrier to the Middle East, the US would not retaliate. If anything, they’re looking for a reason.

It’s sad because for most people school is about the only time anybody cares enough about your thoughts to actually read an essay and respond to it intelligently.

I specifically disabled my watch history to get this. If I want to watch something, I’ll go to my subscriptions. Why would I want to interact with YouTube’s algorithm?

You’re absolutely valid and not overreacting. Unfortunately, depending on where you live, you might not have many other options - but if you can look into other modes of transportation you should.

Driving is dangerous, and not everyone is cut out for it. The great thing about public transit is that it’s much safer and less stressful, it doesn’t demand focus and attention - and that benefits drivers too, because it means fewer bad drivers will feel like they have to drive and it reduces traffic in general.

It all comes down to what the alternative is. If your alternative to driving is relying on others to drive you places, it’ll reduce your independence or be expensive (if you use rideshares). But if the alternative is biking or taking a train, then by all means go for it. There’s lots of reasons cars suck, danger, stress, insurance, gas, traffic, pollution, lots of reasons to look into other options.

It does not. Where?

Tbf, the article should probably mention the fact that machine learning programs designed to play chess blow everything else out of the water.

Thank you, brainfart on my part.

tl;dr Because that’s communism.

Let’s look at the history of labor movements in the US.

At first, yeah, you started with a pretty broad cross section of society (the Knights of Labor, for example), as well as some more radical elements. Then you had the Haymarket Affair, where people were protesting for an 8-hour work day, and the cops started killing protesters, and someone (possibly a provocateur) threw a bomb at the cops. The press went wild with it and it kicked off a red scare where many labor organizations kicked out and distanced themselves from Anarchists and Marxists.

Fast forward to the Great Depression, and you’ve got a new wave of radicalization because people are seeing the failures of capitalism, and that led to the New Deal. There was another red scare as the US and USSR became rivals, and that served as “the stick,” while the New Deal policies served as “the carrot.” The labor movement once again distanced itself from the more radical elements on the promise of a cooperative government. All the communists, who were more concerned with a broad movement of solidarity, got kicked out of groups like the AFL-CIO, and the unions were considered acceptable because they were (at least to a degree) narrowly self-interested.

These unions flourished in the 50’s, 60’s, and early 70’s, during this post-New Deal, Great Society era. They weren’t necessarily the most inclusive, but they worked well for their members. However, in the 70’s an economic phenomenon emerged that was termed, “Shrink Stagflation” - a period of high inflation and high unemployment at the same time. The Keynesian economic model (which had had a broad consensus up until that point) said that you deal with unemployment by having the government spend more money, and then when unemployment drops, you reduce spending to avoid inflation. It didn’t have a clear answer for what to do when both were high at once, that wasn’t really supposed to happen.

The Carter administration made the decision to focus on inflation instead of unemployment, which screwed over the labor unions. But this was a broad bipartisan consensus among the Washington elites, and when Carter was replaced by Reagan, he did the same and pushed it further. Under this new paradigm of “supply side economics,” people’s identities as consumers was emphasized over their identity as workers. Even having purged radical elements and having become relatively toothless, unions were vilified and blamed for making goods expensive, and they didn’t really have the power to do much about it.

Question of economics were increasingly moved outside of the realm of public accountability and influence, being left to “experts” and both parties having broad agreement about things, but we still had to vote over something, and so we had the emergence of the culture war. Around the 90’s you had some rather boring presidents and debates, because it was the height of “the end of history,” where there was this idea that all the big questions and conflicts had been resolved and it was just a question of little tweaks here and there.

However, in the 2000’s, as it became clear that conditions were declining and the wealth gap was growing, there has been a new wave of radicalization, on both the right and the left, which started to really manifest in 2016. But it is very much in its infancy, without a lot of experience or strength. It’s been over 40 years since we had strong unions (and even those ones were defanged). Now, we’re fighting against entrenched anti-union and anti-worker policies, practices, and beliefs. And progress is being made, but it’s a long, uphill battle, and a lot of it is young people figuring things out from scratch.

Humans are the ones who produce the things needed for a higher quality life. The problem is the 1% of humans at the top who steal the goods everyone else makes, not the majority of humans who contribute to making the world a better place.

1. Yes, I have in fact heard that term, which is exactly why I know that anecdotal evidence is not valid.

2. What does invalid evidence add to the discussion, exactly?

3. There are people in this thread who are arguing for legislation restricting ownership of pitbulls. We are in the court of public opinion, which may be less formal than the supreme court, but still has the capacity to influence public policy. So it seems reasonable to apply a very basic standard of evidence, above that of stuff that random people claim happen to their friend’s roommate.

And even with this personal evidence, you get defenders downvoting the story

I think you and I have different ideas about what the word “evidence” means. A story told by a random user about something that happened to their friend’s roommate is not really something I consider or weigh heavily when evaluating things. There could be relevant details omitted from the story, or it could be invented whole cloth, in any case, it isn’t statistically significant.

Hey, I agree with you, a two state solution isn’t viable (albeit for the opposite reason, that Isreal is a beligerant, expansionist, genocidal state that should not exist). Now, as a “leftist,” I’m sure that you’d agree that, if everyone’s going to be part of the same state, then of course everyone should have equal rights, including voting rights, correct? You want every Palestinian to have the same voice in government that Israeli citizens do, right?

Or is it that when you call for a one state solution, what you mean is that you want to continue denying them rights within your own state while also preventing them from having their own state? To seize their territory and then have them remain as second class citizens who are denied fundamental human rights? For your race to reign dominant over others?

You don’t need to answer, I think we all know the answer to that question, fascist.

And I’m not a fan of Zionazis trying to pass themselves off as “leftists” while supporting genocide and apartheid, but here we are.

Yeah, I see where you’re coming from. I mean, I’m also 100% a leftist, I’m extremely left on most issues, but I also just don’t get why so many people are opposed to this one particular state.

I mean, people always talk about the whole conflict with Germany starting in 1939, but you really have to consider that those wars happened because they were reclaiming territory like the Danzig Corridor that belonged to them historically. They even tried giving territory back to France by setting up the Vichy Republic. And it was the communists and partisans going around trying to stir up a class war who really started things, we had to put them in camps for the sake of security. And I feel bad for any innocent people caught up in it, but it just feels like nobody extends the same concerns to the German civilians the government is trying to protect. At the end of the day, if the Reichstag Fire hadn’t happened, none of this would be happening.

Oh! My mistake, it seems I mixed up the names of some countries and events there. You’re totally right though, if those people didn’t want to get massacred and starved, they shouldn’t have tried to resist your political project and/or had homes in places you wanted to forcibly seize. You know, this is just like what I’m always saying, “It’s your own fault you got slapped, because you shouldn’t have resisted.” I mean, that’s what leftism is all about, amirite?

And this right here is why anyone remotely on the left should be pushing back against this “tankie” nonsense, because if .ml gets defederated, dbzero will be the new tankies (even though it’s an anarchist instance lmao) and if they get defederated, who knows, maybe it’ll be .ee next, and so on until you can’t say, “I’m voting democrat, but it kinda seems like Biden’s in poor health” without getting called a tankie (though I’m pretty sure that already happened lol).

We’re basically the tanks (lmao) pulling aggro away from more moderate leftists.

More personal attacks, because it’s all you’ve got. Funny how I’m the one criticizing civility fetishism but I’ve been considerably more civil this conversation than you have. Maybe you should try practicing what you preach.

Also funny that you think you understand Marx, who famously called for, “Ruthless criticism of everything that exists” as if Karl Marx would be clutching pearls over me calling out Jonathan Haidt.

What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!).

Absent your attempts to make it insulting and pathological, that’s called passionately opposing injustice. Being dispassionate is not inherently more “sane” or “reasonable,” having emotions is human and some things should provoke emotional reactions.

But of course, in reality, my response was quite calm and well reasoned, presenting plenty of evidence to support my points. You’re the one who can’t keep pace with that and have to resort to these petty insults in an attempt to discredit me, because you’re incapable of a logical response.

Are you saying that in an attempt to insult/discredit me in some way? Yes, I’m neurodivergent, and proud of it. I’m also correct on the points I made (save for mixing up Haidt and Chait, as I owned up to).

When you can’t refute any of the other person’s points, just call them crazy 🙄

Seems like you’re contributing to hostile online discourse with all these insults you keep hurling at me. I’m just trying to have a conversation.

Jesus christ, it’s like you read the headline and desperately wanted to provide supporting evidence.

Well, yes. First off because it’s funny. Several other people in the thread thought so and made the same joke.

But also, yes, because I despise civility fetishism, and I also despise Haidt for being a transphobic shitlib. And obviously, the two are connected, the reason Haidt is whining about civility is that he got bullied on Twitter for his transphobia and he wants to be able to shit on trans people without suffering any kind of social reprecussions.

It’s funny how you baselessly assert “this has absolutely nothing to do with trans rights” as if just saying it somehow makes it true, like some kind of magic spell. I wonder, would you say the same thing if it was a more prominent transphobe like JK Rowling calling out hostility in internet discourse? What if it was someone like, say, Charlie Kirk, or even Richard Spencer? Are you a true civility fetishist who takes issue with bullying bigots, or is it that you’re only ok with bigotry when it’s directed towards trans people? Idk, seems worth investigating.

But, you know, maybe civility fetishism isn’t so bad. Maybe it’s me who’s wrong, I’m just a crazy radical, and I need to be more like MLK.

First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”

Huh, kinda seems like he saw tension disrupting the peace as being necessary towards pushing towards justice in equality in an unjust status quo. But maybe MLK is too radical too. You know who I need to be more like? Jesus. That’s right, I’m turning over a new leaf and I’ve decided to be more Christlike.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

Huh. Kinda seems like even Jesus agreed that social change necessarily involved creating conflict, or bringing conflicts to the forefront, in order to address injustice.

But ok, let’s ignore them (maybe the world would just be a better place if assholes like them would shut up some times and stop blasting their toxicity all over the world) and look at the actual, present day reality. When exactly was internet discourse supposedly more civil? Let’s compare to, say, 10 years ago, 2015. Before #MeToo so you don’t have to worry about women calling people out for sexual assault and causing division, but it’s also in the middle of Gamergate, so you know, really not a great time to be a woman on the internet, but I guess if you were a cishet white man, things were pretty peaceful and harmonious. You also didn’t have a bunch of people calling out the bombs going to the Middle East, of course, we were still bombing civilians en masse, but I guess if you were a cishet white man, things were pretty peaceful and harmonious.

You know when discourse was really at it’s peak? The 1950’s. Before all these radicals started calling for civil rights or spreading division against things like bombing Vietnam or Korea, just an all around wonderful time, a Leave it to Beaver paradise, you know, just so long as you’re a cishet white man.

At some point, obviously, you have to draw the line. And I’ve simply drawn it a little bit further than you have.