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Joined 5 months ago
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Cake day: April 18th, 2024

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  • What is “dumb”? What is “intelligence”?

    I think, as long as people have normally functioning brains, it is possible for them to understand. And I think nurturing critical thinking is an important aspect of how to approach this.

    You can absolutely present a complicated topic to someone who isn’t educated in that field, or even has low education at all, if you are being humble about how you explain it and try to meet them at eye-level.

    You don’t need to give definitive answers, you may give recommendations, but you can always explain a bit and note that there is also a lot more to it than what you explained and that one must take care before making some further conclusions.
    Interested people in your audience then have some first basis and grasp of a topic and can take it up on themselves to dive deeper; for example, by asking questions or finding further sources (you might refer them to these).


  • Sometimes a common error, as people just have a rather ordinary interpretation on the meaning of the word “theory” and sometimes it’s an intentional attempt of discrediting.

    Words can mean different things in different contexts. A scientific theory is not the same as the general or ordinary every-day meaning of “theory”.

    Classic example and mistake by followers of creationist religions: “evolution is just a theory”.

    Well, what if I told you, that, for example, our modern electronic means of communication are part of the wide field of “information theory”?






  • i don’t need to present an alternative to glueing yourself to things….

    I’ve had this kind of talk a lot of times. And when it actually comes to “those alternatives”, which critics say activists should pursue instead, one common reaction is silence, as they are lacking ideas about those.
    I’ll leave you with that.

    the jury is not out on that…

    As far as I know, it is. If there are new studies, which I don’t know of and which come to a clear conclusion, I’d be thankful if you could link them here.

    and i don’t really care about your opinions pretending like you’ve read research about how effective gluing yourself to things it….

    Well, that’s your decision. If you don’t believe in facts, then don’t. But then it’s not surprising if people call you out on that, if you don’t provide proof for your position.
    If you’re interested – which you don’t seem to be – I’ll happily share the studies, historical examples, reports and surveys I’ve collected on that topic.

    it’s honestly pretty fucking evil of you to promote it.

    I didn’t promote it. Maybe you can explain what gave you the impression?

    nobody should hurt themselves to spread your political message.

    I agree that nobody should hurt themselves. Although I can understand if people see themselves driven to such measures out of desperation and/or in order to prevent worse.
    Regarding that activist group “Letzte Generation”, I couldn’t find any reports about injuries due to glueing.

    Also I wonder where you get the “your political message” from as I didn’t make any statement about my political stance on that.


  • Compared to other religions, I understand that take, if we neglect stuff like not living up to their own doctrine of, e.g., equal rights between women and men, or the Khalistan movement, which has caused death and abused human rights on several occasions, also by killing civilians.

    Still, as most organized religions, it became emergent as a tool of mass control and subjugation. Moral behaviour is not formed by critical thought and self-reflection, but by devotion to some mysterious higher power. Which is and always has been a core issue of problematic behaviour we can so often observe today with religious people. A side-effect is that it has the danger of hindering progress and societal evolution by having a creationism as one of it’s core teachings, as far as I know.

    A further form of subjugation, hindering freedom of individual human (and harmless) expression, can be found among the Kakkars. For example the “dress-code” with having uncut hair, cotton undergarments etc…

    I could go on. So to make it short, no, religions are usually detrimental for the long term constructive development of humanity and Sikhism is no exception.


  • a. self-mangling is a good way to discourage sympathy or participation b. disrupting a bunch of random travelers, and actually endangering them […] not helpful in getting sympathy for the cause… just press coverage… which will be mostly negative. […]
    it’s so fucking stupid and counter productive

    The jury is still out on that. I’ve found research and surveys pointing in both directions. The positive and negative effects of such forms of protest are not sufficiently studied yet. Also historically, there are good examples for both.

    Therefore, I wouldn’t judge yet.

    actually endangering them because planes are in the air and need to land

    From what I know about that activist group, they always ensure safety. On street blockages, they make room for ambulances, they also inform emergency services.
    I haven’t looked it up for this case, but I can imagine, that they considered this.
    I think, planes usually have enough fuel to land at another airport for such cases. There are emergency protocols for stuff like that anyway. So no one is really endagered here. Just inconvenienced.

    c. there are a lot more direct ways to cause disruption, and a lot more sympathetic, less self-harming tactics to get press coverage

    What do you have in mind?

    e. did i mention it even fucks up the activists physically!!!

    Not really though.
    Despite that, every member knows the risk. They know what they are doing. They are not stupid and think about such protest actions thoroughly.






  • I don’t think that this makes it wrong. As I see it, the meaning of your advice is to prioritize self-care over work. It surely helps with mental and physical health. And I think this also applies to people saving lifes of others like medical doctors. They are also still people, they can also suffer from that kind of work. And I always prefer a doctor who thinks about getting enough sleep and quality time in life over someone who drives themselves mad and makes themselves sick by burdening the whole world on their shoulders.

    If they can’t help themselves, how can they help me?
    Or, 101 of car crashes, first save yourself before you attempt to save others.

    There are also others who help. It’s not one single person’s job to save everyone.