Most people will not put their time and energy into running an instance which is destined to become a fascist playground with policies like those. You might not like it but in this real world that we are all forced to live in, that is what those policies lead to.
You can get involved in protests to try to make them pay attention. You can write letters to your representatives and prospective candidates. You can ask good questions at town halls. You can campaign for good candidates.
Voting is the least important thing you can do. Ultimately you have no choice but to vote for the least worst option but if that’s the only thing you ever do, you’re helping to bury all of us.
It’s true that wartime produces massive leaps forward in all sorts of technology. And the military does use and abuse soldiers (of all sexes) for research. But patients involved in medical research are almost always ordinary people, recruited by their doctors. And we’ve only been doing medical research properly since the 1970s, after the thalidomide scandal happened. The first randomised controlled trial was conducted in 1948.
Most trials avoid recruiting pregnant women, despite the fact that if the trials are successful the treatments will be used in pregnant women (unless known to be mutagenic from animal studies) without any testing at all.
And many trials exclude women because of the risk of pregnancy, or hormonal fluctuations making it more complicated to interpret results (despite hormonal fluctuations in men being just as wild but much less predictable).
I know you feel hard done by. But your perspective is warped. We still have medical professionals debating whether the female orgasm exists, FFS.
We did without one for ten years but bought a 12 year old hybrid last year because some essential journeys became impossibly unreliable and expensive by public transport (thanks to entirely deliberate government action).
We did have to hire cars occasionally before that to get stuff to the tip and for rare trips that couldn’t be done by public transport.
It doesn’t get used for trips we can still do by bus or bike but train prices for the routes we use have doubled since the pandemic and, if both of us are travelling, it’s often just not financially feasible any more.
We live where we live because public transport is excellent here (and are fortunate enough to have a choice). But the trains are no longer a realistic option a lot of the time.
Considering how rapidly the right’s “war on woke” is expanding, it was perhaps inevitable: Self-identified “mama bears” on a Texas school board are angry that a classroom had a poster showing people of different races holding hands. Last week, the school board in Conroe, Texas, a small city north of Houston, turned the...
You’re only letting them have it if you also let them define it. They are anti-woke. Woke (aware of structural injustice) is not a bad thing to be. 90% of the population has every reason to be woke because 90% of the population is subject to structural injustice. But far too many have been distracted by the idea that some other fucked-over group has it better than them, or gains consolation from not being quite at the bottom of the pile.
It’s a neat trick but so easy to expose. And one of the simplest ways to expose it is to make them spell out what they think it means.
I take your point about language. It is important to say “racist” when you mean “racist”.
But they’re also targeting LGBTQ+ people and women, and any other group they can use to distract attention from the fact that billionaires are robbing us blind lest they lose one tiny drop of power.
So, in this case, “anti-woke” is a perfectly reasonable term to use. Not least because if we want to destroy these fuckers, it will take every single one of us making common cause, not fighting about who gets top billing.
This is about racism but it is about racism because it is about power. Power protecting itself by throwing everyone else under the bus. “Look! Over there! The poor people have all your money!”
We cannot defeat them by retreating into identity siloes. Obviously, we all have different specific battles to fight but they’re all the same war. Against fascism. We do need a language that acknowledges that.
If you’d read the article, you’d know that it is not all it is.
If you have, in fact, read the article, read it again. To the end. Maybe take in some of its links too.
This is not ‘just’ a racist tantrum. It is a billionaire-funded fascist takeover. Lazily dismissing them won’t work. People need to start turning up to school board meetings to outnumber these fucking psychopaths. Even if no one is paying them to do it.
Yes, that is a fair point and one I’d missed a bit from your original post. I appreciated the scare quotes in the article but you’re not wrong.
That said, I don’t know if you’re exactly right either. “Woke” was co-opted by the fash. I don’t think we should just let them have it. A good starting point is for every interlocutor to stop them and ask them to define the word every time they use it. The word is not the problem.
90% of the population are either too poor not to be suffering structural injustice, or are relatively well off but still too Black, too queer, too female,. Class and race cannot be separated. If we ignore the people who are struggling just because they’re blaming the wrong people for their struggles, fascism will win.
Because they want the content that only a huge platform can provide.
You don’t. That’s fine. The beauty of the Fediverse is you can choose an instance whose policies you like. You do not have to demand that everyone else has exactly the same preferences as you do.
I often go to some cities in Asia and sometimes will see someone who lives on the street. Many times they are sleeping during the day since it’s so hot and sometimes they look malnourished too. What would be the best foods I could provide them (assuming some restaurants or convenience stores are nearby) which would not spoil?
In a 14-page court petition, the former NFL star alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy never adopted him, instead tricking him into signing a document that gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name.
Everyone go buy his book, if you have the spends to spare: When Your Back’s Against the Wall. Let’s make it a best-seller and impossible for these parasites to slither away from the collective memory.
The thinktank said this meant that pay and conditions in the public sector were unlikely to drift too far apart from those in the private sector, because otherwise it would become increasingly difficult for the public sector to attract workers.
This seems naive when the Tories are in power and would love it if the public sector disappeared. And the opposition are determined not to oppose them at all.
“Crypto magnate Sam Bankman-Fried was scheduled to speak to a Stanford class this winter, The Daily has learned. The topic of the course? Tech ethics. Bankman-Fried wouldn’t have the opportunity to give that lecture, though — instead, before the winter quarter even began, he was placed under house arrest just a stone’s...
This still baffles me, but I guess it's good for federation? (i.imgflip.com)
Context: sh.itjust.works/comment/2181865
What simple changes should people do in their lives to make a positive impact on climate change?
I do believe the biggest impact would come from regulating large companies and billionaires, but it’s not one or the other.
Does anyone *not* love using their bidet?
I have occasional bathroom issues caused by food sensitivities (damn your delicious yet toxic nature, nacho cheese)....
‘Everything you’ve been told is a lie!’ Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline (www.theguardian.com)
Okay, be honest, how many of you actually have cars?
Upvote if you don’t have a car,...
Newest "anti-woke" tantrum: Right-wingers don't think kids of different races can be friends (www.salon.com)
Considering how rapidly the right’s “war on woke” is expanding, it was perhaps inevitable: Self-identified “mama bears” on a Texas school board are angry that a classroom had a poster showing people of different races holding hands. Last week, the school board in Conroe, Texas, a small city north of Houston, turned the...
Is saying "Don't need to know hebrew to know the Holocaust was bad" antisemetic?
A tankie told me that, and Im still trying to figure how on earth it is....
You can now verify your Threads profile on Mastodon (www.theverge.com)
On my Threads profile, I changed my featured link to be my Mastodon profile URL....
Any tips for men attempting to hide nipple piercings?
Thinking about having my nipples pierced. However, my main source of doubt is that it would be very visible when using a T-shirt…...
What foods would be best to give to someone living on the streets in a very hot/humid country?
I often go to some cities in Asia and sometimes will see someone who lives on the street. Many times they are sleeping during the day since it’s so hot and sometimes they look malnourished too. What would be the best foods I could provide them (assuming some restaurants or convenience stores are nearby) which would not spoil?
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'Blind Side' subject Oher alleges adoption was lie (www.espn.com)
In a 14-page court petition, the former NFL star alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy never adopted him, instead tricking him into signing a document that gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name.
Is energy access a human right? (mamot.fr)
A Mastodon poll is linked to the title.
Nearly 4m fewer UK working days in past year due to strike action, study says (www.theguardian.com)
cross-posted from: kbin.social/m/workreform@lemmy.world/t/339006...
S.B.F. is leaving campus. But Stanford’s ties to his case are deeper than previously known (stanforddaily.com)
“Crypto magnate Sam Bankman-Fried was scheduled to speak to a Stanford class this winter, The Daily has learned. The topic of the course? Tech ethics. Bankman-Fried wouldn’t have the opportunity to give that lecture, though — instead, before the winter quarter even began, he was placed under house arrest just a stone’s...