I think now that we’ve successfully prosecuted the Jan. 6th domestic terrorists, we can put this notion to rest.

Except that the feds had their kiddy gloves on for sentencing… Out of the thousands of people there only a small percentage have caught charges that drastically change their lives, and even then not to the point of treason nor terrorism charges.

We absolutely can and should go after these nutjobs threatening federal workers.

I agree, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. Not when the person who led them is still considered appropriate for the highest position in the land to half of the electorate.

Mainly because after the pr disasters of ruby ridge and then Waco, right winged militia’s grew in numbers, basically using the events as marketing materials.

Right winged grifters love it when they are confronted, it fulfills all their fantasies about the underdog standing up to authority, and proves in their minds that they were correct the whole time.

Since the American fascist movements have legitimized news organizations that will echo their claims, it’s extremely hard to actually crack down on them without turning them into Martyrs.

The end result has been the federal government putting right winged extremists on the back burner for the last 30 years, allowing them to fester into the infection we know and hate today.

and she’s definitely not touching herself for any other reason.

How dare you, the ancients weren’t tainted with the same levels of sexual proclivities found in modern society. They weren’t just grooming those boys because they just wanted to fuck them, they were engaging in pedagogy, not pedophilia! It’s why all my twink TA’s are underclassmen, someone must teach the youth. - every male art history teacher

One feels pain and has a brain.

There is no scientific consensus that invertebrates on the evolutionary scale of krill feel pain, and a ganglia isn’t exactly what passes as a brain in vertebrates.

That makes for a more complex creature which can feel more and experience the world more.

I think that’s highly reductive, especially considering that we continue to discover more and more about mushrooms. We already know that mushrooms are capable of learning, individual decision making, and have a short term memory.

We cant really make a qualified position of their complexity because we still don’t understand a lot about mushrooms.

To add to what the other two commenters mentioned, it’s about intent too.

I don’t actually think intent is really important to the moral equation. A species going extinct because of over hunting, and a species going extinct because of habitat destruction are pretty morally equivalent to me.

The animals that die in crop fields die regardless given that the corn harvested

Is that not the same reasoning people use to validate hunting?

then some - to feed other animals which you end up consuming. Thus, it’s fewer animals dying overall.

This is getting closer to the ethical imperative question I asked. So it seems that the ethical dilemma is based on preserving as much life as possible?

If so, would it be more ethical to eat the insect as a protein source rather than the soy beans they are feeding upon? If the insects as you say are going to be destroyed during the harvest, would it not be morally justified to gather and eat the insects before or after?

My point isn’t to be pedantic or actually implement anything we’ve talked about. I’m just pointing out the internal contradictions that occur in veganism. Not to try and sway anyone’s life choices, but to allow for people to understand that it’s logically imperfect, and to not let perfection be the enemy of good.

Accepting for the sake of discussion (but not generally) that hunting is “ethical”, hunting is also a privilege. We obviously cannot all eat hunted meat for survival. You’ve no doubt seen the figures.

The sheer variety of produce we currently experience is also an unsustainable privilege.

Eating something with palm oil is also a privilege, one that destroys natural habitats and leads to excess carbon being released to the atmosphere.

I’m not trying to equivocate the two, but the moral justification is similar.

Here’s our belief system: don’t kill or hurt animals as much as is possible.

Right, but by what is the ethical delineation between say a krill and a mushroom?

What is the difference between lesser evolved animals and highly evolved plants or microbes?

It just shows a lack of empathy towards other living beings is the way I see it.

What’s the moral basis of your ethical argument? Is it simply that all living beings deserve to live, or is it about preventing harm/pain?

The question is pretty simple when it’s asked about something like a mammal, but less so when you ask about something like a krill. Why does a krill have the same ethical weight as a mammal, and why wouldn’t that same moral imperative be applied to something like a mushroom?

Both are living beings, to our best knowledge both krill and mushrooms lack the ability to sensate pain as we understand it. Both can respond to stimuli in a way that tries to negate bodily harm.

I don’t eat meat because of my own beliefs, but I often see vegans propose that veganism isnt based on a belief system, rather that it’s logically conclusive. There are just too many internal contradictions for that to be true.

For example, as someone who grew up on farms… I think everyone would be surprised to know how many animals are killed collecting something like corn. I’ve spent more time than I would like clearing thousands of dead frogs from screens of combine harvesters. In my experience if every life is ethically similar, than something like hunting causes a lot less harm than harvesting an acre of corn or wheat.

Because this user will delete comments they don’t like. Not that I disagree with this particular statement.

However, I have responded to a specific question they had about the scientific understanding of animals and pain in a previous post, which they removed without responding to.

Removed by mod

My dude, nothing in that blog supports your claim.

First of all, it’s talking about the metallurgy of the 16th century and after, which is after Japan had imported blast furnaces. Secondly, it ignores the amount of labour needed to actually produce refined steel from iron sands, which ultimately dictates the quality of the finished product.

This isnt a debatable topic, any steel made from iron sands before modern electromagnetic sorting contains a large amount of impurities when compared to steel made from rock ore.

Even during WW2 the Japanese had a hard time producing high quality steel even with the use of blast furnaces, because the iron sands contains a large amount of titanium.

This blog which falls over itself trying to engage in revisionist history, can only claim that the quality was “perfectly fine”…not good.

That’s not true, no matter how many times you make that unsupported claim.

You are conflating the elemental molecule of iron with the finished product of an alloy of carbonized iron aka as steel.

Yes, there isn’t a molecular difference between the iron found in sand vs the iron found in rock ore. However, the medium in which you harvest your iron and how you’re able to heat that iron, dictates the quality not your final product.

Lol, my dude. No one is claiming that modern japanese steel is of poor quality.

Im speaking of the time period contemporary with the accusation. You know, how arguments typically work…

Do you think the guns Japanese Samurai used were made from steel refined from sand?

Just pointing out this one because it’s funny. Yes, a lot of the early firearms made in Japan were still made from iron sand (Satetsu). Which was the main source of iron in Japan until the 16th century.

According to whom?

The reason why Japanese iron is inferior is because of the source of the iron itself, they utilized iron sand instead of rock ore. Rock ore can be made up to 90% ferrous material while the iron sand contains as little as 2%.

This means when you smelt your source material into blooms of iron and slag, the blooms made from sand iron were much smaller. Instead of utilizing a single bloom to make a sword, the Japanese had to work several blooms together. Which is much more labour intensive, and can lead to a lot of imperfections in the final product.

This is why katanas were made out of so little material, and had to be handled with care. They were much more fragile pieces than similar swords made in Korea and China at the time.

Plus, the Japanese developed their iron working much later than their mainland contemporaries, as they never independently invented furnace technology. The technology for furnaces was imported, most likely from the Korean peninsula.

I think the first sentence is probably enough to make anyone not afflicted with a eurocentric brain want to palm some face.

I think excusing it as a “not serious” statement is dangerous, as a lot of people even on Lemmy won’t second guess it.

The belief that the west is the origin of all science and culture is surprisingly pervasive, especially in the tech industry.

This isn’t going to be accurate, it’s ignoring a key aspect of the heat that will be generated, friction. When designing materials for prosthetics we have to be aware of how much friction occurs between the material and skin. If the amount of friction is too great, the material can create enough heat to damage tissue.

The formula for the skin friction coefficient is cf=τw12ρeue2, where ρe and ue are the density and longitudinal velocity at the boundary layer’s edge.

You are using the people claiming there is a genocide as the source for the claim.

That’s typically how investigations work… There’s an accusation, and then an investigation to find evidence that supports the claim. They aren’t using people as a source for the claim, they’re using the evidence the people gathered.

You on the other hand seem to be focused on who gathered the information instead of what they gathered.

Welcomes** the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat’s delegation upon invitation from the People’s Republic of China; commends the efforts of the People’s Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and looks forward to further cooperation between the OIC and the People’s Republic of China.

This is anecdotal evidence from a political organization that has a well established history of ignoring the plight of specific Islamic ethnic minorities, including the Kurds in Syria and Turkey, the Ahwaz in Iran, the Hazaras in Afghanistan, the ‘Al-Akhdam’ in Yemen, and the Berbers in Algeria.

Over 50+ UN member states (mostly Muslim-majority nations)

Again, anecdotal evidence which does not detail the accusations, nor how their experience contradicts that accusation.

The World Bank sent a team to investigate in 2019 and found that, “The review did not substantiate the allegations.”

Using this as “evidence” is just academically dishonest. The “team” was a single bank manager, and the “investigation’s” scope was solely to insure that a 50m dollar loan for 3 different schools were not being used to commit crimes against humanity.

The bank claimed that the specific schools they investigated did not substantiate the allegations, however they found enough to decide they wanted to minimize the project.

“In light of the risks associated with the partner schools, which are widely dispersed and difficult to monitor, the scope and footprint of the project is being reduced. Specifically, the project component that involves the partner schools in Xinjiang is being closed.”

China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide

I think you are forgetting the accusations of the population control of an ethnic minority. “The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which lists birth prevention targeting an ethnic group as one act that could qualify as genocide.”

Comparative Analysis: The War on Terror

Again, a logical fallacy. Just because America has participated in genocide does not mean that China cannot also participate in genocide or crimes against humanity.

Who is driving the Uyghur genocide narrative

Another logical fallacy… You are attacking the man, not the evidence or argument.

He relies heavily on limited and questionable data sources, particularly from anonymous and unverified Uyghur sources, coming up with estimates based on assumptions which are not supported by concrete evidence.

The vast majority of the evidence he’s gathered for his peer reviewed study are gathered directly from public data released by the Chinese government. There have also been some data from a leaked cable, which have been validated by multiple investigative bodies of journalists across the world.

As materialists, we should always look first to the economic base for insight into issues occurring in the superstructure. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive Chinese infrastructure development project that aims to build economic corridors, ports, highways, railways, and other infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Xinjiang is a key region for this project.

This is a biased interpretation of materialism. A similarly biased claim based on materialism would be that the Belt and Roads initiative motivated china to ethnically cleanse a region vital to the initiative.

On a personal note, I don’t think the lable of genocide is really important. What is important is that an ethnic minority is being abused by a State. And while there is a lot of misinformation and politicing surrounding the topic, there’s still an alarming amount of data that suggest China is forcibly assimilating an ethnic minority group.

white supremacists who came up with the verbiage you don’t like in the room right now?

Nah, just their legacy…

no real reason to split hairs

Not ignoring one of the largest crimes against humanity = splitting hairs… Interesting.

don’t want to be associated with white people, I guess. I would call that racism honestly. Would you call that Asian supremacy?

You do realize you are the only person separating people based on skin color? My wife is German, I don’t hold her country’s past against her. But, if she was a Holocaust denier, or attempted to become a Nazi apologist, things would be different.

“OUR SLAVERY ISN’T AS BAD, AS THOSE YUCKY WHITES!”

The internalized guilt is strong with you…

I don’t know that Muslims are white tho… So that’s not very careful about language.

Islam is a religion you idiot, it’s not a race, or an ethnicity…Also, you are the only person legitimately utilizing skin color to categorize people. I don’t care what your pigmentation is, that’s not the thing that makes you a racist moron.

don’t generally split hairs on enslaving people to make a racist argument that my people are better in some way

We’re not talking about modern people, nor are we blaming modern people for their ancestors behaviour. We are examining the crimes historic people did to other historic people, which do vary in different degrees in scale and violence.

The racism you are accused of isn’t because of your people’s past, it’s because you are still utilizing the same racist classification system and justifications that led to their crimes in the first place.

would I prefer being an Asian woman being group raped by Asian men until death, would I rather be castrated and worked to death in persia, would I rather he worked to death an whipped on a plantation, would I rather be a house slave for the Ting (which by the way they said they were very nice to their slaves and I bet they was never a bad experience!), would I rather be a Chinese space to the Khan?

Lol, a lot of writing to admit you just don’t care about the suffering caused by chattel slavery in America. I didn’t claim that there weren’t horrific versions of slavery in east Asia, though you are exaggerating certain aspects. What I claimed is that there is a difference in scope and cruelty, compared between the two, which is just a fact.

none of them sound like a race is better than the other,

Lol, still about race for you huh.

you are making a racial argument based on the nuances of slavery and it’s kinda silly!

Lol, ethnicity does not = race you fucking idiot.

The whole point of this is that race is construct that can’t be used to actually examine the ethnic prejudices that happened in a specific area at a specific time.

Racist

Says the person defending an argument developed by white supremacists…