Maybe don’t.

Is there any way you can describe the appeal more specifically? I hated it but I’m trying to understand what people see in it.

“People used to live to be 900 years old.”

They also used to be able to fly, according to my dad, who was not happy with me when I laughed it off because I thought he was joking.

This is a really dumb perspective, in general. By that logic I could say, “If Holocaust denialism is so baseless, then why does it get censored so much? If there’s no truth to it, wouldn’t you want people talking about it?” No, it’s censored because it is baseless, because we don’t want people spreading around long debunked misinformation. Just because something is untrue doesn’t mean that people repeating it can’t create confusion, doubt, etc.

I mean, look at all the bullshit propaganda the right puts out, and because they have so much money backing it, strengthening their signal, it’s all some people ever hear, and if some spends thousands of hours watching Fox News, and the other side gets like 20 minutes once a year at Thanksgiving, which narrative they go with is going to have very little to do with what’s actually true.

That same far-right media sphere has spread out from the US to all sorts of small countries around the world. If you look at them, you’ll often find right-wingers in those countries screaming about shit that doesn’t even apply to their country, because it’s what this propaganda network told them to be mad about. I mean, fucking anti-mask protests in Japan, for example.

Regardless of your perspective on Tienanmen Square, this logic of, “If it’s not true then there’s no reason to censor it” doesn’t really hold up.

That’s true, but it’s also true that this map may be the best shot they have to pick up seats. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say that a senate map looks good for Democrats. In 2028 they’ll have what, Arizona and North Carolina? Well, and the VP, potentially (and having to replace Fetterman). And in 2030, just Ohio and Pennsylvania? I don’t see any chance of winning Iowa but whether there’s even a remote possibility of them gaining a majority in future elections will depend on whether they can narrow to one or two seats here.

I think mistepping generally just gets you in trouble if you try to act like you know what you’re talking about or insist that a given position is correct. Just say you’re not the most informed and are looking to learn more or understand people’s perspectives rather than assert one thing or another.

My fear is that, and to be clear, this is just my own fears, not saying that this will happen, but I fear that my parents could get me exit-banned and bribe some corrupt doctor to declare me insane or something and force involuntary ECT or someshit like that and wipe my memories of their emotional abuse/neglect. But again, that’s just my fears, I hope they aren’t secretly that controlling/manipulative.

Here in the US, they are nobodys, they don’t have the Guanxi to do weird things, so its harder for them to weaponize the government’s tentacles against me. Things have to go through the courts and unlike China, they can’t just do involuntary treatments without a court order.

Well… as long as you’re not a teenager. I had pretty similar fears growing up in a conservative Christian family that my parents might send me to some camp like that. The “troubled teen industry” is very unregulated and has seen a lot of cases of child abuse and even deaths, and kids can end up there for any reason at all, it just takes parental consent. I didn’t dare tell them when I was having doubts about God until long after I had moved out and had completely left that shit behind. If they thought I was going to spend eternity in Hell there’s no telling what they might have done, and they also probably didn’t even know about all the abuse and stuff that happens there and wouldn’t have listened to me if I tried to talk my way out of it. It was pretty terrifying, and probably contributed to my far-left political views today.

I studied abroad in Japan for a year back 10-15 years ago. I definitely experienced “reverse culture shock” when I came back, the feeling when you’ve had all kinds of new experiences and have seen the world from a completely different perspective, but then everything’s just… the same. The people you left behind are just a year older, the roads and the stores are all just like they were when you left, maybe a new fast food joint opened up and that’s the biggest thing that’s changed. It’s pretty maddening. Of course, you can talk and talk about all these stories and people and all that - and in fact it was pretty good for me in that I was able to overcome some shyness and social anxiety because I had something interesting to talk about - but there’s a lot of stuff that you’ll never really be able to explain, things that just can’t be put into words. Especially with language, I feel like we’re losing something as people rely more on AI translations (useful as they are) because my experience is that speaking a different language can really shift your whole perspective in subtle ways. Translation is metaphor, it is inherently an approximation of meaning. It is, however, a lot of work.

In time, my experience of living in Japan and the unique perspective it gave me has become one of many perspectives that I can draw on, and I have other shared or relatable experiences with the people around me. Granted, my experience abroad was a relatively short time, not like actually immigrating. But ultimately, everyone has different experiences that can seem very alien to others, even within the same country or culture. When we see these differences not as barriers but as providing valuable and distinctive insight, well, that’s the dream, isn’t it?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/deportations-by-ice-10-year-high-in-2024-surpassing-trump-era-peak/

On immigration policy, the survey shows Latinos place a high priority on allowing unauthorized immigrants to stay in the country legally.

Your own source supports my position, lol.

What part of, “Israel is going above and beyond in finding new and exiting war crimes to commit,” reads to you like I’m “literally making the argument for Israel to claim it wasn’t so bad?”

What you said is like saying, “Show me when Imperial Japan did anything as bad as the Holocaust.” Sure, the Holocaust was a special kind of evil that went above and beyond, but Imperial Japan did all sorts of heinous, horrific shit and there is absolutely no reason why we should make favorable comparisons about them. They were even on the same side, much like the US and Israel.

Also how tf is it “whataboutism” when you made the comparison? Completely ridiculous.

I presented four sources to the other person that demonstrate that that’s not true. Even if it were true, their messaging did not reflect it. They presented themselves as border hawks, indisputably, and you are either misinformed or lying if you deny it. I’ve backed my position up with evidence.

Don’t whitewash those wars. Sure, Israel is going above and beyond in finding new and exiting war crimes to commit, but the US wars were also horrendous.

What an incredibly stupid comment. No, they did not campaign on “the opposite of building the wall.” They literally said, we’re the ones actually trying to build the wall, and Trump is blocking us because he’s all talk. You are uniformed about this.

Accusing me of watching Fox News is also laughable. Fox News did not support the Democrats’ narrative that they were border hawks, actually. Their position was always that the Democrats were soft on immigration, which they said was bad.

Senate Republicans block border security bill as they campaign on border chaos - NBC

The Biden Administration says it is using executive power to allow border wall construction in Texas - AP

Deportations by ICE jump to 10 year high in 2024, surpassing Trump-era peak - CBS

Biden pulls from Trump’s immigration playbook in election year twist - CNN

Don’t accuse me of being misinformed when you don’t know shit.

Democrats also campaigned on deporting Hispanics, and even more Hispanics voted for the Democrats. I guess that’s also a really stupid thing to do and should be pointed out to those stupid people?

I’m so sick of people trying to change the way entire demographics of people behave rather than trying to change the way one political party’s leadership behaves. It’s so fucking stupid that y’all waste your time trying to pressure literally millions of people to become unconditional supporters of the Democrats rather than trying to pressure the Democrats to adopt positions that would win them over. Like, however stupid you think it is for Hispanics to only vote for the deporter you like slightly more than the deporter you don’t like, your approach here is like 10x stupider.

One person vs tens of millions of people, but since that one person is a member of the ruling class, we couldn’t possibly criticize her or try to pressure her to change, no, that’s not our place, our place is merely to ensure our peers are loyal to our rulers no matter what.

That’s literally been the strategy taken by leftist in the US since the 1940’s and it’s only gotten worse and worse, to the point that people like Obama, Harris, and even Biden get labelled as “socialist.” It literally does not matter how much you try to avoid being associated with the USSR or other socialist states, you will be accused of being like them if you try to do anything even remotely good. So, since that’s going to happen anyway, we might as well stop punching left and stop letting misinformation about such states run wild out of fear of being associated with them.

Also yes Democrats may have claimed some things about republicans, but on the flip side Republicans also claimed constantly that democrats are softies letting every one and their mother in, so it sort of cancels out.

“Why didn’t they just listen to what the Republicans said about us?”

Even with this insane line of logic you’re expecting them to follow, Kamala still won Latinos. Only by a few points, compared to previous elections where the Democrats did not attempt to run to the right of Republicans on immigration, but more of them still voted for her. Just not enough to overcome the votes of white people. If we’re going to point fingers at entire demographics like this, then we ought to blame the people who are actually most responsible, right? But somehow, it’s always minorities who catch the most blame, isn’t it?

Blaming voters for things instead of politicians and campaigns is completely backwards and unproductive. Even if it wasn’t, I’m not going to blame them for taking the democrats at their word for what they were going to do. That’s nonsense. If your campaign depends on people seeing through your lies and still voting for you, it’s a stupid fucking campaign.

Your lack of critical thinking and willingness to believe anything the government tells you isn’t my responsibility.