“Neutral” to what, precisely? Ireland is one of only 8% of countries on this planet that are still considered full democracies, a number that’s rapidly dwindling as the authoritarians gain political ground. And you think Ireland should be “neutral” to the piecemeal extirpation of democratic civilization because, what, Russia and China and the fascists in the US and Europe will just leave Ireland alone?? That we shouldn’t have active deterrents? Nobody is asking Ireland to go to war. They’re asked to be able to defend themselves.

As a cohort, the American gerontocracy is uniquely shitty. You almost have to admire the boomers’ tenacity to destroy everything before they die.

To be fair, being smart is famously correlated with getting hit in the head for a living.

I don’t think that’s quite right, because there’s no instruction associated with spreading lies about someone. You don’t have to say “you should attack this person based on this [random lie]” to be guilty of libel. The lie itself causes the bad consequences that now make you guilty.

“As a German, I find myself groaning when I see this discussion come up. Conspiracy theorists are not rational. If fascists could be swayed by facts and reason, they would not believe what even the most minor bit of fact checking would disprove. Allowing them to spew their nonsense freely or join a coalition won’t disabuse them of their notions; it will help them seek and build echo-chambers and become further radicalized.We see the echo chamber effect on every online platform. Whether or not the holocaust happened, for example, is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. Making up your own facts is called lying. And when your lies are so malicious and harmful that they actually pose a threat to other people or the nation itself, then yes, that should absolutely be punishable. It’s no different than slander or libel.

“What value is there to allowing holocaust denial? Serious question. And I don’t mean appealing to the slippery slope of how it leads to other worse prohibitions. There’s a lot of arguing for Free Speech for its own sake - that Free Speech is the highest virtue in and of itself that must never, ever be compromised, for any reason, and that this should be self-evident. But I ask, what’s the harm in not allowing holocaust denial, specifically? What is the benefit in allowing it? There is none. Nothing good will ever come out of someone spewing holocaust denial. Ever. You won’t get a thoughtful debate beneficial to both parties. They’re wrong, simple as that. The “best” outcome you’ll get out of it is that you can convince a denier or someone on the fence that they’re wrong. Great. The best outcome involves suppressing it. There are, however, a hell of a lot potentially bad consequences in that their stupidity can infect others and shift the Overton window their way.

“The reason that the majority of modern Germans look at the Nazi flag and feel nothing but revulsion whereas a sizable portion of US southerners actually fly the confederate flag and defend it (Heritage, not hate, or It was about states’ rights, not slavery, or Slaves weren’t treated so bad) is that Germans were forbidden from telling each other comforting lies about their past."

— quote I stole from unknown redditor

Depends on whether you’re supporting the right side (if there is one) and on the consequences of arming a particular group of insurgents.

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Why are you obsessed with the color of people’s skin and indifferent to their humanity? Should children be beaten, abused, mutilated, sold off to be married just because their parents are part of some abrahamic cult?

Daily reminder that religion is a monstrous evil.

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Forum discussions about food are like a biochemist’s personal hell. No offense, but you’re all dumb as shit.

Why is everyone anti-science when it comes to nutrition? Sorry, but you’re just wrong, which I suppose isn’t too surprising when your reference is a three-decades old book written by a goofball non-scientist who knows about as much biochemistry as you do. None whatsoever.

Saturated fat is processed by the liver from Chylomicrons to VLDLs to LDLs in an incredibly taxing process directly responsible for fatty liver disease. No faster way to get diabetes than eating lots of saturated fat and sugar. Both are absolutely horrible and very poorly tolerated by humans, who are apes that evolved eating mostly plants. These are empirical facts. Stop treating food like a religion and just eat a fucking vegetable.

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The “thing” with cholesterol is that the science wasn’t actually wrong! Eating foods laced with cholesterol is indeed unhealthy, as the data showed, which is why everyone incorrectly assumed cholesterol was to blame, until it turned out that the real culprit was saturated fat, which is concentrated in animal products, which also lots of contain cholesterol.

But hey, all those pesky scientific details would require knowing biochemistry and that is just way too inconvenient for the troglodytes who treat food as a religion and are currently downvoting this comment.

*hydrocarbon, not carbohydrate (the latter contains oxygen). Otherwise spot on.

Found the guy who failed high school chemistry.

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Found the Trump supporter.