The government doesn't want to fund them. The government doesn't want them getting funding from others. It's almost like the government doesn't want them funded at all. Oh, right.

Well, if you don't see how that aspect of yourself could be seen as political, I can see why you don't think you're political, but you're clearly very passionate about a topic that most other people recognize as somewhat political. There's nothing wrong with that in itself, but I think you can see a conflict like this was fairly likely if you're regularly posting indiscriminately with no little knowledge of the instances or communities you're posting in. It's not the end of the world nor is it an attack on you or your passions. You'll either learn to self moderate or choose different communities.

Now, if you don't mind I'm gonna step away from this conversation before an over eager mod/admin bans my ass.

My main account used to be on mander, and politics is kinda a general but subtle problem on mander. (I eventually decided not to have a "main" account at all after I realized how much creepy surveillance is on the internet -- little to do with mander's politics.)

Sal tries to prevent the political circus from taking over the instance, but there's a tension because the political circus is increasingly escaping containment and actually effecting people's lives. While I'm not exactly sure what Sal was thinking with this particular incident, I think it's hard to disagree that LGBT has become a part of the political circus and culture war.

Like, let's just lay it out at a very high level: LGBT people, like everyone, are weird. Unlike most other weirdness they're organized and vocal about their weirdness because of a long history of very real persecution. The LGBT community works very hard to "build allies" (make disliking their weirdness socially taboo) because that protects them from further persecution. This is wise in a sense: It's a peaceful mechanism of self defense. The issue is as polarization increases people can become confused about which side is the aggressor -- even if they know overall the LGBT were persecuted, they may view that has historical, or they may think the response is disproportionate, or some other similar view. This frustrates a lot of LGBT people who have personally experienced these persecutions because they know it's not over, LGBT won't be a non-issue anytime in the foreseeable future, and are rather fond of their communities. That said, I think the LGBT community knows it's become a political element. Debatable whether they're political pawns being used to seize power or a political faction in their own right.

I can't tell you whether Sal made the right call or not. I don't know where people should draw the line for apart of politics or not apart of politics, but I don't think it's unreasonable to want to step away from the political circus. Further, dbzer0 certainly doesn't have much room to criticize other instances who choose to moderate their communities, even if you don't fully agree on where to draw the line.

I'd advocate giving @Sal@mander.xyz some grace with these judgements. They're hard to make, and if nothing else @TRAHR@quokk.au is very clearly a very political account who probably shouldn't be posting on mander in the first place.

Enos Strate, monolith of evil.^/s^

While systems and institutions have an extremely strong effect on society, projecting the perceived net-effect of an institution onto the intent of every individual participating in that institution is absurd, and your implied true version alignment isn't any better. Who get's to say what the true version or goal of institution is? Setting aside the net-effect questions from questionable evidence of what society would look like without some variation of these institutions, people are unique inherently multifaceted individuals. They have their own intentions that rarely aligns perfectly with the institutions they cooperate with. While I certainly understand taking issue with some or many specific actions cops are known to take, the idea that they're all constantly possessed by the specter of the policing institution is just silly. The idea that there is some more true evil version is laughable. Don't let the specter of your own ideology possess you and convince you of such nonsense - don't be an anarchist spook.

I urge you to step back from tribalism and ideology and view people as individuals, even if you find their flaws glaring acknowledge they have their own deeply complex lives. You don't have to forgive their actions, but focus on what's useful. Rather than letting your self be possessed by ideology and fixating on the flaws and cracks of the ideologies that sometimes possess them, focus on what you have in common and how you can use that to build parallel communities, systems, and institutions that will make a better world. What's the point in generating conflict and driving people away? Will starting fights with cops help you make the world a better place? On a practical level, what good does it do to conjure opposing ideological specters? Surely it's better to work together where you can and steer clear where you can't?

Perhaps there are instances where it's appropriate to demonize someone for a specific action they've taken, but do it consciously as targeted tactic to remove especially egregious and obvious threats, never as blanket ideology.

Wasn't this was the original idea behind cryptocurrency? A lot of government legitimacy rests on currency and contract enforcement. If one of those was underminded, it'd go a long way towards eroding the government.

Don't get me wrong, cryptocurrency fundamentally misunderstood money, so it didn't work... but it's a really interesting idea. It'd require a lot. Decentralized conflict resolution (to prevent scamming/theft), some means of managing inflation without destroying supply-demand responsive markets, a way to manage wealth inequality without destroying savings / retirement. I can think of some mechanisms, but it'd probably take many tries - parallel systems and institutions are the effective path to change anyway, but after crypto it'd probably get the scam label. Plus writing the code in the first place would be a massive pain.

I genuinely wonder if US politics would be in the state it’s in, if the US media took their role more seriously and actually asked politicians tough questions. It’s quite obvious that some US politicians are quite insulated and coddled.

Sounds unprofitable, and against the interest of the majority shareholder(s).

Sometimes I imagine what it's be like to be able to just do my work and not have to worry about making enough to cover rent.

The job market is so bad I considered joining the military, but I fear starvation more than homelessness, so I decided against it.

Wow, look at that hoof

I don't know anything about this, but that image looks like Zuko grew out his hair and took up cooking.

Honestly, I don't consider myself radical. I'm definitely frustrated with the world, but I'm not into tribalism -- I don't do -ist's & -ism's. I try to focus and talk about specific mechanisms, and my frustration largely derives from the world's refusal to address those real issues. The us-them tribalism is a self sabotaging distraction.

Like, here's something that will upset a lot of people: Cops and Anarchists have a lot of overlap. Neither are monolithic groups - both have bad actors that cause problems. Both have large portions who want to protect their communities. Both are willing to due so with violence. Both have a strange fixation on "bad-ass"-ery and skulls. Both have large groups of people they don't trust (the "feds" or the "criminals"), which as groups are kinda a social fictions (individuals are just individuals). Both justify their ideology by appealing to theory (legal theory or anarchist theory). Both think they're smarter than the other, but both have well read members and complete morons. Both have a tendency to ignore both the law and theory in favor of the practical.

I'm sure that's an upsetting comparison for some people, but I don't think it does us any good to fight about whether and to what extent it's true. It's far more productive to use that comparison to build bridges, make peace, and cooperate on specific mechanisms that will make the world a better place. For example police want legitimacy and a lot of anarchists don't think the current voting system gives legitimacy, both should thus want to move to ranked voting with lottery options, recall mechanisms, and randomized districting. Almost everyone wants free speech, but doesn't want money in politics. We should agree on taxing both political advertising and donations at insane rates and using those funds for publicly funded elections. Most people want the cheaper services that come from cheaper housing if not the cheaper housing itself, so it should be easy to make laws mandating a fraction of dirt cheap condos be made in proportion to new large houses -- that'd fix a big part of the the affordability crisis.

I don't really believe it's about who's in control because most the policies I just listed are things that could be implemented at the local level for essentially free and would dramatically improve the lives of people in that area, but I've not heard of anywhere even close to those policies. As far as I can tell most people will fight like cats and dogs for every scrap of power, but don't actually know what to do with it once they have it (even if they are well intentioned).

I'm homeless. I have a PhD and I guarantee I've contributed more to society than this fat cat.

An attractive girl talking to me for more than a few sentences is automatically sending mixed messages. Obviously they don't like me, why are they talking to me? I'm confused.

Corrupt hack should eat shit.

We already know Trump rapes kids, murders infants, and was heavily involved in human trafficking. If what we know isn't enough to take him out, he'll never be held to account.

DS9 has the whole range of politics. Odo the Fascist. Kira the Terrorist. Quark the capitalist. Rom the proletariat. Garak the gay spy. Bashir the other gay spy. The whole range.

Fake cut on his ear thing too. I have no idea if the shooting itself was fake, but everything else around it obviously was. If it wasn't fake, the bullet missing might well make me believe in the devil. Live video of a bird landing on Sander's podium in 2016 remains best evidence for god. Humans clearly closer to the former than the latter.

Anti-nuclear. Used to be pro-nuclear because the energy density would allow for very compact energy production, but I don't trust the government (or corporations) to have any meaningfully concentrated nuclear material. Maybe solid-state nuclear batteries can be made to work and we can use that to dilute the nuclear material -- not sure about that yet.

These days I favor local solar and wind.

The billionaire families are "Bradley, Coors, Koch, Scaife, Seid, and Uihlein".

Sounds kinky