OpenStars

joined 1 year ago
[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

It is impossible to type out all of the reasons, but here are a few. Check out Bowling for Columbine btw - a movie from two thousand fucking two, 15 years BEFORE that particular one. We've seen that particular bullet coming for a LONG time, and the ones before it, and the ones after it, and the ones yet to come - we KNOW, yet we do NOTHING. Most especially the "Pro-Life" crowd.

Lobbying. It's a thing. The NRS especially is one of the more powerful ones. More than 80% of American citizens - rising to >90% of NRA members even!!! - want some form of extremely limited gun control. However, we do not live in a democracy, not even one dominated by conservatives or rural Americans - rather, we live in a plutocracy where despite the OVERWHELMING support of the VAST MAJORITY of Americans, we cannot manage to get anything done.

Also, much of that money supposedly flowing to politicians from the "NRA" actually has been found to have ties back to Russia. Many of the politicians receiving that money may not even know the true source of where it came from - nor do they particularly seem to care.

Oh, and then billionaires bought up pretty much all of the major news outlets (a handful of others still exist - did The Guardian escape that? Well, even if they were, they seem to be allowed to talk about other corporate take-overs (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/may/03/billionaires-extra-power-media-ownership-elon-musk).

And hopefully you already know what happened to Google, where SEOs took over the searches so that it is nearly impossible to find things that just five years ago were easily retrievable, with the only lingering hold-out being Reddit, before then that whole thing happened...

BTW, the government is literally not allowed to collect statistics on how many violent gun deaths occur in America. I am not sure if this is the video where Jordan Klepper showcases that, but if not then he has a bunch of others. Or take your pick - there are millions if not billions of videos, of varying degree of quality and relevance. I've never seen one show a truly "unbalanced" take though - that is just not how for-profit corporations work. You just have to educate yourself by watching a bunch of stuff until you know how trustworthy the source is, and also each and every material topic too. It is sad, but we cannot seem to trust any (especially for-profit) advice these days. Though if you want another recommendation, there's John Oliver's whole expose on the NRA. To provide a modicum of balance, on the other side there are series such as Paul Harrell's Mass Shootings: Causes and Possible Solutions.

And - yes there is always more - there are other arguments such as: "if someone cannot get a gun they will simply make their own bomb" (ignores how much harder it is to do that), and the whole thing of plastic ghost guns (again ignores how difficult it would be to do that). Ultimately, i think that children being sacrificed is itself merely a symptom of a much deeper cause. People on Lemmy call it "capitalism", which has a LOT of truth to it - but then again, nations such as communist China have their own different issues. But, again, since ~90% of Americans already are in favor of stopping these kinds of mass-shootings, this will not be solved by merely educating yourself or "getting the word out". In fact, this type of issue is precisely the type of thing that Trump leaned heavily on as his route to the White House - "Hillary Clinton is corrupt so you should elect me and I will get rid of all the corruption, everywhere". So realistically, this is just something that we are going to simply have to live with, unless and until people fucking DO something about it. e.g. a responsible gun owner could patrol their own neighborhood schools. However, do note that every time someone does try to do that, they end up shooting innocent people instead, and yet it does nothing to stop the actual shooters, who can pull guns out of a bag (long-ish violin or trumpet case maybe?) and start shooting in mere seconds - not enough time to notice and prevent it. So start by educating yourself, since that's really all you can do, and also it will help enormously to ensure that you are on the correct side of the issue.

For those so inclined, there is a verse commanding the latter point even in the actual Holy Bible, at 1 Thessalonians 5:21: "Test EVERYTHING against what you KNOW to be true". I don't know what can be done, after the education stage, but I know it MUST begin with that.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 37 points 1 year ago

He also deregulated the FCC, the SEC, and trains. I dunno, I seem to recall hearing some stuff about train derailments that seem to me to be directly traceable back to those decisions...

Also, while he is not directly responsible for Russia invading Ukraine, he likewise directed our response - e.g. "you have to do me a favor though" (which iirc is literally treasonous).

Also, well there's a lot of also's.:-( Unfortunately, we may get to start working on a whole second listing:-(.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 2 points 1 year ago

If you find it, let us all here on Lemmy know - it looks like people are very interested (I know I would be to see a refresher). The sad part is how this stuff has been known for decades, but people just ignore it - e.g. "just grab 'em by the p$#&y". There are some, like John Oliver and Innuendo Studios, who are doing fantastic work to spread awareness of matters that need attention (and Jon Stewart is back, sort of:-), but ofc that won't reach the ears of people who refuse to listen, and instead choose to highly regard those who spread fear and chaos, most likely purely for profit reasons.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 94 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Except consequences - and facts - do not seem to ever stick to him. He's already been impeached, twice, after causing more "excess deaths" than all wars combined (except the Civil War - or maybe we passed that marker too? tbf not all of that is on him, though surely a lot of it is, e.g. lying about the virus being airborne). And now there's a not insignificant chance that he will be re-elected again.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 5 points 1 year ago

That's... not just a Texas thing, and yeah, bc saturation may have long been passed on that one, so this is newer territory to expand authoritarianism into.

ing

As in, it was dangerous, but a look at its next door neighbor Mississippi should convince anyone that it can always become more so.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There might be a misunderstanding. I was talking about a correlation between areas where where porn is blocked i.e. repressive regimes and rape. Not necessarily a casual effect from one directly to the other, although that might not be able to be ruled out either.

Either way it is a question of fact, so not up to either of our mere opinions. Though I find that it is darn near impossible to find such things these days using Google - it refuses to show "relevant" results and instead tries to show only "recent" ones that it wants to promote, and DuckDuckGo is far too narrow to make that easy. So finding the full unvarnished truth is a research project that I do not want to undertake, though in case it helps to share my remembrance of having read such a thing once I thought I would offer. This is nowhere near my area of expertise so was only a comment not an authoritative statement of definitive fact.

Also there could be other factors involved - e.g. higher incidents of rape in neighborhoods that tend towards being poorer and more heavily religious in nature, e.g. within the United States that would be Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Texas, etc. I don't recall if the study checked for similar levels of poverty but with different religious leanings - if suitably comparable places could even be found.

So my statement was saying how sad it is that Texas is choosing to become more like e.g. Florida rather than more like e.g. California, or to remain more of its own separate thing as it has done in the past. Becoming "repressive" does not sound conducive to good health (especially women's health).

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 17 points 1 year ago

Profits first, profits last, profits only.

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[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 18 points 1 year ago

If you do not want something - an abortion, a vaccine, porn, to own a gun, etc. - then the solution is simply: do not take it. Beyond that, why heap heavy burdens upon other people, rather than offering to help?

I am saying that "children watching people having sex" is not the issue here. Some few sickos aside, I think MOST people are agreement on that point. The issues are all the other issues surrounding that topic - e.g. who should be the ones held responsible for stopping that.

Like, why not the parents? It is exceedingly easy to block websites from a home router, and from devices such as ipads, so why should the website be the one upon whom all of the blame and burden should go to? Will Amazon be next, b/c it is possible to find sex toys on it? What about Wal-Mart, b/c you can purchase dangerous ammunition there? For that matter, any child can go into a gun show and see rifles and ammunition on display - why are those not banned? Children have even been known to be able to purchase those weapons, which are literally lethal - which is far worse than merely seeing some skin!!!!

Fwiw I think you mean well, but are missing the nuances of this discussion. Children will end up seeing porn - someway, somehow, I guarantee you that it is possible, b/c that is simply how the internet works. It is like playing whack-a-mole and you can't stop them all, especially like 90% of all domain names are already registered to porn and pirate websites. This law will not have the effect that it is intended to stop - and there is a goodly chance that it will make things worse actually, bc when people go off the well-trodden pathways, they will find themselves in the... darker corners of the internet.

Then again, I am not a lawmaker, so what do I know. I was just sharing my thoughts, in case they would be of interest to you.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 29 points 1 year ago

So long as the libterds get pwnd. Which they definitely did. By blocking my porn. You see the way it works is uh...

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 157 points 1 year ago (92 children)

Studies have shown that in places where porn is blocked, rape occurs at higher frequencies than in places where that is not the case, possibly due to higher levels of feelings of frustration and repression. This may be only one website now, but if others likewise follow the trend out of fear of litigation... then Texas may become a much more dangerous state to live in in the very near future, even compared to what it already is now.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 1 points 1 year ago

Fair. Though that capability - e.g. the identical wikia software, implementing the MediaWiki protocol - already exists. Maybe federating it would somehow improve it, though it would also open it up to have greater vulnerabilities especially when non-scientists get involved, e.g. a w/article/conservative/vaccine vs. a w/article/real/vaccine. Scientists can handle these controversies, but people who do not have the base knowledge with which to properly understand, e.g. ivermectin, are not going to be able to distinguish between the truth vs. the lies.

So the people that would put it to the best use don't absolutely need it - sure it would be nice but peer-reviewed articles already exist - while the ones for whom it would be most damaging are almost certainly going to be the primary target audience.

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