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[Reelya]

Neoliberalism isn't fake leftism, liberalism has always been right-wing (Well, post year 1800 or so ). Only the US uses the word liberalism for leftwingers.

The term "neoliberalism" has nothing to do whatsoever with the artificial left-right political dichotomy anyway.  It is a reference to economic policies.  While it is sometimes considered, actually, to be conservative, Democratic politicians in the U.S. are deeply associated with its international contents, such as treaties like NAFTA and the TPP.

It's a term that should really be abandoned, as outside of economics wonk circles, it just confuses people.

I think the American's connection of liberal with the left should be abandoned. Liberal trade policy should be free trade, liberal social policy should be civil rights. Things like state sanctioned speech censorship (against hate speech) and other things might be good, but it's hard to reconcile what is basically partisan censorship (no matter how nobly intentioned) with the concept of "being liberal".

Also, the right wing party in Australia are The Liberal Party, because of the pre-existing meaning of traditional economic liberalism. So you can guess that exactly zero people on the Australian left call ourselves "liberals" and we don't have any confusion on the matter whatsoever.

Liberal and Conservative are perhaps both terms that should be banned. Because they have too many other connotations that both sides are completely opposite to. e.g. conservatives hate conservation and liberals often want more government control. The terms are too loaded. Left and Right wing are more abstract terms, hence they're more flexible and have less in the way of innate false meanings.

[EnigmaticHat]

Short of vagueries like "left leaning" or "liberal", not sure what I would actually call the democratic party.  They aren't pro-labour or unions.  They're sort of environmentalists but in a halfassed "well the opposition is against it" kind way.  They aren't socialistic (yet, hehehe), they're definitely democratic capitalists but so is everyone else.  The closest label I can think of is "progressive", but they do little enough to actually earn that label.

No wait, I know what I'd call them.  "Moderate."  They're a moderate party that picked up some very disappointed leftists along the way.

[Tack]

When the first splash of water entering a bucket immediately makes you need to pee but you have to wait for the bucket to finish filling.

The obviousness of aircon set to 24 losing to an oven set to 220

[Akura]

When the first splash of water entering a bucket immediately makes you need to pee but you have to wait for the bucket to finish filling.

Is it strange that things like water filling a bucket or whatnot never actually provokes an urge to pee from me? I've always found it odd that it does for other people.

[Reelya]

When the first splash of water entering a bucket immediately makes you need to pee but you have to wait for the bucket to finish filling.

Is it strange that things like water filling a bucket or whatnot never actually provokes an urge to pee from me? I've always found it odd that it does for other people.

Were you in Trump's hotel room?

[Akura]

...I'm not even sure what you mean.


Anyway, new WTF. Been playing Gurumin 3D(subtitle is "A Monstrous Adventure") for the 3DS. Fun little game. At one point, there is a bit of non-plot related fluff(as far as I know) where you can put in two names for a romance compatibility test. I put in the female protagonist's name, as well as the name of one NPC who is constantly hitting on the main character despite the fact he looks middle-aged and she's explicitly an underage girl. Her age isn't given(as far as I know), but the monsters(who are friendly) in this game are invisible to adults. Anyway, the result was "You have an undying friendship that even the gods cannot tear asunder."

It gets worse, I put in my name and the name of my ex-girlfriend since I had no other names to test, and got the same result. Sure the gods couldn't do it, but her being a manipulative bitch and creepy stalker was enough. And that is definitely not the only possible result. I put in the names of two of my coworkers who are in a relationship, and got "Tomorrow will be warm and sunny.", to which the protagonist responds "That doesn't even make sense."... which is a good description of those two coworkers' relationship.


Maybe I should stop reading into joke compatibility tests from a video game so much.

[Putnam]

you definitely should, it's probably just a function that concatenates the two strings together and uses a hash to return a phrase from a lookup table

or it's just completely random, but i'd definitely do the hashing thing for consistency's sake

[Neonivek]

Short of vagueries like "left leaning" or "liberal", not sure what I would actually call the democratic party.  They aren't pro-labour or unions.  They're sort of environmentalists but in a halfassed "well the opposition is against it" kind way.  They aren't socialistic (yet, hehehe), they're definitely democratic capitalists but so is everyone else.  The closest label I can think of is "progressive", but they do little enough to actually earn that label.

No wait, I know what I'd call them.  "Moderate."  They're a moderate party that picked up some very disappointed leftists along the way.

I dunno given the many regressive "Progressives" out there right now. (And I don't say that lightly... People who advocate segregation, banning homosexuality, and removal of free speech under the banner of being progressive...)

You could say they are definitely earning that "progressive" title.

Kind of a shame how Progressive is sort of becoming a buzz word that means anything butt lately...

Once again I REALLY REALLY REALLY NEED to stay off of Twitter/Tumblr... They do not represent everyday people.. Neither do police procedurals and pop-culture commentators... >_< STOP IT BRAIN!

[Flying Dice]

Short of vagueries like "left leaning" or "liberal", not sure what I would actually call the democratic party.  They aren't pro-labour or unions.  They're sort of environmentalists but in a halfassed "well the opposition is against it" kind way.  They aren't socialistic (yet, hehehe), they're definitely democratic capitalists but so is everyone else.  The closest label I can think of is "progressive", but they do little enough to actually earn that label.

No wait, I know what I'd call them.  "Moderate."  They're a moderate party that picked up some very disappointed leftists along the way.

I dunno given the many regressive "Progressives" out there right now. (And I don't say that lightly... People who advocate segregation, banning homosexuality, and removal of free speech under the banner of being progressive...)

You could say they are definitely earning that "progressive" title.

Kind of a shame how Progressive is sort of becoming a buzz word that means anything butt lately...

Once again I REALLY REALLY REALLY NEED to stay off of Twitter/Tumblr... They do not represent everyday people.. Neither do police procedurals and pop-culture commentators... >_< STOP IT BRAIN!

That's the thing, though. People like to say "oh, nobody's really like that, it's all just internet trolls" to try and excuse the hateful shit folks spew. Ain't the truth, though. SJW tumblrs, /pol/, shitty subreddits-the people voicing opinions in such places are all real, and many of them are sincere on some level about what they're saying. The internet is for trolling, but there are a whole lot of people who think that the jokers are being serious. A solid chunk of the Pepe wing of the campaign were in it solely for memes and fucking with people, but the alt-left and alt-right both thought that they were serious; the latter saw it as a show of popular support, the former as evidence of the white cis patriarchy at work. And then Trump enters office with a 40% approval rating, the blackshirt rape squads never materialized, and neither has realized that they got got.

Those are ordinary people saying those things. The denials ring hollow every time one of them has enough guts to act on their hate in meatspace and the only excuse their cohort can offer is a No True Scotsman claim. What people say on the internet shouldn't be taken seriously by observers, but that doesn't mean that the people saying it aren't being serious. There's just no way to tell, and there's not much point respecting them regardless of whether they're trying to get a rise or are genuinely espousing terrible ideas (unless you can tell, then you have the opportunity to get in on the joke and piss off ideologues even more).

It's as if half of all Rome fiddled through the fire while the other half added fuel.

[Rolan7]

I'm pretty sure most of those jokers are young and reckless, seeking attention.  It's really not fair to judge feminism by attention-starved high schoolers (or attention-drunk college kids).

Some joker threw eggs at us yesterday, and that says *nothing* about his "side".  Just that someone took an opportunity to act out and feel like a badass.

The sides aren't equivalent by any stretch, but they all have attention-seekers.

[muldrake]

I dunno given the many regressive "Progressives" out there right now. (And I don't say that lightly... People who advocate segregation, banning homosexuality, and removal of free speech under the banner of being progressive...)

These make me go wtf not just every day, but more or less on a minute by minute basis every waking moment.  I will never, ever get used to this.  And I have been an unapologetic outright socialist most of my life.

[Neonivek]

I'm pretty sure most of those jokers are young and reckless, seeking attention.  It's really not fair to judge feminism by attention-starved high schoolers (or attention-drunk college kids).

Some joker threw eggs at us yesterday, and that says *nothing* about his "side".  Just that someone took an opportunity to act out and feel like a badass.

The sides aren't equivalent by any stretch, but they all have attention-seekers.

These things are occasionally made into laws by people who honestly believe in them.

As well, the majority of these situations aren't "Feminist" (though they like to blanket feminism onto their side... AND LBGT rights... whether or not they earned it. Sometimes it is like they thing they are playing Pokémon and they gotta catch them all).

AS WELL... The people who typically say these things are getting more and more exposure in the media and popular culture as a whole every single day.

Or shall we forget Cyber Bullying Laws already? Which weren't created to fill in a gap in the law but rather to give people a blanket ability to monitor the internet and punish people.
-Note: I shouldn't put "Child Protection" laws into the same category... Since a LOT of crazy laws have occurred on all sides because of Child Protection... HECK the Russian law that bans all positive images of homosexuality is a child protection law.

[CABL]

I really hate any "think of duh children!!1" excuses and that anti-LGBT law is the example why you shouldn't use this kind of excuse. BTW, Russian government passed "The Internet & Phone Wiretapping" law (it will be actual in November 2018), and you want to know what excuse they used for this particular law? *drumroll* "FIGHTING THE TERRORISM!!1", yeah, you hear that right, they use excuse which 'Murica used to justify Iraq War. At least American government didn't scream "We will spy on our own citizens" before the 2013 scandal, but our (Russian) government pretty much screams that bullcrap, but with "FIGHTING THE TERRORISM!!1" argument.

"Those who give up their liberty for security neither deserve liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin.

[Rolan7]

I agree with most of that, mostly...  I do have the unpopular opinion that a proper intelligence agency, with rules preventing abuse/exploitation of power, is necessary to safeguard us against terrorism, horrific crimes, and foreign powers.

That Franklin quote is plainly ridiculous, though, because it's absolute.  Is it really *always* wrong to band together, sacrificing personal liberty for security?  I don't think so.  There's clearly a limit, but absolute liberty is a horrible prospect to realistically live in.
Fortunately it's also plainly unable to defend itself from outside forces, so it's a pipe dream/nightmare.

[muldrake]

I really hate any "think of duh children!!1" excuses and that anti-LGBT law is the example why you shouldn't use this kind of excuse. BTW, Russian government passed "The Internet & Phone Wiretapping" law (it will be actual in November 2018), and you want to know what excuse they used for this particular law? *drumroll* "FIGHTING THE TERRORISM!!1", yeah, you hear that right, they use excuse which 'Murica used to justify Iraq War. At least American government didn't scream "We will spy on our own citizens" before the 2013 scandal, but our (Russian) government pretty much screams that bullcrap, but with "FIGHTING THE TERRORISM!!1" argument.

"Those who give up their liberty for security neither deserve liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin.

So they passed a law very similar to "USA PATRIOT."