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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • I get what a lot of you guys are saying about Starmer and the Labour government not being as left wing as Corbyn. I would also like someone who would use this majority to implement some really hardcore leftist policies.

    But please can we just take a step back and look at what he wants to do:

    • Massive amounts of NHS funding
    • Nationalised green energy
    • Tax private schools
    • Allow regulators to hit company executives with criminal charges
    • Nationalise the railways
    • Increase the minimum wage to a living wage
    • Free school meals

    I don’t know about you, but that seems at the very least, left of center. Sure, he’s not making drastic sweeping changes right off the bat. But this country needs an era of stability, whilst we make small but consistent steps in the right direction, and that’s what Starmer will give us


  • The policies to start nationalising a bunch of public services, abolishing no fault evictions, and the bolstered housing targets are all pretty solid. The additional union laws to help protect workers rights is amazing too.

    I agree with your sentiment, none of the much needed structural change is going to occur. But he’s a damn lot better than the Tories and a reason to feel somewhat optimistic.

    I’m actually downright ecstatic at the idea of there being a pro-EU LibDem opposition to a Labour party that largely has pro-EU members (even if they need to tow the party line). A boring “left” party being opposed by an also boring “left” opposition sounds damn right cheery after the last 14 years. Hopefully it’ll at least shift the conversation away from deporting people to Rwanda and into more sane territory



  • I 100% agree with your post. The issues she raises are nonexistent or extremely rare. In my personal life I believe and practice “trans-women are women” as for all intents and purposes it’s true.

    I am however concerned that I don’t really have a response to anyone who doesn’t believe that, particularly women with some sort of past trauma that gives them an instinctual fear response. It feels insensitive to tell them to get over it or go to therapy. Particularly if they’ve been exposed to one of the extremely rare examples Rowling has presented. But I think going to therapy is probably what needs to happen.

    My other conflicting thought is that therapy or condemnation it is what we would say to people being racist, but there seems to be a societal agreement that we need women only spaces. And we don’t say “get over it” in regards to men trying to enter a women’s shelter, we offer an amount of sympathy and understanding to the women and allow them that space. Which means there is some amount of gender discrimination is desired/needed. This also indicates there there should be a line or set of fuzzy criteria that determines if we treat trans-women as women or not. But this obviously also feels wrong, and I hate it.

    Sorry if this was insensitive, I mostly just want to gather thoughts as I’m not confident in my thinking. I don’t think these issues deserve the amount of attention transphobes are giving them, but we’re here now, so I want to try and figure out a solution or response to more “reasonable” transphobes that I could potentially change the minds of



  • I’m not sure where you’re going with that? I would argue that yes, it is. As it’s sexual material of a child, with that child’s face on it, explicitly made for the purpose of defaming her. So I would say it sexually abused a child.

    But you could also be taking the stance of “AI trains on adult porn, and is mearly recreating child porn. No child was actually harmed during the process.” Which as I’ve said above, I disagree with, especially in this particular circumstance.

    Apologies if it’s just my reading comprehension being shit


  • The original 20 minute video in the article makes it clear he’s talking about job roles, and mentions writers a few times (admittedly not close enough to draw an 100% certain link). I don’t think it’s enough to discredit this just based on the assumption that he’s talking about actors or that there isn’t enough context. Obviously it’s vague enough that we can’t draw any solid conclusions, so I agree with you there.

    The main reason I think this is bullshit is that the guy’s testimony isn’t credible for two main reasons:

    • The guy was recently passed up for promotion, and blames it on being white and male
    • The interviewer is posing as a romantically interested date and asking plenty of leading questions, the guy is at least partially telling her what she wants to hear

    These two points, regardless of how true his story is, give him an ulterior motive for embellishing the story and exaggerating facts, which ultimately means we can’t trust this.

    I’d like to see a full investigation, as with any accusation of discrimination. But we all know that when nothing turns up, it wouldn’t shut the right wingers up





  • Lemmy in particular seems to have a high percentage of reasonable people. As in people who can be reasoned with, but might just be stuck in a ideological rabbit hole. I’ve found that by dropping hostility and acknowledging common ground I can quickly turn an argument into a productive discussion, where both sides learn something. This happens with people who are on the left or right of myself. So it’d be shame to overly ban one side and lose that.

    It equally must suck for the mods, because I’ve seen some very very vitriolic comments here, again, on both sides. Removing these comments helps cool people’s heads, but unequal enforcement may be an issue. I’m also generally against censorship, I just absolutely hate the platform when some stupid toxic divisive topic/meme gets posted everywhere for like a month. I really don’t know where I stand on removing comments or banning people, seems like a fine line to walk


  • Thank you for the calmer reply, I’ve upvoted you, and appreciate your response. I’m 100% with you on improving access to education, and the issues women and minorities face in university courses. My end goal is the same as yours, I want to see equality in the workplace and elsewhere, I’m just trying to address what I think are legitimate concerns that the previous commentator raised.

    I get that senior hiring is a thing, the problem is that as you’ve mentioned, historical discrimination has made it very difficult for women and minorities to get the appropriate credentials and skills required to adequately perform in senior roles. Not saying they’re incapable, of course not, just that this is an issue we’re still suffering from.

    My worry is that this historical discrimination will force companies to over hire women and minorities in starting roles, and be unable to hire women in senior roles, if we pursue short term demographic equality. This leaves young men, particularly poor young men, at a disadvantage, and does nothing to fix the historical oppression women have suffered from.

    I chose law in particular, because it’s fairly even in graduates today, even in women’s favour, and there’s way more graduates than jobs, which means that if we wanted immediate demographic equality the industry as a whole could experience the same issue as the hypothetical company above, but obviously not as dramatic. Which is why I take issue with the short term goal being equal demographics. The short term goal should be equal hiring, with the long term goal being equal demographics as the older generations filter out.

    In many metro areas young women already earn more than young men.

    It’s not fair that women and minorities have been held back, but I’m worried that going too hard too fast is going to cause more long term problems


  • Firstly, I’m a different person. I’m just interested on what your solution is. No need to be so hostile. I’ve likely just misunderstood you.

    My critique is specifically on the bit I quoted. You need to divide it by generation. The hiring, especially for starting roles, is heavily biased towards the young. These people are just coming out of college.

    Giving your example of 50% women in the population, and a law firm is 100 people, 90 of which are men. That firm now needs to hire 100 women and 10 men to reach that 50% goal. But now you’ve also influxed a tonne of women into that workforce, meaning now you’ll need to hire disproportionately more men next generation after the original 90 men have retired. It creates a cycle of discrimination. Obviously that’s oversimplified, and there’s additional factors you could add to the example e.g. staff turnover.

    I don’t disagree with setting hiring goals 50/50 men/women if that’s what your advocating for? It doesn’t immediately change workplace demographics, but it should even out over time. And there are still issues stemming from the amount of male vs female degree holders in certain subjects that are heavily gender biased, like engineering, vetinary practice, and IT.

    I’m also totally for raising funding for public services and education to ensure everyone gets the best start on life they can. No disagreement there. It’d be ideal if we could encourage young men/women to more evenly participate in different subjects.

    Again I’m sorry if I misunderstood your point, it wasn’t clear to me


  • when the imbalance is so bad, there is a point where, on a large sale, you need to hire a higher number of women / Black people / handicapped people to catch up, because you’ve shut them down the whole time; and that basically makes it your own fault if you think they’re less competent than educated competent men, because they didn’t get the opportunity, because they didn’t get the training, because… they didn’t get the opportunity.

    Aren’t you also talking about diversity hires? I’m assuming you think there’s an imbalance that needs fixing, and your way of fixing it seems to be to hire minorities at a much greater proportion than how they’re represented in the population? Shouldn’t your solution be more class based?