General News Discussion Thread

[GatoDelFuego]

As we discussed on discord....The world's anti-drug opinions are changing, which is a good thing. Anybody who thinks the war on drugs isn't racial power control the USA should read up on it, because it 100% is. Other than the original story about cannabis-derived medicines there isn't much more to talk about.

 

[Ninahaza]

that has to be one of my fave posts of yours i've seen in a while, gato. /liked

Also just so i dont get banned (since i've been watching/enjoying firebot from behind the scenes), here is an answer to the UK and cannabis-derived medicines:
Whenever i see titles like those, it warms my heart but also puts me in a mini depression because i realize just how further ahead we could be with cannabis-related research. i wonder what we could truly know about that plant today. imagine all the people out there that could be getting help much easier than they are led to believe.

Just an honest feedback

 

[jrp]

As a druggie, I naturally have something of a very libertarian viewpoint on drugs.
Sure, they're addictive and kill people. But the realistic fact is that making them illegal doesn't help the problem because you have to go through unregulated behind the scenes transactions with no legal accountability.

I'm not talking about the real hard shit, I'd leave stuff like meth and heroin illegal, but stuff that can be "safely" taken with proper regulation, coke, acid, that shit should be legal.

Stop trying to kill an unkillable problem. Give safe regulated access to stuff, provide education on not abusing, but make it so I don't have to worry about finding fentanyl in my coke

 

[Prikki]

As a druggie, I naturally have something of a very libertarian viewpoint on drugs.
Sure, they're addictive and kill people. But the realistic fact is that making them illegal doesn't help the problem because you have to go through unregulated behind the scenes transactions with no legal accountability.

I'm not talking about the real hard shit, I'd leave stuff like meth and heroin illegal, but stuff that can be "safely" taken with proper regulation, coke, acid, that shit should be legal.

Stop trying to kill an unkillable problem. Give safe regulated access to stuff, provide education on not abusing, but make it so I don't have to worry about finding fentanyl in my coke

This is a good view. Remember prohibition? Alcohol was illegal. So, because people who made it would be out of a job if they just stopped, they went and made moonshine. Concentrated alcohol that let them sell more alcohol in a smaller space, allowing them to earn the same income while it's illegal. Same thing would happen here. Marijuana growers would selectively breed their crops to maximize THC. In fact, the US' War on Drugs is proof of this. Only about 1% of the people who did illicit drugs stopped when the war started. Portugal and Switzerland actually had a big problem with various drugs and they chose to not ban them, and instead making recovery centers, treating addiction like a chronic disease. Drug use went down over 50% and drug strength went down 40%. It works, and history says so too. I don't use drugs and I still feel this way.

 

[OLD GREGG (im back baby)]

As a druggie, I naturally have something of a very libertarian viewpoint on drugs.
Sure, they're addictive and kill people. But the realistic fact is that making them illegal doesn't help the problem because you have to go through unregulated behind the scenes transactions with no legal accountability.

I'm not talking about the real hard shit, I'd leave stuff like meth and heroin illegal, but stuff that can be "safely" taken with proper regulation, coke, acid, that shit should be legal.

Stop trying to kill an unkillable problem. Give safe regulated access to stuff, provide education on not abusing, but make it so I don't have to worry about finding fentanyl in my coke

Legalization won't eliminate the black market sale of drugs but it will make them much harder to obtain illegally. Drug dealers aren't going to ID anyone but businesses will have no choice. This puts these substances out of the reach of kids which is great and also users won't have to worry about getting laced as much. I think that our attitudes towards drugs and users need to change if society is to heal.

 

[jrp]

This is a good view. Remember prohibition? Alcohol was illegal. So, because people who made it would be out of a job if they just stopped, they went and made moonshine. Concentrated alcohol that let them sell more alcohol in a smaller space, allowing them to earn the same income while it's illegal. Same thing would happen here. Marijuana growers would selectively breed their crops to maximize THC. In fact, the US' War on Drugs is proof of this. Only about 1% of the people who did illicit drugs stopped when the war started. Portugal and Switzerland actually had a big problem with various drugs and they chose to not ban them, and instead making recovery centers, treating addiction like a chronic disease. Drug use went down over 50% and drug strength went down 40%. It works, and history says so too. I don't use drugs and I still feel this way.

imagine how dank the shit we could get would be if drugs were federally legal.


Cheaper than street price for extremely high quality, researched drugs? Research that can potentially minimize downsides of the drugs?

Not only that, you'd be able to buy acid without having to worry about research chemicals.

 

[jrp]

Legalization won't eliminate the black market sale of drugs but it will make them much harder to obtain illegally. Drug dealers aren't going to ID anyone but businesses will have no choice. This puts these substances out of the reach of kids which is great and also users won't have to worry about getting laced as much. I think that our attitudes towards drugs and users need to change if society is to heal.

Legalization won't eliminate it, but it will severely limit income flowing in. What's the point of going to a street dealer for low quality coke when I can just walk into a dispensary and get stuff that I know is good for a much better price?

 

[Prikki]

imagine how dank the shit we could get would be if drugs were federally legal.


Cheaper than street price for extremely high quality, researched drugs? Research that can potentially minimize downsides of the drugs?

Not only that, you'd be able to buy acid without having to worry about research chemicals.

You could buy the strong stuff for a reduced price and cheaper drugs at prices comparable to cigarettes. It's going to be similar to alcohol but scale the price based on production cost, use, and strength.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Https://nypost.com/2018/08/02/japanese-medical-school-changed-test-results-to-fail-women/

I hope that the school will quite literally never live this down. This isn't the result of a couple sexist teachers, this is an organized conspiracy at the highest level. I would have expected an academic institution to have at least some semblance of what ethics means.

 

[EV]

Https://nypost.com/2018/08/02/japanese-medical-school-changed-test-results-to-fail-women/

I hope that the school will quite literally never live this down. This isn't the result of a couple sexist teachers, this is an organized conspiracy at the highest level. I would have expected an academic institution to have at least some semblance of what ethics means.

Why are you linking a tabloid magazine in a news discussion thread?

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Only website I found without a paywall

 

[Prikki]

Https://nypost.com/2018/08/02/japanese-medical-school-changed-test-results-to-fail-women/

I hope that the school will quite literally never live this down. This isn't the result of a couple sexist teachers, this is an organized conspiracy at the highest level. I would have expected an academic institution to have at least some semblance of what ethics means.

Holy hell, this isn't right. If 70%* of women and 10%* of men quit their jobs as doctors when they start a family, and 1000 men and 1000 women* graduate, then a total of 1200 alumni will remain doctors until they retire. If they throw out the 1000 women then a total of 900 alumni remain doctors. Bad idea from a statistical standpoint, bad idea from an ethical standpoint, bad idea period.

* - Made up number. I am not patient enough to research actual numbers.

 

[Merritt]

Currently there is a horrific situation in Bangladesh, as over the past several hours what can be described as massacres have been occurring between student protesters and the government sponsored Awami League activists (state sponsored students/ex-students - think along the lines of Hitler Youth). The protests began after a couple students were killed in an incident involving a vehicle. The students have been protesting peacefully and attempting to improve traffic conditions in general, several accounts have stated that they have improved the traffic situation in the area noticeably.

The Awami League has gone out and have attacked these protesters (remember, these are student protesters generally in the range of 14-18 years old). Several have been killed, raped, or injured. News of this has been suppressed heavily, with the government actually asking telecom operators to reduce internet speeds down to 1.28 kbps, likely in an effort to prevent pictures from being uploaded. Earlier, discussions and pictures of the event were being removed from social media such as Facebook. Western media has begun picking up the story, though with the general lockdown new information may take a while to come out.

e: here's a link if you want to start down the rabbit hole
https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/94k93i

 

[tcr]

NSFL

This Bangladesh incident is one of the most horrific things I have witnessed play out. Here is a live reddit thread on the incident. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND PEOPLE SHARE THESE LINKS AND VIDEOS WITH YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND SOCIAL MEDIA. The Bangladesh government has fucked with their internet speeds, and there are multiple youtube videos out right now showing beatings and abductions of journalists and protestors. The Bangladesh government is currently attempting to downplay the event ala Tiananmen square, and appears to be trying to pass off reports of beatings, rapes, and abductions as fake news. I pity these people and hope that their situation resolves, and more over I pray for those who were abducted and potentially raped, this is an absolutely disgusting display of the worst parts of human nature. I hope that this event does not turn into genocide. Again, please share these stories with as much as you can, it is only when it reaches the media sphere that other countries will start paying attention, and hopefully peace can return to Bangladesh.

 

[Myzozoa]

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rabbani-guantanamo-prison-torture-20180726-story.html

cw: america is a shit country

boop boop

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...s-at-portland-rally-as-fears-of-violence-rise

"Gibson had earlier told the Patriot Prayer group that a deal with police meant that they would not be searched in exchange for confining themselves to a barricaded area. No weapons searches were carried out on the Patriot Prayer group."

all my eyes are rolling at this one, but id be lying if i said i was surprised. Really makes you wonder what free speech is if the police will assault you in the name of some terrorists' right to march through the city you live in with guns.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/03/denialism-what-drives-people-to-reject-the-truth

"The tragedy for denialists is that they concede the argument in advance. Holocaust deniers’ attempts to deny that the Holocaust took place imply that it would not have been a good thing if it had. Climate change denialism is predicated on a similarly hidden acknowledgment that, if anthropogenic climate change were actually occurring, we would have to do something about it.

Denialism is therefore not just hard work – finding ways to discredit mountains of evidence is a tremendous labour – but also involves suppressing the expression of one’s desires. Denialists are “trapped” into byzantine modes of argument because they have few other options in pursuing their goals."

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...s-infected-conservative-thinking-and-politics


"The plastic bag ban is not really about climate change, it’s about conservation – the tool conservatives such as Tony Abbott used to counter criticism they did not care about the environment.

It was the thinking behind Abbott’s Green Army, with that old-fashioned personal-responsibility aspect about it. Get out and plant some trees, pick up some rubbish and huzzah, look at me, I care about the environment, and unlike those greenies who just want to destroy jobs, I’m doing something that matters.

But sigh, no. Conservatives have been rendered so bereft by climate change that anything carrying even the slightest taint of an environmental impact is viewed with distrust. And so the plastic bag ban quickly became a new focus of the culture wars.

It’s all rather odd, but fits perfectly within a strain of thought that has decided the way forward is to ignore evidence and instead pursue an ideology of willful ignorance.

It has led to the point where there are barely any conservative commentators worth reading or listening to. It’s not that there are no intelligent conservative thinkers, but the lunacy of climate change denial and distrust of expertise has so infected the conservative media that prominence is now almost exclusively given to those for whom a worldwide conspiracy is more believable than reports by multiple universities and public agencies."

I don't even agree with the author about culture wars and plastic bags and conservation, but I go in for the argument that conservative ideology is motivated by fear leading to subsequent denials. 'fear is the mind killer' they say, and I think it really speaks to the way fear cuts off the imagination and abstract reasoning that a significant component of successful right wing ideology in America has been denying facts about, and solutions to, climate change, and continuing the energy lobby's agenda in the face of imminent ecological disasters.

 

[Prikki]

america is a shit country

This is because of American citizens thinking that they can do whatever the hell they want because they're in "The land of the free."

This was true all the way back in the 18th and 19th centuries because it was full of economic opportunity because the government didn't restrict people so much. Now, democracy, socialism, UN's laws, and more feature this pretty much everywhere aside from a few isolated examples. But American's are pretty dumb from what I know (lived in US me whole life) and they still think they're more free than the rest of the world. Not everyone, I'm sure, but the ones that ride motorcycles without helmets to protest laws and the ones that argue air conditioning is sexist sure do.

The people will protest against police if they do their job in a way that is deemed harmful, so that's why they didn't do a weapon search.

Denialism is caused by people pursuing religious beliefs in some cases, and is perfectly fine in my book. But other cases of denialism is caused by bandwagoning and tabloids, who got their information by making up claims.

And plastic bag bans are pretty wrong, too. You have to use a reusable bag hundreds of times before it even matches the environmental impact of plastic ones. Plus, the paper book industry is under fire from these groups because it "destroys trees." But that's wrong too. Money makes the world go 'round, so if the lumberjacks cut down all the trees in the area, they don't move, they plant more. That way they can keep earning money. Yet if a prime industry, paper, gets destroyed by them, it'll be replaced with other ways to make money, like factories, refineries, and cities.

America definitely is bad, because people are taking their "rights" the wrong way. Instead of reading up on them, they think that anything they do can be backed up unless it's illegal. They're allowed to do it, yes, but it's gained lots of popularity and causing unhealthy change.

 

[kilometerman]

Having rights and not getting shot by my government for having the wrong opinion is just fascist propaganda

 

[kilometerman]

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rabbani-guantanamo-prison-torture-20180726-story.html

Can you explain why "America is shit" based on this? You do realize that other countries also put terrorists in prison, right? What about the US is unique and why? Or are you just going to spam left-leaning biased news articles and pretend you're "spreading news"?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...s-at-portland-rally-as-fears-of-violence-rise

The point of this article is? Portland "totally not fascists but well punch you for wanting freedom" left-wing nutjobs are well-known by this point for being violent, it would make sense that the police advanced on them after "missiles" started being fired from the crowd. Should the police NOT have tried to avoid violence by forming a wall and stopping rioting? What?

"Gibson had earlier told the Patriot Prayer group that a deal with police meant that they would not be searched in exchange for confining themselves to a barricaded area. No weapons searches were carried out on the Patriot Prayer group."

Was that group engaged in violence? Under what reasoning would the police have to detain and search them? I know you don't like having human rights as evidenced by your constant criticisms of them but most people in America respect not having random searches you authoritarian twat.

all my eyes are rolling at this one, but id be lying if i said i was surprised. Really makes you wonder what free speech is if the police will assault you in the name of some terrorists' right to march through the city you live in with guns.

If you genuinely unironically think that's what happened and aren't just overexaggerating for political effect than you should probably see a doctor lmfao

It has led to the point where there are barely any conservative commentators worth reading or listening to.

Wow! A radical leftist doesn't want to listen to opposing points of view! !!! Woah! !

It’s not that there are no intelligent conservative thinkers, but the lunacy of climate change denial and distrust of expertise has so infected the conservative media that prominence is now almost exclusively given to those for whom a worldwide conspiracy is more believable than reports by multiple universities and public agencies."

Such shitty logic lmfao, you could apply this to any leftist propaganda schtick like the shit you've pushed about Michael Brown being gunned down by "le racist white supremacist drumpf cop (also a fascist I bet probably)!!"

I don't even agree with the author about culture wars and plastic bags and conservation, but I go in for the argument that conservative ideology is motivated by fear leading to subsequent denials. 'fear is the mind killer' they say, and I think it really speaks to the way fear cuts off the imagination and abstract reasoning that a significant component of successful right wing ideology in America has been denying facts about, and solutions to, climate change, and continuing the energy lobby's agenda in the face of imminent ecological disasters.

Weren't you the one who said that "capitalism's effects on the environment will render Earth uninhabitable in the next couple decades" or was that one of the other leftist nutjobs?

 

[Myzozoa]

can you even read? the guy in the first article is innocent:

"I am officially a prisoner of war, though the only battle I ever fought back home, as a taxi driver in Karachi, was the rush hour traffic. I was mistaken for an extremist, captured by Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s government and sold to the CIA for a bounty in 2002. I’ve now been detained at Guantanamo, without trial, for nearly 14 years."
"
We are said to be the most dangerous prisoners in the world. Yet in the years since this prison was opened, there have been no murders here, no escape attempts, no drugs. The only deaths have been those of the nine men who succumbed to health problems or took their own lives. The only alleged sexual abuse has been at the hands of American interrogators.
"
just because someone is brown doesnt make them a terrorist

why should police search white supremacists at their rallies? idk ill let you think about that one, i know if youre a white supremacist terrorist it sounds like a bad thing to not be allowed to march through cities with guns, but think about it from everyone else's view.

 

[Ninahaza]

but most people in America respect not having random searches you authoritarian twat.

You had me until this point.

Say that to the people of color that get "randomly" selected for searches during airport travel.

or to the people of color that get randomly pulled over and asked for ID when they are just going about their day, all under bullshit reasons to just pull up your record and see what you are all about.

Thank God cops leave me alone. its probably because i dress so fancy. it helps set an image

 

[kilometerman]

You had me until this point.

Say that to the people of color that get "randomly" selected for searches during airport travel.

or to the people of color that get randomly pulled over and asked for ID when they are just going about their day, all under bullshit reasons to just pull up your record and see what you are all about.

Thank God cops leave me alone. its probably because i dress so fancy. it helps set an image

how many people support that

 

[Ninahaza]

clearly enough since we are here talking about it

clearly enough since cops are people too, and certain actions can be easily equated to support.

clearly enough since its still happening.

i'm not here to insult anyone or call out anyone specifically (as you can see by how my previous post had no insults like "twat")

i wanna say you have to be blind to make a response like yours, kilometerman, but even a blind Stevie wonder locked in a basement with no lights on can see through your bullshit.

 

[Cresselia~~]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=312603749301413

A dam in Laos collapsed, causing floods, deaths and destroyed many houses.

 

[HailFall]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/us/jacksonville-landing-mass-shooting-madden-tournament.html

Another shooting happened today, this time at a gaming event. How many more people need to die before something happens? I saw the clip of right before the stream cut out and it genuinely awakens some next level terror in me. How long will we allow this to go on?

 

[brightobject]

just feeling pretty numb about it at this point, and i am guessing that is probably how most americans feel about it too. on some things our political efficacy is pretty shameful