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There’s very much an ethical problem here. Sure, it’s fairly clear-cut with some debilitating genetic issues. But there’s a point at which you’re veering into eugenics, and that’s sooner than people think.

Take children who are deaf due to a genetic defect. I’m sure most parents imagine being deaf a terrible lot in life that they’d like to spare their kids from.

Then listen to actual members of the deaf community. They’re proud of their identity, they have their own language, and they’re terrified of the prospect of being essentially eliminated in just a few generations by well-meaning folks that can’t imagine a happy life as a deaf person.

What if we discover a few years from now that there are genetic markers for being queer? What if we can genetically engineer people to be thinner, more muscular, have a more attractive bone structure, lighter skin? Those are all things that offer an objectively more comfortable life, which I’m sure many parents would want for their kids without much thought given to what the societal implications are.

And what if this technology becomes available to a charismatic cult leader, a narcissistic tech CEO, a fascist regime?

Such technology doesn’t just fix genetic diseases. In a hierarchical global society that measures people’s worth by their body rather than their character, it eliminates human diversity.

This makes total sense due to the square-cube law (and cell sizes I suppose).

Have you considered relatively thicker sticks, like a log on a slower-burning fire? That should mitigate it a bit.

We just all set it to yellow the entire time so people don’t think they can call out of the blue.

Colonialism only took on modern forms. It’s always been might makes right.

Now with some countries slowly rising from its shadows, a lot of people in the west are pissing their pants that the tables might turn. Even if we’re a very long stretch away from that, and climate change is ironically affecting us less than the so-called global south.

lmao

No one implied they shouldn’t be allowed to. People just have opinions on what works.

A national self-perception steeped in exceptionalism has them convinced it can’t be anything but envy.

The entire political spectrum has moved considerably right, with “Fortress Europe” talk and blatant admissions that human rights aren’t something we should care about.

There is no hard divide between conservatives and the far right.

Also moving the overton window.

It only took a few years for our “alt right” to replace the suits talking conservative economics with demagogues spewing racial purity on national television. Self-radicalization is built into the far right mindset.

The US economy is directly tied to imperialism and massive exploitation of other nations. And we both know that’s not gonna change under any Democratic leadership.

You can’t just go back to the way things were because it worked for you.

It’s cope, at least in part, to point out that the open advance of fascism in the US is several years ahead of the rest of the Western world, and that this was possible under an absolute dumbfuck embarrassment like Trump. And I get why people need to cope right now.

It’s also not wrong to point out that this was enabled by the US exceptionalist mindset and particular flavor of nationalism that we’ve all been exposed to.

This reads as a diss against all people in the US, but it’s not. I strongly empathize with and am in solidarity with those suffering under it.

That used to be broadly my view, until I watched Dan Olson’s In Search of A Flat Earth, in which he explores the worldview in which this “opinion” persists and why.

After reading a good review I tested it with my horror-loving gf, but we found it kind of mid.

I did the same. Took a while but the whole family was on board.

Now on to convince multiple circles of friends and every new person I meet…

Yeah. There was a statistic about Steam a while ago showing that the percentage of recent releases by playtime was steadily declining. People have their classics, they outgrow competitive games, they don’t want to upgrade their PCs as much with current prices. This was masked for a time by overall steady growth in the gaming sector, but this is slowing down.

Bethesda just lost their spark. It’s all live-service pseudo shooters now in an outdated engine that bothered no one when they made good RPGs, but is woefully behind for shooter action as primary gameplay loop.

Yup. I built my rig when it was just barely affordable and plan to maintain it for many years. It works just fine for the titles I play.

I mainly feel for the enthusiasts and the community and economy they built. Most people aren’t interested in tech they can never hope to reasonably afford. Gone are the times of a new rig every 3-4 years. Gone is the excitement.

Awesome. If I saw someone 10 years older than me absolutely tearing up a path in the woods, pushing themselves the way I remember biking for fun, I’d be nothing short of inspired.

That’s just not true. He was calling out whites who merely pay lip service to civil rights while putting all their political capital into maintaining a discriminatory status quo.

That is unfortunately the majority, and the frustration at this fact does come through in many of his quotes, and it is well-placed.

Yeah basically the term Liberal in this context is the conservative propaganda team that describes everyone they loathe. What it doesn’t describe is any specific agenda or worldview because they utterly lack political education and are highly suspicious of anyone that does.

There are of course white progressives with good politics who truly care for civil rights, in particular those of minorities when their rights are being threatened. This is not the kind of person Malcolm X is talking about. Unfortunately there’s no real political representation for that. The only effort put forward by the Democratic party is saying: “At least we’re not as bad as the Republicans, so shut up and vote for us or we’ll reconsider that position.” Those are the liberals he’s rightfully calling out in that quote.