Zuzak

joined 4 years ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

Frog speedrun any%

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Fascinating. So if one state doesn't recognize another, that means that it "clearly states its aim is to fully annex it." So for example, the US doesn't recognize the government of Afghanistan, so that means the US "clearly states" it aims to reinvade and fully annex Afghanistan, do I have that right?

Or maybe you meant to say that Russia implicitly suggested that it intended to fully annex Ukraine, according to your speculation?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

they have clearly stated was fully conquering Ukraine?

Source?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago (3 children)

The first thing to note is that Buddhism is a broad term that contains a lot of different belief systems. It is also plagued by poor translations of terms that don't translate well into English, especially without looking meanings of the original terms.

Imo, your friend has distorted and misrepresented Buddhist teachings in order to justify not changing their behavior regarding meat-eating.

I'd challenge the use of the term "deserved" altogether, and I'd say "caused" might be a more accurate interpretation. Karma is not about an intelligent, all-powerful being passing judgement and smacking you down. It's sometimes referred to as "the law of cause and effect." It's described as a function of the universe, the same way that physical laws makes objects fall to the ground when dropped. The exact way in which this works is up to interpretation. More secular-minded Buddhists might point to logical and observable consequences to explain it, while more spiritually-minded ones might argue that it's more of an invisible, unexplainable force that carries over between lifetimes.

To use an example: a child that is fed a hamburger by their parents does not have knowledge of the animal's suffering that was required to make it, nor do they have agency to control their diet or to prevent the animal from being harmed. But, an animal is still harmed through the process. The intent and agency of the actor are not important in the same way that it doesn't matter if a ball on top of a slope is pushed or knocked over. It would only really matter if you're dealing in terms of judgement.

It is not your responsibility to enforce karma on others. Karma isn't a positive or negative force, and just because something happens that doesn't make it good or fair or deserved. Rather, the idea is to navigate the world in such a way that you minimize undesirable consequences. Buddhist precepts are a list of guidelines that are intend to do just that, the precept about nonviolence being the first. The idea is: "Bad things seem to happen a lot when people go around killing living beings so it's probably better to not do that, generally speaking."

You are correct that your friend's interpretation and worldview is a mess of contradictions that could just as easily be used to justify harm to humans, and that they're blatantly violating the first precept. But I would argue that they're not accurately representing Buddhist teachings, and their views shouldn't be held as representative of the belief system, though admittedly, like I said there are a lot of different traditions and beliefs.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

pennies on the dollar

Psychopathic framing. "Look how efficiently we're killing people!"

Also great example of conflating states with people. Maybe Ukraine still wants to fight, but Ukrainians are being conscripted against their will. In the same way, wearing Russia down may serve the interests of the US government, but it certainly doesn't benefit the American people in any way. The best thing for the Ukrainian people would be to stop the killing at any cost, even if it meant territorial concessions. They could've saved countless lives if they'd done this from the start, and eventually that's what's going to happen anyway, but unfortunately countless people have died and countless more will before the ruling class decides to stop forcing the poor into the meat grinder.

How the fuck is my life supposed to be better because of dead Russian soldiers?

[–] [email protected] 55 points 7 months ago (1 children)

NATO is seeking to take control of decision-making powers on future aid packages — normally led by the US — in an effort to limit the impact of a potential second Donald Trump presidency on the ongoing conflict.

This is wild. It's bad enough that the US president has the power to start wars wherever he wants with no congressional approval. But now they're trying to make it so that the only people with the authority to withdraw from a conflict are unelected NATO officials accountable to no one.

Dronies will support this, because they love endless war across the globe and want to remove any potential for popular support to achieve peace.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 7 months ago

girls dressing like men

As a transfem in a situation where I frequently have to present as a guy: thanks? heartbreaking

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Define your variables. Wtf is "b," the number of votes candidate B would have, plus one for no reason? Why is candidate T getting t votes and not t-1 votes? Terrible math, try again.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

They're desperately trying to find somewhere full of boomers so the genocide issue doesn't kill them but there's no way the Florida boomers choose 99% Hitler if 100% Hitler is on the ballot.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

"Wow, the Fire Nation is just like the latest country the news told me to hate, good thing America's around to Share Our Greatness™️with them!"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

hitler-detector Wow this thing's going crazy over here

1
wwyd? (hexbear.net)
 
 

I feel like the bizarre, nonsense logic of capitalism does a lot to obscure how much of a difference even a small increase in wages can make for people. Like, many people may see it as, a $1 raise for someone making $10/hr is the equivalent of a $2 raise to someone making $20/hr. But this is totally wrong.

The problem is that this accept the capitalistic logic in which everything is a commodity and all desires are the same and equal. You get your paycheck, and you may choose to spend it on food, video games, shelter, Funko Pops, you know, whatever you want. Obviously, this is a false equivalence. A certain standard of living is necessary just to survive and remain healthy enough to work. Since that standard of living is a prerequisite to working, treating it as just another option of what luxuries to buy makes no sense.

Rather, since people will have to spend a certain amount of money on necessities, then we can treat that money as earmarked from the moment they collect their paycheck. Which means that, rather that saying, "You get paid $10/hr," from another perspective, we can say, "Your boss provides you with room and board and transportation, and then an additional $1/hr." I know these numbers aren't super accurate, but just for the example to get the concept, if we say that $9 is what you need to survive, then at $10/hr you're really making "Necessities + $1/hr," and an increase from $10 to $11 is not merely a 10% raise - it's double what you were making before (after necessities).

The cost to provide the basic necessities does not increase as people get wealthier (contrary to what many economists seem to think), so you can subtract the same amount from the $20/hr wage and see that that person makes "Necessities + $11/hr." To get the same doubling of discretionary spending as a $1 raise at $10, you would have to go from $20 to $33. Which is fucking wild. As far as I can tell the biggest challenge to this is defining the cost of necessities, which can vary from place to place, but otherwise it sees to check out, conceptually.

The lesson here is that the law of diminishing returns is way more powerful than people give it credit for, and that a job that pays even a little bit more can make a big difference for a lot of people.

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