Cartoon_Cat

Cartoon_Cat wrote

I don't think anyone is actively attacking newcomers, but there have been a few instances of newcomers asserting their misguided views on Raddle as if somehow the users on this forum were unaware of those arguments. If they come here with an agenda rather than an open mind of course they will be met with hostility.

I don't appreciate being policed; being told who to welcome or how to talk to people - Users of this site do not represent this site, they represent themselves. It isn't our problem if someone concludes that leftist ideas aren't worth considering because they saw a lefty being rude to a neo-nazi online once. Some people aren't ready for some of these ideas yet, and that's okay - people have to get to a certain point on their own before they can be expected to digest ideas that fly in the face of their reality.

While new users aren't expected to be experts (im new myself), it's reasonable to expect them to take the time to read around and form an argument if they disagree with something they see posted. It's pretty common to see people online getting tangled up over criticism of 'liberals' because they are stuck in their american definition which paints a 'liberal' as a 'progressive' rather than a capitalist enabler - but 5 minutes of researching "why do leftists dislike liberals?" will save a lot of hassle. If someone refuses to do their own research then what hope is there?

I don't see Raddle as a site to spoonfeed people leftist ideologies, but some people genuinely want to be told what to think. It's very healthy to challenge each other, and users on this site are able to do that well and it serves to further each person's understanding. However, in the 'real world' we are trained to take any criticism as a personal attack - so if you have a new user who is used to reddit/facebook dialogue, they will often take offence at any criticism of their ideas and devolve into name-calling as a defence mechanism.

TL;DR (couldn't resist) - we shouldn't baby new users just because they've been trained to be oversensitive. Fascists are ruled by emotion rather than rational thought, so playing their game won't get us (or them!) anywhere. Fuck their ideas, and fuck sharing a platform with them.

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Cartoon_Cat wrote

I think it is absolutely viable, considering reddit is more about timing your posts and comments properly (isn't the algorithm something like x-upvotes per x-time rather than total upvotes?) than about content.

Theoretically just a handful of users could push a post or at least a comment-thread high enough in the chain for the 'neutral' karma-hunting users to tag on and try and be part of the hivemind by commenting and upvoting themselves.

The fallout might not be worthwhile though. Considering how persistent you would have to be to start to impact the dialogue you'd run the risk of drawing attention to your activity and discrediting the content you push. It might be best to limit it to just pushing certain links up rather than comments, but then isn't this happening all day with bots? T_D posts are quite openly manipulated by bots in some huge way, and they seem to get away with it. I'm not sure I would want to attach myself to that tactic, purely because of its association with that sub.

Wishful thinking here but I'm sure there are people working for reddit who are sick of it and willing to impact change under the radar

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Cartoon_Cat wrote

I think all people have it in them to commit the act - especially in the US where everyone has the means to instantly end a life in a split second of panic.

I spose the big difference would be if someone had it in them to deal with the aftermath, or even to kill a second, third or fourth time, or to kill multiple people in a premeditated action. I don't think I have it in me to be a 'killer', but certainly in the 'right' situation I'd likely be capable.

It's justified to kill exploiters/oppressors in self defence or liberation, but how much can you hold their followers responsible? How far down the chain can you go before it isn't justified?

It's actually a question I struggle with regularly to a less extreme extent - the same people that mindlessly defend the right to eat animals are the same people that would have mindlessly supported and maintained human slavery, but once the status quo changes (and the slavers are eliminated) they change too. One one hand I hate them for the harm they cause, but on the other I know they are not the ones responsible for the way they think and act. So I can't justify harming them unless they target me first, because they're quite literally tools.

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Cartoon_Cat wrote (edited )

I guess I mean that I find it unlikely that H&M thought "lets put this monkey shirt on a black kid". It's more likely they have a diverse range of models and don't consider what they make them wear. If we were to speculate how these shoots happen, there's probably a stack of shirts and the photographer just churns through them without paying much attention to the content of them. Or, like most online stores, they superimpose the shirt on a shot of a model (although this is probably unlikely looking at the image).

I think I'm trying to say that most people don't think black people bear any resemblance to monkeys and I don't think this shirt casts black people as monkeys by being modeled by a black child - that's not to say there's no problem with this image considering the history and current climate, and I think you're probably right that this was a deliberate stunt which is disgusting.

Just the outrage seems a bit one-dimensional, can't we go further with our criticism of H&M? - yeah a black kid wore a monkey shirt, but if his black parents had no issue with the shirt, why should we? I had a brief search and found a handful of monkey shirts modeled by black models, but is this different because it jokes that the wearer is a monkey?

I'm not trying to be an apologist for H&M, I just want to understand what they're expected to do instead - tell the kid "oh sorry you can't model this monkey hoodie, because you're black and people might think we're calling black people monkeys"? Additionally I think there are stronger arguments for trashing H&M is all.

EDIT: I missed a critical line along with a quote in the linked article, that the other shirts in the range were modelled by white children, apart from this one. My mistake, it's far worse than I've assumed and I regret not reading more thoroughly before commenting

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Cartoon_Cat wrote

No issue with H&M being trashed but this is weak reasoning - Offense is taken, not given.

This wouldn't even cross my mind as race-related and I can't help but feel as though this is a deliberate attempt to smear genuine accusations of racism as being 'oversensitive'.

The answer is to not exploit children as models, that should be the issue here. Not the colour of the child's skin, although it does seem a bit fucked considering the very same clothes are also made by exploited dark-skinned children.

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Cartoon_Cat wrote

If you stood accused of a crime that threatened the status quo and the state, would you want a state-appointed lawyer? Would you not want the option of an independent lawyer at your own cost that you are fairly confident is loyal to you?

I disagree with the existence of law and the penal system in its entirety, but in our current predicament I want private lawyers. They're a fucked up bandaid on a weeping, gangrenous wound.

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Cartoon_Cat wrote

I'd be wary of this - there's not much chance of denying you were the one using that Google account if you have this advanced security.

Call me paranoid, but let's assume Google is tracking everything you do online, and building a profile of you to sell to advertisers. What's to say future government interventions don't target particular groups of people as trouble? You haven't got much chance if you're identified as subversive based on your reading habits and you've confirmed it's definitely you personally accessing this content.

This level of security is unnecessary for users that already take security seriously, and it feels more like spoonfeeding those that can't be bothered to take steps to reduce their risk. The kind of people that use the same password for all accounts, which is their birthdate written on a post-it note stuck to the back of their iPhone, will benefit from 'advanced protection'.

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Cartoon_Cat wrote (edited )

Poorer people can't afford to cook decent meals because of the time cost. Poorer people can't afford to educate themselves on nutrition or seek out quality ingredients because of the time cost.

Once the above conditions are achievable, a vegan diet is incredibly cheap, and significantly better value nutritionally.

It's very important we drop the myth that vegan diets are expensive. Most vegans don't eat substitute meats or cheeses as a staple of their diet, nor do they eat avocado toast every morning...

ed: even if a vegan diet was slightly more expensive (it definitely isn't) - surely the savings on healthcare would be worth the investment?

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Cartoon_Cat wrote

Reply to by !deleted1665

15 trigger pulls of the taser... After how many pulls do you conclude it isn't working?

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Cartoon_Cat wrote

Important to remember that this specific example of abuse is close to standard practice in the animal agriculture industry. The CAAIR program didn't come about because of some extreme group of religious sociopaths, but out of the desperate need for reliable cheap labour to run the factories and turn a profit.

Funnily enough, people aren't naturally drawn to slaughterhouse work, and many end up with PTSD or serious workplace injuries. Employees are often 'illegal' immigrants with no legal protection, or desperate refugees with little other option. These companies target vulnerable people in their recruitment campaigns. If an employee is seriously injured and unable to continue working they are usually discarded with no recourse.

We are disconnected from the realities of these industries through a lifetime of propaganda, and any concerns are often dismissed as petty, childlike, or weak when the suffering of the animals is put first. Children instinctively love animals, and are trained out of it as they age - we therefore associate love of animals with children.

While this article is an example of the harmful failures of the criminal justice system, consider the human suffering inherent in the animal industries as a whole. As humans, we are animals, and we do not like killing them. Imagine spending days on end killing endless waves of screaming creatures and how that could impact you psychologically, let alone the risk of physical harm from the machinery that you are forced to use at an unsafe pace.

I'd imagine it's obvious to most readers of Raddle that the CAAIR program and the state of our criminal justice system(s) are symptoms of the way we structure our society, and that removing these symptoms won't stop virtually-identical abuses springing up elsewhere. Bear witness to suffering where you see it, and understand that you do have the power to help. In the times of chattel slavery, the cotton industry was one of the most powerful and influential industries in the world (no doubt thanks to the cheap labour!), and many abolitionists had doubts that they could ever end human slavery in America - but they took action and here we are.

Arguably we are still slaves in many ways, but we can at least choose our masters. Many people believe we cannot end animal exploitation, but we can easily affect change on an individual level, and collectively help hundreds of thousands of exploited, vulnerable humans.

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