Depending on where we look, the universe is expanding at different rates. Now, scientists using the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes have confirmed that the observation is not down to a measurement error.
I gave up on iOS entirely - I still love Mac OSX but I hate iOS, especially if I am constrained, b/c of work reasons, to still have to use a Google or Microsoft account. Apple just flat does not care what our needs are, out there irl, only what they want to provide. Now I am aware: if you sell your soul to them (by using exclusively their products), then they do take extremely good care of you. So long as you never even so much as dare to dream of venturing outside of their walled garden… you will be fine. But I just cannot live that way:-(. So I put up with the mess of Android, b/c it is still far better than the 1984-style “security” that iOS offers imho:-P.
Then again, I desperately do want a fairly stable daily driver, not an adventurous linux “experiment”:-D.
it could be more about personally losing something than it not being fair.
Oh yeah 100% agree there - all of humanity, and most especially children, use justification rather than purely logical reasoning.
my answer to the question “How can we help people?” is to just help people.
NO, I very much disagree, at least in my own sense. Then again, you did mention that it may not be phrased well, and your actual actions I 100% agree with so… there is that:-P. In general I think that such selfless act tend (even if not fully guaranteed) to be the better way, as in you help yourself and them at the same time - subject to your capacity ofc. A big issue there that I have agonized over in my mind is trans children. Since we know that younger humans use “justification” rather than pure “logic”, is it really helpful then to allow them access to surgeries that are not designed for that, not well-tested, and have an enormous failure rate (isn’t it like 50%?), where they can become crippled for life? Then again, I have no skin in that game really, and while I am mostly an ally in the sense that I think like “dare to be different” is a good thing, still I do wonder if those children are being taken advantage of by predatory doctors who are pushing expensive surgeries (like $100k USD a pop!), more than acting to help them be who they truly are. And some I believe truly are, but how do we know the difference b/t when it is helpful vs. harmful, and isn’t that related to age, or at least some measure of emotional maturity? I have read (on Reddit) in trans forums that even older trans people (who I trust more than myself to be cognizent of the issues involved?) are themselves against allowing literal children to go through that. To clarify, in case I am sounding “conservative” here myself (dErP), I am talking solely about children here, whatever that cutoff might be, like 15-18 or some such, and the goal is how to help them, not how to tell them what they can or cannot do (maybe the surgery could be allowed but not like federally approved for safety, or worse yet have some label attached to it, like those warnings on cigarettes? Anyway, I don’t mean to go deep into that issue per se, but rather to use it as an exemplar: “How can we help people?”, for me, requires some knowledge as to what, exactly, that is.
But ofc I am probably over-thinking it.:-D And yet even in doing so, I am offering my love to society in terms of trying to find that “correct” path. Not that I would tell much of anyone, so I don’t even know why really myself, except that it is in me to do so.
Anyway, when the answer seems more simple I just go for it - like I like to tip well, even putting in a dollar when I pick up food where no server is involved so it is not usual, and even if that could be 10-20% of the order cost. Those workers deserve their wages, and I need to be generous and that is one way to help support people who really are needing, wanting, and deserving of it!:-)
I feel like that’s just because those stories don’t sell as well and/or they get immediately buried by ragebait.
Sigh… yeah, everything seems to come back to money. There’s probably a morality/philosophy point in there somehow, like it tends to reflect what we value the most, as a society. Truth isn’t something we really care about, nor children, and for the most part we (the USA I mean) mostly care about healthcare when there are expensive drugs available for purchase, not so much at any other time.:-(
I applaud your efforts to remain open to experiences, possibilities, and loving one another - stay awesome gurl!:-D
I don’t have much time today but I have to touch on the trans children part of your post.
Sorry you’ve agonized over that, because it just doesn’t happen. Nobody wants children to have gender reassignment surgeries but that point has been used to attack transgender rights and healthcare over and over again and it’s not even a real thing. Nobody is actually getting them because it makes absolutely no sense to do it. You can’t do a surgeries like that on a body that is still growing, it will 100% turn out completely botched. The only surgery that could maybe make any sense on a minor may be the removal of breast tissue on transmasc people but that would only be required IF the child hasn’t been put on puberty blockers in time AND is experiencing major distress because of it. Everything else can wait. Hell, a large number of, if not most, trans people will never even get a single surgery. Hormone Replacement Therapy alone is very often enough and it is completely safe.
If it has happened, it was 100% done by a quack surgeon who needs to have their license removed. Literally nobody is going to argue against that except maybe for bad actors/astroturfers or perhaps actually insane people. Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see, please. You don’t even have to believe me but don’t go repeating that shit because it is extremely harmful.
It absolutely infuriates me because people keep repeating that as if it happens and it is being used to deny trans care to children, which is not surgeries but puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. Puberty blockers are used to delay puberty in case the patient is not certain about their gender identity and it is 100% reversible. What isn’t reversible is going through the “wrong puberty” and kids are now being forced to go through that in many states. Not only does going through the wrong puberty actually CREATES the need for more surgeries in the future, it is traumatic. Puberty is already really hard to go through once (Even worse if it’s the wrong one), imagine having to do it twice. I’ve done it, would not recommend if it can be avoided. Especially later in life when the mental anguish, mood swings and everything else that comes with going through puberty are really not “acceptable behaviours” anymore because then you’re an adult, you have way more responsibilities on your hands and by then people have forgotten exactly how crazy puberty was so they can’t even relate in any way. It is very alienating.
Also I don’t remember much of what I typed yesterday, I was basically half asleep but I should make it clear that what I meant by helping is only what I need to do and have been doing personally. It’s going to be different for everyone but for me the number one thing to do right now is to try and heal the divide between people on different spectrums and it is something that I actually have some kind of power over. I believe we really ought to stop wasting time and energy on things we have absolutely no power over as individuals and concentrate on getting people back together. Since I’m trans, well, I feel like it’s my responsibility now to forget about the divide and to be kind to everyone, even the ones who may not have kind thoughts about me so that we may have a chance to actually talk and find understanding. How are we supposed to tell people how things actually are for us if nobody even listens to us in the first place.
That’s from my point of view and something that only really applies to trans people as we have been thrust into this position we never wanted to be in, but I’m sure we all have something “simple” we can do to start taking baby steps towards regaining our power as people. To me, everything else is counterproductive and only serves to create more divide as we are completely unable to find common ground anywhere. How are we to make big societal and political changes without it getting bloody if we can’t agree on or even discuss the stupidest little things.
The saddest part is that in reality we all want the same thing but “They” have us fighting about manufactured issues and differences that don’t actually matter at all.
Thank you for helping put my mind at ease:-). Sadly, I think there are quack doctors, especially in the USA, but as you say the entire issue is so super-charged b/c on the other side you have things like those literally torture camps where they electroshock little children, often leading to their actual death. I think multiple of the latter have been created and directed over by someone who a decade or two later in life came out as gay themselves, and one or perhaps two even killed themselves - i.e. they hated themselves, b/c of their pseudo-religious bullshit treating Christianity not as “love one another” but rather as “do as I say” aka Might Equals Right and Conformity Is All. So then hurting the children sprung forth from their own mental illness, but in the process they created a panic among parents who wanted to “beat out the gay” from their children, who they ended up killing instead:-(.
The parallels between those stories and the anti-vax movement are profound: each relates to ignorance, and each results in a huge risk and often death to the most innocent among us:-(. And THAT is why I keep saying that I am losing hope for democracy: why should “citizens” have a say, in such INORDINANTLY COMPLEX matters, that require specialist knowledge, especially when there is (often Russian-derived, intentional) misinformation polluting the whole topic?! Except how else could be done - the State (e.g. China) decides, and everyone just has to follow its lead? Which brings us back to: the only solution forward would be to ensure that people receive a basic edumacashiun, so that we are better prepared to deal with such attacks on our system(s), even as we try to move forward into the future. But Christofascists on the one side, and corporate-backed liberals on the other, do seem a daunting pair of adversaries.
How are we supposed to tell people how things actually are for us if nobody even listens to us in the first place.
Amen, sistah! That is the really odd thing I find about most aspects of life - like “Evangelical” Christianity in particular, isn’t the goal there to “save” people, so then why go extremely out of your way to alienate them, via let’s say passing anti-abortion laws? All that on top of the fact that the Bible not only never says that Christians are meant to regulate non-Christians, but in fact it says the polar opposite of that! Christians are to judge “Christians” - e.g. when a priest diddles a child, THAT is something that should be judged! And also, Christians are specifically never ever to judge “non-Christians”, who have been granted freedom to live however they wish. The only grace I can manage to come up with for people who think like that - even though it included me for many of my early years - is that sheeple aren’t known for their ability to perform acts of higher thought. They are vulnerable. As are we all, just differently, is all.:-|
That said, there really is a line there, and that is when you step up to take away the rights of other people - properly warn them, yeah, maybe go so far as to require an extra consent form or some such, but when you actively prevent someone from doing as they please, that generates resentment. How the hell are people supposed to “evangelize” to someone who has just e.g. been tortured, perhaps to literal death? (successfully anyway) It makes them a hypocrite.
The saddest part is that in reality we all want the same thing but “They” have us fighting about manufactured issues and differences that don’t actually matter at all.
I agree so hard I can’t even throw in a nice phrase here about it, maybe I’ll just say “gulp”. Among well-meaning individuals, we can discuss ANYTHING at all, no matter how difficult, and if there’s something we don’t quite “get”, we can look it up. Maybe put our money where our mouths are and hire an expert to explain it to us. But we can get it done. However, among people who are not well-meaning, we can discuss NOTHING, b/c every single topic is merely being used as another avenue to preach their belief at someone, not merely virtue-signalling b/c they actually do mean it (sometimes), but still not all the way over to the other side in terms of being actually authentic. They must be quite lonely I imagine, and not comfortable in their own skin/heads, to need to resort to borrowing the actual thoughts of others rather than stare bravely at their own, following wherever they may lead. Take pity on them, but don’t let them be in charge!
It is not my place to tell you what to do, but I do hope that you get a chance to rest before replying to me - as much as I enjoy hearing from you, I want you to be happy even more:-).
I gave up on iOS entirely - I still love Mac OSX but I hate iOS, especially if I am constrained, b/c of work reasons, to still have to use a Google or Microsoft account. Apple just flat does not care what our needs are, out there irl, only what they want to provide. Now I am aware: if you sell your soul to them (by using exclusively their products), then they do take extremely good care of you. So long as you never even so much as dare to dream of venturing outside of their walled garden… you will be fine. But I just cannot live that way:-(. So I put up with the mess of Android, b/c it is still far better than the 1984-style “security” that iOS offers imho:-P.
Then again, I desperately do want a fairly stable daily driver, not an adventurous linux “experiment”:-D.
Oh yeah 100% agree there - all of humanity, and most especially children, use justification rather than purely logical reasoning.
NO, I very much disagree, at least in my own sense. Then again, you did mention that it may not be phrased well, and your actual actions I 100% agree with so… there is that:-P. In general I think that such selfless act tend (even if not fully guaranteed) to be the better way, as in you help yourself and them at the same time - subject to your capacity ofc. A big issue there that I have agonized over in my mind is trans children. Since we know that younger humans use “justification” rather than pure “logic”, is it really helpful then to allow them access to surgeries that are not designed for that, not well-tested, and have an enormous failure rate (isn’t it like 50%?), where they can become crippled for life? Then again, I have no skin in that game really, and while I am mostly an ally in the sense that I think like “dare to be different” is a good thing, still I do wonder if those children are being taken advantage of by predatory doctors who are pushing expensive surgeries (like $100k USD a pop!), more than acting to help them be who they truly are. And some I believe truly are, but how do we know the difference b/t when it is helpful vs. harmful, and isn’t that related to age, or at least some measure of emotional maturity? I have read (on Reddit) in trans forums that even older trans people (who I trust more than myself to be cognizent of the issues involved?) are themselves against allowing literal children to go through that. To clarify, in case I am sounding “conservative” here myself (dErP), I am talking solely about children here, whatever that cutoff might be, like 15-18 or some such, and the goal is how to help them, not how to tell them what they can or cannot do (maybe the surgery could be allowed but not like federally approved for safety, or worse yet have some label attached to it, like those warnings on cigarettes? Anyway, I don’t mean to go deep into that issue per se, but rather to use it as an exemplar: “How can we help people?”, for me, requires some knowledge as to what, exactly, that is.
But ofc I am probably over-thinking it.:-D And yet even in doing so, I am offering my love to society in terms of trying to find that “correct” path. Not that I would tell much of anyone, so I don’t even know why really myself, except that it is in me to do so.
Anyway, when the answer seems more simple I just go for it - like I like to tip well, even putting in a dollar when I pick up food where no server is involved so it is not usual, and even if that could be 10-20% of the order cost. Those workers deserve their wages, and I need to be generous and that is one way to help support people who really are needing, wanting, and deserving of it!:-)
Sigh… yeah, everything seems to come back to money. There’s probably a morality/philosophy point in there somehow, like it tends to reflect what we value the most, as a society. Truth isn’t something we really care about, nor children, and for the most part we (the USA I mean) mostly care about healthcare when there are expensive drugs available for purchase, not so much at any other time.:-(
I applaud your efforts to remain open to experiences, possibilities, and loving one another - stay awesome gurl!:-D
I don’t have much time today but I have to touch on the trans children part of your post.
Sorry you’ve agonized over that, because it just doesn’t happen. Nobody wants children to have gender reassignment surgeries but that point has been used to attack transgender rights and healthcare over and over again and it’s not even a real thing. Nobody is actually getting them because it makes absolutely no sense to do it. You can’t do a surgeries like that on a body that is still growing, it will 100% turn out completely botched. The only surgery that could maybe make any sense on a minor may be the removal of breast tissue on transmasc people but that would only be required IF the child hasn’t been put on puberty blockers in time AND is experiencing major distress because of it. Everything else can wait. Hell, a large number of, if not most, trans people will never even get a single surgery. Hormone Replacement Therapy alone is very often enough and it is completely safe.
If it has happened, it was 100% done by a quack surgeon who needs to have their license removed. Literally nobody is going to argue against that except maybe for bad actors/astroturfers or perhaps actually insane people. Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see, please. You don’t even have to believe me but don’t go repeating that shit because it is extremely harmful.
It absolutely infuriates me because people keep repeating that as if it happens and it is being used to deny trans care to children, which is not surgeries but puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. Puberty blockers are used to delay puberty in case the patient is not certain about their gender identity and it is 100% reversible. What isn’t reversible is going through the “wrong puberty” and kids are now being forced to go through that in many states. Not only does going through the wrong puberty actually CREATES the need for more surgeries in the future, it is traumatic. Puberty is already really hard to go through once (Even worse if it’s the wrong one), imagine having to do it twice. I’ve done it, would not recommend if it can be avoided. Especially later in life when the mental anguish, mood swings and everything else that comes with going through puberty are really not “acceptable behaviours” anymore because then you’re an adult, you have way more responsibilities on your hands and by then people have forgotten exactly how crazy puberty was so they can’t even relate in any way. It is very alienating.
Also I don’t remember much of what I typed yesterday, I was basically half asleep but I should make it clear that what I meant by helping is only what I need to do and have been doing personally. It’s going to be different for everyone but for me the number one thing to do right now is to try and heal the divide between people on different spectrums and it is something that I actually have some kind of power over. I believe we really ought to stop wasting time and energy on things we have absolutely no power over as individuals and concentrate on getting people back together. Since I’m trans, well, I feel like it’s my responsibility now to forget about the divide and to be kind to everyone, even the ones who may not have kind thoughts about me so that we may have a chance to actually talk and find understanding. How are we supposed to tell people how things actually are for us if nobody even listens to us in the first place.
That’s from my point of view and something that only really applies to trans people as we have been thrust into this position we never wanted to be in, but I’m sure we all have something “simple” we can do to start taking baby steps towards regaining our power as people. To me, everything else is counterproductive and only serves to create more divide as we are completely unable to find common ground anywhere. How are we to make big societal and political changes without it getting bloody if we can’t agree on or even discuss the stupidest little things.
The saddest part is that in reality we all want the same thing but “They” have us fighting about manufactured issues and differences that don’t actually matter at all.
Thank you for helping put my mind at ease:-). Sadly, I think there are quack doctors, especially in the USA, but as you say the entire issue is so super-charged b/c on the other side you have things like those literally torture camps where they electroshock little children, often leading to their actual death. I think multiple of the latter have been created and directed over by someone who a decade or two later in life came out as gay themselves, and one or perhaps two even killed themselves - i.e. they hated themselves, b/c of their pseudo-religious bullshit treating Christianity not as “love one another” but rather as “do as I say” aka Might Equals Right and Conformity Is All. So then hurting the children sprung forth from their own mental illness, but in the process they created a panic among parents who wanted to “beat out the gay” from their children, who they ended up killing instead:-(.
The parallels between those stories and the anti-vax movement are profound: each relates to ignorance, and each results in a huge risk and often death to the most innocent among us:-(. And THAT is why I keep saying that I am losing hope for democracy: why should “citizens” have a say, in such INORDINANTLY COMPLEX matters, that require specialist knowledge, especially when there is (often Russian-derived, intentional) misinformation polluting the whole topic?! Except how else could be done - the State (e.g. China) decides, and everyone just has to follow its lead? Which brings us back to: the only solution forward would be to ensure that people receive a basic edumacashiun, so that we are better prepared to deal with such attacks on our system(s), even as we try to move forward into the future. But Christofascists on the one side, and corporate-backed liberals on the other, do seem a daunting pair of adversaries.
Amen, sistah! That is the really odd thing I find about most aspects of life - like “Evangelical” Christianity in particular, isn’t the goal there to “save” people, so then why go extremely out of your way to alienate them, via let’s say passing anti-abortion laws? All that on top of the fact that the Bible not only never says that Christians are meant to regulate non-Christians, but in fact it says the polar opposite of that! Christians are to judge “Christians” - e.g. when a priest diddles a child, THAT is something that should be judged! And also, Christians are specifically never ever to judge “non-Christians”, who have been granted freedom to live however they wish. The only grace I can manage to come up with for people who think like that - even though it included me for many of my early years - is that sheeple aren’t known for their ability to perform acts of higher thought. They are vulnerable. As are we all, just differently, is all.:-|
That said, there really is a line there, and that is when you step up to take away the rights of other people - properly warn them, yeah, maybe go so far as to require an extra consent form or some such, but when you actively prevent someone from doing as they please, that generates resentment. How the hell are people supposed to “evangelize” to someone who has just e.g. been tortured, perhaps to literal death? (successfully anyway) It makes them a hypocrite.
I agree so hard I can’t even throw in a nice phrase here about it, maybe I’ll just say “gulp”. Among well-meaning individuals, we can discuss ANYTHING at all, no matter how difficult, and if there’s something we don’t quite “get”, we can look it up. Maybe put our money where our mouths are and hire an expert to explain it to us. But we can get it done. However, among people who are not well-meaning, we can discuss NOTHING, b/c every single topic is merely being used as another avenue to preach their belief at someone, not merely virtue-signalling b/c they actually do mean it (sometimes), but still not all the way over to the other side in terms of being actually authentic. They must be quite lonely I imagine, and not comfortable in their own skin/heads, to need to resort to borrowing the actual thoughts of others rather than stare bravely at their own, following wherever they may lead. Take pity on them, but don’t let them be in charge!
It is not my place to tell you what to do, but I do hope that you get a chance to rest before replying to me - as much as I enjoy hearing from you, I want you to be happy even more:-).