I read Harper's Magazine for years without knowing who was behind it. The mixture of literary criticism, political analysis and in-depth reporting Lapham shaped was hard to top in terms of informativeness and calm inquisitiveness, something sorely missing from online media. The one piece of writing by Lapham that is etched into my mind is his introduction to McLuhan's Understanding Media [1], which helped me at last grasp how fundamental and unavoidable the "medium is the message" dictum is. RIP.
What I also find interesting and revealing is how surprised they are when others find their vision of the future (the near and the far) scary and dystopic, and challenge them. I used to tell crypto bros (most of whom have done a quick transition to AI-brohood recently) why and how their idea of the crypto-driven economy sucked, and they would just treat me like a weirdo who just didn't get it. This is all before the big crash, of course. I guess part of it is how crypto was getting insane amounts of funding, which legitimized and corroborated the idea, and also created a strong echo chamber where they were shielded from criticism. Money is great at making you ignore that you might, just might, be completely wrong.
That's why I stay away from endeavors that look too good to be true. I if it's become too popular to quickly and causes people to not question their surroundings or other motives run as far away as you can.
You'll have a much better life doing the right thing, then doing the wrong thing.
The core difference between crypto and tradfi is that crypto is open and hackable (in the creative sense) by anyone without having to receive the permission of the gatekeepers.
To believe that that is a bad vision of the future betrays something of the exact pessimism about humanity and authoritarian bent that this article complains about.
Pessimism is believing that there is no possible positive future for humanity. I don't get how rejecting one option is the same thing. How, again, rejecting one option due to clearly presented reasons is authoritarian is also beyond me.
The ticket controllers were really the worst for a while, fortunately they fired the previous company and started running their own people. There was one poor guy who got beaten to an inch of his life just because he didn't have a ticket with him. What great advertisement for the city of Berlin.
This is why there is a paid app that gives you summaries of books everyone is talking about so that you don't have to read them but also won't be left out. For most popular books these days, totally sufficient.
I remember a colleague attaching a screenshot of the text of a JIRA ticket to a ticket, and setting the ticket text to "read the text in the screenshot". Turns out JIRA crashed when he tried to save a ticket with a long text, with the text box deactivated so he couldn't copy it. His solution was to screenshot the text and use it instead of risk losing it.
Isn't [2] what happens in Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis? Postman is drunk every day at work, and his new boss thinks he's got a drinking problem. Turns out he gets served, or even forced to drink a nice glass of liquor at every stop.
well, they knew most user would addicted to it (and would likely smoke while using them), so they chose to protect their hardware by providing a safe place to dump the ashes
If Muslims are not OK with their religion and its figures being talked about in ways that are not within the rules of their religion, they shouldn't bring it up, and we should act as if it doesn't exist. You think your prophet was righteous? I don't care, I can't talk about him anyway, so it won't be part of my world of ideas. This has been my position on this topic since I got scolded by a Muslim for not referring to Islam's prophet with the obligatory "s.a.s."
If LGBTQ are not OK with their gender and the movement's figureheads being talked about in ways that are not within the rules of their safe spaces, they shouldn't be shoving it down everyone's throats constantly, and we should act as if they don't exist. You think being LGBTQ is important? I don't care, I can't talk about them anyway, so it won't be part of my world of ideas. This has been my position on this topic since I got scolded by some transgender person for not referring to them by their preferred pronouns.
The intolerance that many trans-rights activists show to those who don't accept that a man with a 'female gender identity' is a woman is similar to the intolerance that many followers of Islam show to non-believers.
No-one on the gender critical side has been beheaded yet, but there is a surprisingly large "kill the terfs" movement that parallels the extremism of Islamists.
What you're reading as "intolerance" is likely a defense and self-preservation mechanism.
Let's put this whole subthread in perspective. Someone told a story about how they "got scolded" and then two replies later the conversation has drifted to the idea that LGBTQ don't exist, their movement parallels one of the most inflammatory boogeymen you can use in US political discourse, and the only reason they haven't come for our heads yet is because they aren't powerful enough. The conversation usually drifts from here to "Well how do we stop them from getting power?", at which point it gets really ugly. It's a subtle move from "these LGBTQ don't even exist" to "these LGBTQ shouldn't exist", and unfortunately we've seen the consequences of that kind of thinking more often recently. The usual solutions are: make their existence illegal through the political system we control, or exterminate them with violence.
And this gets me back to the defense mechanism. It's unfortunate, I agree. In a better world there would be room for nuance and polite discussion to foster understanding. Unfortunately in the real world, things go really quickly from a misunderstanding to actual violence. The real kind, not the suspected kind. So to prevent that real violence, you get a "nip this at the bud" kind of responses to things that may be benign or just a misunderstanding. Unfortunately deadnaming and misgendering are followed often enough by violence, that even when it's not intentional the response can be harsh. The sad part is that this way of interacting is not productive for anyone, but survival mechanisms are usually a last resort, not something meant to be polite.
I'm sincerely sorry that my comment on a totally unrelated topic has led to such comments; if I had known that someone would bring up a supposed similarity with LGBTQ struggles I would have completely refrained from commenting. I guess deleting the original comment now doesn't make sense either.
They aren't committing atrocities because they don't have the resources for that, not because they are ethical and chose not to. Weakness is not a virtue, we shouldn't give them credit for it.
What makes you come to the conclusion that they would "commit atrocities"? On the one hand there is constant and widespread violence perpetrated against the LGBTQ, on the other there are vague threats by a couple of anonymous accounts, and your conclusion is that "they aren't committing atrocities because they don't have the resources"? I find this comment really insensitive, to say the least.
Let me rephrase it: they were not given a choice of committing something or not, so we don't know what they would choose if they were. I'm not saying they would (I see now that my comment can be read as if I did), I'm just saying that not having this choice is not a virtue.
It's like if someone said the Elon Musk is bad because he invested X amount of money into Y, and I'm better because I didn't (suppose I'm broke and I spend my days in a basement playing games). The "I'm better part" is flawed because we don't know what I would do if I was given his choice.
There's a difference though: You were talking about them, and not some public figure you are supposed to be following. When you are talking about me to my face, I'd really like you to use the proper form of address, otherwise you are insisting on being disrespectful.
So, imagine your grandfather was in the nazi camps, he struggles to stay alive every day, he doesn't lie, cheat, or do anyone wrong, he does stand his ground, he defends the weak, feeds the poor even if it's his own food, how would you feel if someone mocked him in your face? called him a warlord, a traitor, a nazi associate, made derogatory cartoons of him etc.
And this just doesn't come close to what he did and the battles he fought and the pain he's been through, all done to praise God and obey his commands, all to spread the message of God to the world, and he's been reciting a verse about the Idols and how they've wasted a lot of lives along with another verse, and he cries and raises his hands to the sky saying: Oh God my people, my people.
as in "God I am afraid for my people".
Not sure why any Muslim would scold you about that, as far as I am aware it's not obligatory but strongly encouraged
This encouragement doesn't apply to non-Muslims, like at all.
I think there are shortcomings on our side speaking of explaining our religion to the western audience but trust me it's not easy because any conservative Sunni Muslim who speaks out is being silenced and you're being left with Shia and liberal Muslims, and you're not going to get anything related to Islam from these people, for now you can follow Daniel Haqiqatjou and Sheikh Uthman Ibn farook.
One final thing I have to clarify is, Shia aren't representatives of Islam, why? simple as their books are based on dreams this is the short version, the long version is something you have to research for yourself.
[1] https://worrydream.com/refs/Lapham_1994_-_The_Eternal_Now.pd...