Like was it a meaningful debate or a flat out flame war? And what was the main theme you were arguing over?

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[–] 28 points 4 months ago (7 children)

Sigh. That under Swedish law, it's entirely probable that Julian Assange did rape that woman (reddit fanbois are a special kind of special).

That Elon Musk is not a real-life Tony Stark, but is in fact a slightly autistic narcissist who insists on inserting himself into the public eye and has an excellent PR team (reddit fanbois are a special kind of special).

That covid is real, and is bad, and is in fact deadly; and that vaccines are good, not a government conspiracy, and may save not just your life, but the lives of your families and friends.

Probably one of those three.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    I feel like generally the POV of Musk being a narcissistic freak is now the default tbh, very few see him as the genius eccentric anymore

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I would like to believe that, and in the social spaces I frequent Musk's star has certainly fallen, but the number of people who sunk a ridiculous amount of cash into the SpaceX IPO speaks to there still being a lot of believers in his purported genius.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Unfortunately a lot of people still see him as an outsider tech genius who is standing up to the wealthy liberal elite. This is despite the fact that he is, on paper, the richest person alive. A lot of people I know, family even, curse Bloomberg and Gates as antichrists pulling the strings of the government puppet, despite the fact that Musk, Thiel, Kushner, etc. are literally doing that shit in the open

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Sorry, I don't know much about Assange but how can it be probable he raped someone "under Swedish law"? Do you just mean Sweden has different definitions for rape and that he might have done something fitting one of those definitions (but we cannot be sure of it because of lack of evidence)? Or something else I'm missing?

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  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I stated that in a democracy fascist, racist, neo-nazi political parties should not have the right to form, campaign or run for government because - other than the obvious reasons - they are inherently undemocratic. I also added that this is not a paradox of democracy and that claiming otherwise is apologist bullcrap trying to justify fascism, racism or other institutional, totalitarian forms of oppression.

    I got death threats.

    Edit: maybe this doesn't apply here since there was no arguing really? 🤔

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    and that claiming otherwise is apologist bullcrap trying to justify fascism, racism or other institutional, totalitarian forms of oppression.

    That's just making a statement and refusing any challenge to it. Debate means searching for the truth and acknowledging you might be wrong. Now you're just turning it into a personal attack toward anyone who disagrees with you. It's intellectually dishonest and in bad faith.

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  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    I don't remember exactly what it was that I said that I got absolutely dog piled on and told I was wrong repeatedly but it had something to do with fire hydrants. 30+ replies telling me I was wrong and stupid and didn't know what I was talking about.

    For the record, I work in water and fire hydrants are very much part of my work. But, a bunch of random people on reddit definitely know better than me. 🤷‍♀️

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Charitably, could there be some kind of regional difference where people living in certain places truly have something different? Over the winter, I came across a thread asking for radiator repair advice, and people from parts of the world with water radiators were very casual "open it up for investigation" while people from parts of the world with steam radiators were like "do not open anything you will die". Lots of confused comments, too, until someone figured out the disconnect.

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  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Way too many people think trans people's right to exist is a debate.

    The reading comprehension and overall common sense on this website is piss poor.

    I struggle to recall any "meaningful" debates.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The treatment of those with disabilities or who are just down on their luck, by the mostly apethic "I'm alright jack" public. I've had many arguments with those who thought that just because somebody needed benefits that they were milking the system.

    The most disgusting and revolting thing I can read on the subject from somebody is "if I've managed to get by fine without state help and support, so can/should they"... And yes many do actually think this way, sometimes even to those who need wheelchairs or other aids.

    Sometimes I've managed to convince them to care about somebody other than themleves for a change, sometimes I've caused them to go away thinking about it, and other times I've caused them to double down on their stance.

    Either way, the engagements were meaningful and eye opening and I'll defend this position until the day I die because nobody has any business being that disgusting towards other human beings.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 4 months ago

    I agree. Sometimes people who value equality forget about equity. That is helping others to achieve their own level of equality. A person in a wheelchair needs a ramp, a person with an invisible illness needs accommodations, too. Equity is almost always overlooked but it is necessary for true equality to occur. I wrote a whole paper about this in college.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago

    Buying a Pixel to install GrapheneOS is not the only reasonable alternative to mainstream Android.

    Each person has their own threat model. My priorities will be very different from a journalist in China, a whistleblower, or even my own mom. Some are more at risk of ransomware and a device with root is risky. For myself, I'd incur that risk as a power user and would rather my phone can be backed up so I don't have to worry about it breaking. GrapheneOS devs/followers believe that security is the only thing you must ever want, nothing else matters, and everything else is irrelevant, as though Google or street thugs will come to your house and exploit your bootloader if you don't give them data voluntarily. They just don't realistically question the statements the project makes, like what threats are worth mitigating (ubiquitous tracking? Who cares, I've got security patches and a locked bootloader!) and what options they're giving up by using GrapheneOS that's about as locked-down as the average Samsung phone. The marketing game is super strong because it's hard to argue against at scale: everyone's situation is different and "don't you want to be safe?"

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    I would say it's mostly topics I'm not actually arguing about.

    I tend to point out false statements or false assumptions. I do it regardless of the topic or my position on an issue, but usually it's taken as general opposition to whatever the person was saying. So they call me a shill or demand that I prove a ridiculous point of view they imagine I must hold. It's like only The Enemy is expected to care about the accuracy of what The Right Side says.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    I always hate when someone I agree with makes a stupid argument. Then if I point out their bad argument, I look like I'm arguing the other side

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    i hate it when someone argues with me by telling me i made a stupid argument by making a stupid argument.

    usually my falsely attributing a fallacy to me, which they themselves perform in their counter-argument.

    and then they basically go 'no, you were illogical first, if you don't admit it you are stupid and I am smart'.

    OK, really big-brained logic there.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    That nun-chucks don't follow Whip physics

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 4 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    No. Nun-chucka are a solid equal cross section, whips taper, so with a whip the force in the first section passes more speed to the next thinner section as mass decreases the speed increase per conservation of energy.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    That women should have the ability to give informed consent at a doctor's office.

    I've had to argue for decades that birth control shouldn't be held hostage until women submit to a pap smear.

    It's flat out unethical to hold a prescription until a patient does an unrelated screening, no matter how good your intentions are. It'd be like doctors withholding Viagra until a guy got his prostate checked annually. Yes, it's a good idea to do cancer screening but no one should be coerced into any medical procedure against their will, especially such an intimate and invasive one. This only happens to women.

    And yet you'd think I told them they should skin their new puppy alive. The amount of vitriol and even sexual harassment I got for maintaining this was mind blowing. And it was always from other women. I was told I'm a little girl, or not a "real" woman like it's some sort of twisted right of passage.

    I wasn't debating that the exam doesn't save lives or that people should stop having it done, just that women should have a choice and not be coerced - that it should be treated just like colonoscopies in that it's entirely voluntary.

    It hasn't been that big of an issue in recent years. But early 2010s holyshit you'd think women didn't think that they should have bodily autonomy (and a lot of this was coming from fellow pro-choicers!).

    This was a thing in the southern US. I know the North half of the country wasn't as insane.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    Probably 15 years since I had more than a 5 or so back and forths about anything. I lose interest and just stop replying.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    That historical events can be approached and assessed without contemporary extrapolations. But to boil down years of internets, including old ezboard forums, I'd say it's been over the Clean Wehrmacht theory/myth.

    I used to be really into WW2 history communities and I would routinely approach things objectively and piss a bunch of nerds off who pervert history and just want to obsess over how Hitler could've won.

    So I have argued far too much with people who hate Hitler just because he lost the war to Stalin. Like, primary sources would mean nothing. I'd have correspondence transcripts from commanders and diplomats, and they'd have their latest Hearts of Iron game run.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    those folks aren't interested in history, they are interested in fantasy.

    for a lot of folks, that's all history is, or why it's fun, it's the fantasizing about it. It's not the boring staid work of a true historian who is looking at boring crap like cargo manifests to piece together the reality of history.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    They'd sure extrapolate into conclusions for contemporary society and modern politics from those fantasies, which was the usual source of contention to start arguing.

    For some reason they're ceded the right to call what they're doing history and not fantasy. Hence things like the Clean Wehrmacht theory become more than fantasy to folks.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    People on social media get irrationally angry when I point out that all science confirms that physical punishment of children for the purpose of behavior change or discipline is a net negative. For both the development of the child and also society as a whole. And as such, any corporeal punishment of children should be considered assault and child abuse. People will desperately defend their right to exert violence on their own children.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    What!? Really!? That's insane. It's the whole boomer generation for ya. Millennial and even Gen Z are now having kids and most I talk to are completely against hitting their children. It's definitely boomers and Gen x (maybe Gen x) .

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    No, not a generational thing. Everyone, including millennials and Gen Z. It's more related to familial trauma. Those who lived through a violent childhood are the ones most likely to defend violence against children. They almost always use the old “I turned out fine, it made me a better person because I was a naughty child. So I will do the same.” It's like survivors of hazing trying to rationalize hazing others in turn.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago

    I used to go out of my way to argue with people on Facebook about vaccines and about representation of minorities in media. I liked to yell at antivaxxers and bigots

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago*

    People that believe all that ghost shit on YouTube is real. It's basically boomers and religious tards with a 3rd grade education that don't understand how easy it is to edit video for the average person. They all comment "May Christ protect you" and other crap like that. While these people pump out an episode every week like clock work where they're possessed, attacked, or some other BS. Best part is when they go "we almost died" over and over, because name one person on a paranormal investigation that died that isn't an obvious natural cause.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Idiots who don’t understand that vi is better then Emacs

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    Right here on Lemmy, someone argued with me for weeks that the mathematical conventions on order of operations can be proven, and that all calculators obey them. You can find calculator manuals with explicit examples that don't obey the conventions, and as a one time mathematician, his attempts at proofs are pathetic. Anyone who persists with him no matter how polite, will be faced with rudeness and condescension.

    I found the guy on Mastodon where he peddles the full suite of common mathematical wrongness (he thinks 0.999... ≠ 1) and recently he tried to do an inductive proof in an "educational" thread and got completely schooled by someone else. He was unable to understand that he was wrong.

    He claims to be a maths teacher, but his ability ran out at school and he's to arrogant to realise.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Being cursed with a memory good enough to recall some of my math teachers, I'm absolutely willing to believe that someone as comically incompetent as you describe could be a math teacher.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago*

    i had a horrible math teacher for two years in high school. there are tons of awful teachers out there who know nothing about what they are teaching... they are just doing a rote job and teaching blinded from the same textbook for decades on end.

    about 80% of the teaching staff at my high school were of that ilk. They just wanted an easy boring rote stable job and they got summers off to party/travel... and I meet teachers who basically say this is why they wanted to teach.

    I think I had like 3 teachers in secondary school who actually knew what they were teaching.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago

    Easily trump

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] [S] 4 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    What about women in video games?

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Until OP answers, I’m imagining it’s whether they exist or not

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    What sparked my initial thought to post this question was an argument about something very trivial. It was grammar. So I was wondering what other people had argued about and someone wouldn't let them be right because this person always had a rebuttle. What a total troll? Yet, I had verified evidence. Very trivial thing.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago*

    what about grammar. grammar debates fall into prescriptive vs descriptive camps, usually with the former thinking society will collapse if we don't rigidly standardize language use, and the latter laughing at linguistic changes and doing a lot of comparitive analysis.

    What i find annoying is that prescriptive don't really understand the concept of registers of a language. They seem to think there is only one legitimate register and all others are bad/wrong/false or something. Even if they, pragmatically, switch registers all the time without realizing it. They mostly nitpick the language at the collegiate formal level that is used among the professional classes.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Israel / Palestine - whatever you say, you always get attacked.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago*

    for sure. i got several comments removed for being anti-semetic, and anti Palestinian.

    they were comments in sequence citing statistical facts about the situation. which we not convenient to either's side being absolute good vs evil narrative.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The difference between socialism and social democracy and how most people actually advocate for the latter rather than the former due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what the definitions of those two things are.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    I honestly don't remember. I generally end convos if they are not being productive or have the chance of being productive.

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