bigkoala71.bsky.social
any/all
93 posts
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20 following
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The BBC is a big reason we haven't polarised like the US has! Very scary.
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Scott Siskin's blogpost about the ultra racist "IQ map"
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Yeah, personally the system I prefer *is* PR with a threshold of ~5%, but as we see here it throws up some weird edge cases. It also incentivised SDP/Grüne -> Linke tactical voting to get them above the threshold.
All voting systems are bad, some are a lot less bad!
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Doesn't the data you're QTing above show a massive rise in voting for the left among young women?
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You can look at the parliaments of Belgium or Israel to see the level of political dysfunction that not having a threshold causes.
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Isn't that his goal for humanity?
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Well, Linke still have an isolationist foreign policy. But yeah they're unambiguously pro-immigrant and pro-LGBT.
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If the Tories continue commiting electoral suicide, I think, whoever is in 2nd, it's LDs in coalition and Reform in opposition.
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Would it be fair to say Grüne are now positioned similarly to UK Lib Dems?
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I think LD ideally want Lab coalition -> PR -> don't have to be everything to everyone (2010???) but can still influence government. Maybe I'm projecting...
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With where Reform are at, the only Lib Dem Opposition 2029 scenario (as opposed to, say, junior coalition partner) is very weird, right? Something like, Labour squeaks a majority after Tories and Reform perfectly split the Right vote, leaving LD with maybe 70-100 seats.
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One of the more bleakly funny things about the present moment are the people who are half self-aware, like Nate Silver slagging off Bluesky on Twitter but remembering he needs to censor the *word* Bluesky not to get squashed by X's algorithm, and it's like: my man, how have you got here?
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Dark room in St Petersburg
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At the risk of repeating what you imply earlier, that position on race makes exactly as much sense as a theory of sex/gender that can't explain misogynistic treatment of trans women.
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This sounds right, although unfortunately it still leaves the question open as to what everybody else should be doing.
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Ah fair! I mean, the jargon is not a side issue as far as activists are (should be?) concerned if the jargon prevents people from engaging, as long as the problem can be fixed by changing messaging without compromising on principles.
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This is a very direct manifestation of systemic oppression, right? Yeah I feel like alternative approaches are needed given the imbalance in financial, legal, social capital.
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I agree that it's in transphobes' interest to push the conversation onto "can a man 'really' be a woman" type meaningless nonsense, rather than concrete stuff like "should people be allowed to undergo X procedure", but I think Ben was also talking about his perception of pro-trans campaigning.
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There's also the important context that anti-trans groups generate outrage, often insincerely, over things like sports and changing rooms specifically in order to "other" trans people. For instance, the currently ongoing state-sanctioned harassment of the trans doctor in Fife.
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I wonder what anti-trans campaigners purporting to care about women's safety think happens to trans women forced into men's prisons. Their "anti-gender" ideology blinds them to the reality of how trans women are viewed in practice!
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(In terms of government policy: should people be able to have sex with people assigned the same sex? should people be able to undergo medical interventions to change sex characteristics?)
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Or, if you like, being gay and being trans are both about what you do
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Especially abhorrent given how these same people whine about being "silenced" or "cancelled" by a bunch of materially powerless activists.
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Also important to note that anti-trans "GC"s bring their financial and legal firepower to bear against those who speak up. It's a scandalous abuse of process, especially in terms of how court rulings have progressively perverted the EA 2010 - but it's one nobody talks about.
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Do you think the problem is that cis allies are scared / embarassed / find it "cringe" to speak up for an unpopular group, or is it more that they don't know what to say in the moment beyond platitudes about minorities and vulnerability?
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One thing that's become really obvious is that you hardly ever hear trans people's perspectives in the media, including in left-wing media - and of course trans people face horrifying harassment on social media. This means that well-meaning cis people often miss what trans people want.
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Yeah I agree this is the sort of thing that builds acceptance in the medium term. However obviously we've seen a big swing against in public opinion driven by what's a nakedly one-sided elite / media narrative. Feels like people are afraid to say anything for fear of being jumped on by TERFs!
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I definitely agree that mainstream trans advocacy has been ineffective. Would be interested to hear your thoughts!
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ahh
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Sorry this is unrelated but what does ♨️ mean?
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The Cass (which was explicitly headed by a non-expert in the field) did not recommend jailing doctors who prescribe blockers privately, or even find any evidence of harm! Streeting has messaged and acted well beyond what the review actually said, whatever you think of it (tbc I think it's biased).
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This is a fake tweet (sorry!)
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The existence of billionaires is incompatible with representative democracy.
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I really don't like to play identity politics, but these people would not be saying this garbage if they hadn't been lucky enough to live in a liberal democracy all their lives!
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These people have absolutely no idea what we are losing right now, as America's institutions are undermined.
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"What if we had fascism but they only did things I like instead"
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I'm relaxed about immigration but the system was unsustainable, right? Unis were having to take on more and more int'l students to stay afloat because the government didn't fund them enough. Although now we have the worst of both worlds, where int'l numbers are limited AND unis stay underfunded 🙃
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The way trans rights are headed*
When is editing coming to Bluesky stg
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But yeah I've experienced what you have, too. Maybe it's related to the thing where the right convinced normies that whatever the craziest "progressive" said on Twitter on any given day in 2014 was in fact the platform of the Democratic party? And now progressives feel the need to self-censor? idk
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Yeh like, personally I'm terrified by the way trans rights, for the sake of trans people, but also just anyone who violates trad sex/gender norms (gay, abortion, even looking queer). I don't know what the right political/comms strategy is here, but like I'm just some person I can have my opinion??
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I think it might be the reason for the cringe? Like I'm one of these people and I do feel that pressure online to focus on "real people's concerns" and not the attacks on, say, trans people's bodily autonomy or disabled people's living standards.
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Is it the "insider voice" thing? You know, "real voters" are left on economics and right on social issues, therefore someone whose problem is that Labour are too authoritarian / socially conservative must stick to attacking them for being too pro-business.
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Yeah agree, although I think to an extent it doesn't really matter
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Did you see his mask off scientific racism post?
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Their open weights are what makes the model any good! You don't have their data and you don't have their training code. I'm sure their research will be replicated in time, but you can't just "change the weights" to make an equally good model that doesn't suppress anti-CCP info.
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Yes it's open in the sense they showed their work and others will (hopefully) be able to replicate it. No it's not open in the sense that you can easily modify it to have whatever political lean you want.