I just watched The Cynical Historian's review of the recent Napoleon flick. It was great. The review I mean, not the movie. It tried to tell Napoleon's whole story, which is just not feasible in the span of a single film.

I had no idea there were 7 coalition wars, that's crazy.

I support robust enforcement of anti hate speech laws. In fact I've reported hate speech/ hatecrime to the police before.

We're not talking about laws, we're talking about social media platform policies.

Social media platforms connect people from regions with different hatespeech laws so " enforcing hatespeech laws" is impossible to do consistently.

If users engage in crimes using the platform they are subject to the laws that they are subject to.

I don't care that it's legal to advocate for genocide where a preacher is located, or at the corporation's preferred jurisdiction, I don't want my son reading it.

The question was: is there a way a platform can be totally free speech and stop hate speech. I think the answer is "kinda"

Custodienne

I'm not very impressed by this author's assessment. There are so many questionable claims I can't believe I'm bothering to respond.

America's operating bases in West Asia (Europe) are not secure, its bases in the Middle East are under attack, and they daren't set foot near Taiwan.

The military bases in Europe have always been vulnerable. Intentionally so. Is it not the intent of the American military establishment to use a strike on them to generate public support for nuclear war? How have attacks on military bases in the middle east recently re-shaped America's global military posture? Didn't America recently quadruple its (small) presence in Taiwan? Are there not American troops on Taiwan held islands less than a mile from the Chinese mainland?

their military is no longer the strongest in the world

Whose is stronger? Russia can't even beat Ukraine. I don't think Iran could beat Israel albeit America should get most of the "credit" for that. I think Americans probably racistly judge the Chinese army to be of poor quality but China's military (to it's credit) hasn't dropped a bomb since 1979, so it's difficult to know what it's really capable of.

America still holds a nuclear gun to the world's head

Isn't it Russia that has recently amended its policy on the use of nuclear weapons to try to keep Ukraine's arms tied behind their back?

I'm in favour of a more democratic world where countries can set their own economic and social priorities. I believe America should end its so called war on terror and dismantle the bourgeois domination of political power at home and in its puppet states. But I don't think Russia, Yemen and Iran having hypersonic missiles affects the likelihood of that happening very much.

I'm not certain what the external OP meant by liberalism. If they meant leftism I think it might be accurate to say that:

Leftist movements promise everything in the hierarchy, but depend on working class solidarity which (I think) is a form of transcendence. Leftist movements blame societal safety and physiological shortcomings on amorphous policies and power structures.

Whereas: fascist movements promise esteem (through the glory of the state), belonging and love (through participation in the movement), and blame safety and physiological inadequacy on 'outsiders' and political opponents.

I'm having trouble articulating how promising esteem through the glory of the state isn't a form of transcendence. I think it's because it's something that's promised, ie "elect me and you can be a proud aryan again" is different from "elect me because you care about the working class".

The former is "you get something for voting for me". The latter is "if you've achieved transcendence you should support lifting others up".

But this all based on my uninformed understanding of Maslow and political ideologies.

Listen to your body, assess how its feedback comports with your goals, then use your brain to decide what to do.

I think it may be possible if you understand a difference between the right to speak and the right to be heard.

Ie the right to say something doesn't create an obligation in others to hear it, nor to hear you in the future.

If I stand up on a milk crate in the middle of a city park to preach the glory of closed source operating systems, it doesn't infringe my right to free speech if someone posts a sign that says "Microsoft shill ahead" and offers earplugs at the park entrance. People can choose to believe the sign or not.

A social media platform could automate the signs and earplugs. By allowing users to set thresholds of the discourse acceptable to them on different topics, and the platform could evaluate (through data analysis or crowd sourced feedback) whether comments and/or commenters met that threshold.

I think this would largely stop people from experiencing hatespeech, (one they had their thresholds appropriately dialed in) and disincentivize hatespeech without actually infringing anybody's right to say whatever they want.

There would definitely be challenges though.

If a person wants to be protected from experiencing hatespeech they need to empower some-one/thing to censor media for them which is a risk.

Properly evaluating content for hatespeech/ otherwise objectionable speech is difficult. Upvotes and downvotes are an attempt to do this in a very coarse way. That/this system assumes that all users have a shared view of what content is worth seeing on a given topic and that all votes are equally credible. In a small community of people, with similar values, that aren't trying to manipulate the system, it's a reasonable approach. It doesn't scale that well.

I believed the author has overstated the impact hypersonic missiles have had on America's global military stance.

I think drones are much more significant.

Yeah I think we should believe that the witness correctly interpreted the meaning in the given context, but we shouldn't assume that everyone that says it means it like that. It's context dependant.

I'm not sure that the best way for a software developer to support the war effort is by carrying a gun.

Hopefully if they support the defense of Ukraine, they find a way to support the Defence of Ukraine. I'm hesitant to prescribe the best way to do that.

Yeah that's a good point. Maybe I should amend my statement to say something like:

If this seems like an absurd hypothetical, consider reframing it. Multiply all the numbers by a factor of between 1,000 to 1,000,000 and make them "our soldiers", "bystanders" and "enemy soldiers" respectively.

I've never heard anyone say that phrase, is it possible that people use that expression to mean "a man likes to feel like a man... not a machine"? Ie he has thoughts, emotions, and priorities. He is not a commodity, his worth is more than just profit he can produce.

Not that women don't also have those attributes, just that "man" is being used as an outdated shorthand for humanity.

My dad was doing some family tree genealogy, he discovered that one of our predecessors died of 'dementia' at the age of 28. He discovered that a historian had written a paper (thesis?) on a spike in the number of poisonings that happened in the area (Glasgow I think) at that time (mid-late 1800's I think). Dad reached out to the historian and she thought it was a likely case.

So my N-th great-grandma (or her beau) probably got away with murdering my N-th great-grandpa.

Her son moved to Canada, (Toronto) went to Winnipeg for work, leaving his pregnant wife in Toronto. Then he joined the army for WWI, and died in Flanders.

Allegedly when his wife (Toronto) went to claim the pension it was already being claimed by his 'widow' in Winnipeg.

The baby from the pregnant Toronto wife was my great great grandmother, so he was my GGG grandfather so N=4.

I said allegedly with respect to the pension because it's a family legend only attested to by my great-grandmother, who may have been a pathological liar. The rest of the story is reasonably verified.

I think these scenarios might be easier to analyze if we made them a bit more realistic.

This an analogy for military intervention. If we empower our military to be proactive, we can save one "good guy"^TM by killing 3 bystanders. But if NATO's adversaries are participating too we lose 3 of our "good guy"^TM

I recently got two oscilloscopes from an estate sale. one is similar to that one and the other is a heathkit from the 60s (tubes!). Haven't tested them out yet, thanks for the reminder.

Is it using the quadcopters to control the carrier? Was this just a test? The second one showed no damage from the first.

Thanks for the feedback, but I don't find it very useful. I did not say that the mother voted with the goal of supporting transphobic policies, I said something stronger.

It is my view that a person cannot love a trans person unconditionally AND support transphobic politicians. Ie it doesn't matter why the mother supports the politician.

If you love somebody you will not support politicians that want to unfairly discriminate against them. Even if the politicians have better policies in other areas.

Families need to understand one another and not devolve into a political shitshow

What makes you think anyone is misunderstanding their family here?

OP and everyone else is at fault for the drama

Obviously the family is dysfunctional, that's what this post is about. I don't think it's particularly useful to try to apportion blame from where we are. Could OP have more effectively lobbied her parents not to support transphobic politicians? Probably, but we don't know. Is OP trying to emotionally manipulate her mother? Maybe, we don't know. My comment was advice on how OP can end her relationship firmly, while leaving the door open to reconciliation down the road.

We've got a 3 year age difference between our two kids. When the eldest stopped needing naps we said that he didn't have to nap but that it WAS quiet time so he could do puzzles or look at a book, or colour.

Obviously your options there are a little limited by the age.

Kind of a side note but:

Kids are expert negotiators/ manipulators, so they will push you to your absolute limit if it gets them what they want. The reason they tantrum is because it gets them what they want. It will take many unsuccessful tantrums before they learn that tantrums don't work. Make the best way for them to get what they want, something other than a tantrum.

I think a reset is in order. I would try a few days with no nap to try to get the night bed time more sane. Then introduce quiet time. Maybe say "I'll read you 3 books, then it's quiet time". They don't need to have their eyes closed, just lie quietly in bed, it doesn't need to be for very long, just introduce it as something that's not a big burden but is non-negotiable.

Good luck, it's not easy.

I wouldn't be a cis-het-white-man if I didn't feel entitled to weigh in: I think you should send a handwritten note that says something like:

I will always have room in my life for a mother who loves me unconditionally, but a mother like that would not support politicians with transphobic policies. I do have love for you, but the choices you've made break my heart, and it's not healthy for me to have that sort of negativity in my life.

When I'm lonely, I'll try to focus on the good times we had together, and not harbor bitterness. I forgive myself for not being the child you imagined. I hope you can do the same.

Make sure to sign it with "Love"

You could also list some of the positive memories you're going to try to focus on. You could ask your sister to help you come up with a list. You don't need to share the whole letter with her just say that you're trying to come up with a list of happy memories for when you're feeling down. Maybe that should be a conversation while you do something else together so you're not just staring at each other at the kitchen table while trying to think. For me that that something else would be a game of pool, for others it might be cooking or jogging or gardening or walking through an art gallery/museum.

If anybody has any feedback for me that would help me better understand OPs situation I'd love to hear it.

Home thermal efficiency is probably a huge factor. Also maybe a shift away from the industrial economy? Idk

It would be interesting to see the prices of electricity, oil/gas/coal, and solar panels graphed on a separate y axis on the same graphic.