HelixDab2

joined 1 year ago
[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

What exactly are the “material conditions leading to gun crime”?

Largely economic and educational, yeah, but also systemic racism and ingrained misogyny. While it's facile--and accurate--to say that Republicans block efforts that would help these problems, the fact is that Democrats often do as well, opting to ban firearms and features rather than addressing root causes. I recall one particular violence intervention program that got cancelled in Chicago by--IIRC--Rahm Emmanuel. And unfortunately, many of the centrist Dems don't really believe in programs that work, like enrolling inmates in college to reduce recidivism.

Why do other countries thar have lots of guns have less gun crime?

Other countries with a relatively high number of firearms also tend to have significantly better social welfare systems, more focus on rehabilitation than punishment in their criminal justice systems, and a lower rate of income inequality overall. If the US had, for instance, the social conditions of Finland, while still having the same number of firearms, I expect that you would see a sharply lower rate of firearm homicides. (Interestingly, Finland has very similar rates of suicide as we have in the US overall. I'm not sure what to make of that. But I also note that all of the Nordic countries seem to have fairly high suicide rates, and all of the Mediterranean countries tend to have quite low suicide rates. Climate and amount of sunlight, maybe?)

Aside from the, the right to keep and bear arms is an individual civil right. IMO, attempts to restrict that right should be subject to strict scrutiny. NYSPRA v. Bruen helped with that, but it hasn't gone far enough. Think of it this way: voting is supposed to be a right. Republicans want to limit the ability to vote in ways that favor them. I would say that this is wrong, and that Republicans need to change the way that they govern or message so that they can attract more voters, rather than trying to make it harder to exercise a civil right.

or the gas station clerk to get a gun pointed at her and told to give up the cash.

...Which you aren't very likely to do once economic conditions have been addressed. Not very many people go out and rob people for the sheer joy of it. Little Johnny shoots Susie because society has taught him that the only acceptable emotion is rage, and he can't deal with his emotions in any other way. Again: address the messaging--about gender norms and expression in this case-- and fix the underlying problems, and then access to the tools of violence becomes immaterial because there's no longer the impetus towards violence. Dems have made some inroads regarding gendered emotional expressions, but a lot of far-right influencers are actively working against those efforts.

parents of shooters bought them guns despite clear warnings

I think that this is probably appropriate in limited cases, such as with the Crumbleys in Detroit, MI, and with the Grays in Winder, GA. In both cases, the parents (father, in the case of Mr. Gray) had credible information from authorities that their child was at risk of harming other people, and both of them gave firearms to their child despite and after receiving the credible information about them being a risk. I would say that, if parents made a reasonable attempt to deny a child access to firearms, or did not have credible information about their child being a risk, then you should no longer be looking at a criminal or civil case. It seems to me that having your firearms locked inside your home or vehicle should be enough to say that you made a reasonable effort, because anyone that takes a firearm from those places knows that they're breaking and entering already.

The desire to make locking firearms up is yet another way of making firearms prohibitively expensive, and functionally denies the right to keep and bear arms to people that can't pony up the $1000+ for a locking firearms container that's even slightly secure.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Well. technically he was an ape rather than a monkey.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

It really depends on where you bury the body. Once you get out of developed areas, it gets very hard to track things down. Take this example; she was missing for two years, and her body was found in a tent, in a sleeping bag, just two miles off the Appalachian trail, which is one of the busiest hiking trails in the US. If someone was actually buried out there, the odds that they'd ever be found are very, very poor.

Admittedly, carrying a body off trails through fairly dense forests ain't gonna be easy. If you were going to do it, I'd say start by getting an old car with no GPS, get some paper maps, make sure that you leave all of your electronics at home so that there's no electronic trail of where you've been (especially your cell phone!), and only use cash for gas, etc. while you're driving to your body dump site. Assuming that the body isn't recovered for at least a year, you're likely in the clear.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 3 points 2 weeks ago

The guy in the front is one of the producers for Drumeo on YouTube, not a member of Sleep Token.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 4 points 2 weeks ago

The entire Ultima series for sure. I think those were the first CRPGs I played. I loved Ultima: Underworld I & II, but I was never able to get Ultima VII: Pagan to run properly on my computer. (And, holy fuck, that was 30 years ago.)

But also The Elder Scrolls: Arena, TES: Daggerfall, TES: Battlespire, TES: Redguard, and TES: Morrowind. The first two TES games would be challenging to make, given that many of the areas were randomly generated, rather than being designed.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 4 points 2 weeks ago

Having seen the trailer for Gothic, it looks good. I really hope that it's actually good.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Example: roids. Used appropriately, they can help improve your body.

Correction: they can improve aspects of your body, at a very, very steep cost. Pretty much all oral anabolic steroids are C17α-alkylated, and they're hepatotoxic (i.e., cause liver damage). All steroids will fuck up your lipid profile to one degree or another, and all of them can cause heart disease, specifically hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. While most AASs will increase red blood cell count, Boldenone in particular will sharply increase RBC production, which in turn increases blood pressure and can cause strokes. All of them will shut down the hypothalmus-pituitary-testicular axis (HPTA) feedback loop in men, leading to testicular atrophy. Most AASs will cause hair loss in men that are sensitive to DHT. AASs can fuck up your hormones enough that men can start lactating (!!!). High doses of testosterone can cause gynecomastia, because testosterone aromatizes into estradiol. In women, all AAS will cause some degree of virilization.

There are not very many IFBB pros that make it to 80; if you want your candle to burn brightly, it's going to burn out fast.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Who TF is sending in their registration cards...?

I mean, seriously, I've never sent one in. I threw all of them away, along with the cards asking me to join the NRA.

Also, as I've said before: if Dems would drop gun control entirely--and concentrate on changing the material conditions that result in gun crime--that would absolutely gut right-wing orgs that rely on fears of gun bans and confiscations to rile up a base.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Claiming that every victory every marginalized group has ever won

My dude. That's the absolute truth. All the marches and riots in the world don't win minority groups power unless they can get members of the majority group--members that have political power--to agree with them. You can talk about 'human rights' until you're blue in the face, but rights only exist so long as they can be enforced. A powerless minority group can't expect to enforce the rights that are supposed to be guaranteed to them, unless they have people with power that are willing to step up.

But again - by failing to be strategic, you will probably lose, and not just for yourself, but for everyone that's even slightly marginalized.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 3 points 2 weeks ago

I believe that's correct; but it's not all handguns, only a very, very few. Any handgun that's gas operated (and there are, like, five) is definitely still going to fire.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 3 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Oh, I can say it to my own face, I’m trans.

Good luck, because you're going to need it if Trump wins. Being trans is difficult in deep blue areas now, and it's going to be a lot harder if Trump wins. The very few labor protections that you have now are likely to evaporate under a Republican gov't. And perhaps you're okay with this, but how many of your friends are willing to be your sacrifice? I saw exactly what happened to the black transwomen in my area under Trump, and it was... Bad.

An injury to one is an injury to all. If we don’t stand up for Palestinians, if we allow minorities to be picked off one by one, then we are doomed because there will be no one left to stand up for us.

Minorities will be picked off in this election, whether you stand up or not. You can save some--specifically the ones that are in this country--or you can save none. That's the reality we live in. This is the reality unless and until you can build a coalition that can win elections on it's own, because that's politics. This has always been the reality; disadvantaged people need to build political power by courting the people that have political power; women needed to convince men in order to get the right to vote, non-white people needed to convince white people to pass the various civil rights acts. If you take a no-compromises position, you will always lose.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 3 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Lets say you see a massive car accident at an intersection that’s known to be dangerous,

The cause was already contained within the exercise.

You can either do what you can to help people now--knowing that there's nothing you can say or do at this moment that will help the people of Gaza--or you can insist that you can help them and, in so doing, fail to save anyone at all. It's your choice.

That is what triage is.

I'm going to be okay either way. I'm white, male, middle-aged, cis-, het-, and can pass as Christian and conservative if necessary. I own a home outright, have no significant debts other than student loans, and have sufficient savings and investments that I can survive the next four years regardless of who wins the election. Your choice to fuck everyone else over in this election won't directly hurt me. It will hurt a lot of my friends, and I'm certain that at least a percentage of the LGBTQ+ people I know will die or be killed, I have no doubt that some of the undocumented people I know will be deported to countries they haven't lived in for 30+ years, and I'm sure that my non-white friends will see a sharp uptick in violence directed at them. Meanwhile, the people in Gaza will still be murdered by Israel, because Trump and Netanyahu are both fascists.

You will accomplish nothing except causing more harm.

Tell your non-white friends, your LGBTQ+ friends, you female friends, that you didn't care enough about their rights and their safety to help them. Say it to their faces. Tell them that it was more important for you to send a message than it was to prevent them from being harmed.

Good luck. You'll need it. Hopefully we still get to vote in two years, and in four years.

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