Honestly it's not all great, lots of it I kinda check out through, but there are some great bits that make the whole show worth it for me at least.

But yeah being in on references to it is honestly great because of how original/memorable some of the bits are, I think.

When someone has grown up brainwashed into religious belief, being exposed to real logic that isn't trying to dunk on them is a lifeline for many to move away from that.

I also think that while both can be necessary at times, for many the far more powerful factor is going to be emotional (feeling of god letting them down leading to questioning), and people who are already in emotional turmoil and questioning beliefs will react much more positively to a more graceful, logical approach, because logic, while it may disrupt their worldview, is reliable. So yeah it depends on the individual, but you absolutely can logic someone out of a belief they didn't logic into.

Source: I'm a homeschooled Baptist PK with 5 siblings, and I've spent a lot of time and effort to know how to best provide the lifeline for my nieces and nephews that I was lacking for getting away from religious belief

Past atrocities does not justify today's actions by another at the present time.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that holding America up as a standard and saying that we're somehow better is hypocritical and dangerous because it helps to justify/overlook shit like what's happening in Palestine rn, and I'm sick of the general mindset exactly because it has helped lead to the ignorance and complacency we see with a genocide that is fueled largely by American desire to retain influence in that region for capitalistic purposes, with no regard for human rights.

Vietnam has a much longer historical animosity with China than the with the US.

I mean yeah no shit, they've been at it for thousands of years lmao.

And, as I've said elsewhere I was more getting at the human rights atrocities perpetrated by the US which still have great effect on Vietnam.

I'm in no way trying to justify anything. Again, I'm just saying I'm sick of seeing people hold the US up as "hey look we're better" because I really don't know that we are. We care about human rights at home, to an extent, but we don't give af who that affects in other parts of the world. Is that really better than China pretending to care about it's citizens with communism while abusing their human rights and exercising insane governmental control over their lives?

The US has been and continues to be the direct and indirect perpetrator of a lot of evils, and the more I learn about these things, the more I dislike seeing America characterized as a standard of morality, because it directly reflects propaganda which has allowed for many of these atrocities to happen.

Yeah I shouldn't have used Vietnam as an example bc I am aware that they're somehow largely favorable to the US still, but the lasting effects of US imperialism on the population there is what I was really trying to get at.

Why don't we ask South America, the Middle East, and Vietnam what they think about the US?

but it’s clear which is the better option for many

.... American tax dollars are at this moment funding the genocide of Palestinians.

EDIT to add: I should clarify I'm no CCP apologist, nor do I uplift China as an example of what we should strive for. But I also really get tired of seeing America put on a pedestal. America was built on genocide, slavery, and exploitation, I don't see how it should ever be an example of how to do things better, BECAUSE that line of reasoning ("at least we're better than them") has been used to justify many of the horrors of our history.

By using that bit of propaganda, you're contributing to things like Americans looking the other way/enabling - for the past 75 years - genocide. It's the same "they're savages" shit that was used to justify literally the most savage acts against Native Americans.

Our democracy also isn't actual democracy. By definition, a democracy must represent the will of the people. Ours does not. It is already a failed democracy, and has been for my entire life. America also produces more propaganda than any other country. Do we have more personal freedoms in many areas than people in China? Absolutely. Are there many areas throughout society where I think America has pushed the world forward and made it a better place? Absolutely.

But I'm getting really sick of seeing America compared to China just to say "we're better".

I've yet to get medicated. Last time I tried I had the wrong diagnosis and ended up in grippy socks, and I'm currently living by myself, so starting new meds is kinda frightening tbh.

I did drink/smoke way too much as a coping mechanism, because yakno meds that help someone be able to function like a normal person are EVIL, but letting ur kid go undiagnosed and untreated is so fucking healthy for their long-term mental health.

My parents also managed to fuck up my math track to put me a year behind, and when I found their error and tried to catch up, they didn't support at all.

Homeschool parents are [very often] imbeciles.

Well I didn't have to mask, but I also didn't get my ADHD, bipolar or anxiety recognized/diagnosed until well into my adult life, lmao.

I'm a product of homeschooling, and cannot begin to tell you how detrimental it was to my adult life and being able to function in society.

100% of my socialization growing up came from church. While I have siblings who grew up to be very successful, they all stayed in the church.

It's a cult. It's child abuse. You are robbing your child of critical life experience and social development. It also makes it so that anyone escaping from growing up in that will have an extremely difficult time rebuilding their life outside of religion.

Meh, an RGB notification LED was still much more glanceable. I agree that it's somewhat redundant, but I had OLED phones with notif LEDs and it was still nice.

Internet entropy

I'll be honest I haven't been on reddit much aside from a couple communities since the whole shutdown, but it's not that surprising tbh. Reddit is a huge target for astroturfing, they don't have good protections against it, and Israel invests A LOT into stuff like that.

I also feel like anecdotally I've always felt like reddit was very pro-israel. I've been educated about many things because of reddit, but Palestine wasn't one of them. (when I say educated about I don't just mean reading comments, I actually do go to effort to read books etc., but often Reddit was a source of prompting for me to realize I needed to educate myself on something)

But yeah, it's so refreshing using Lemmy. Really reminds me of when I started using Reddit, but more mature.

ABP is definitely not closed source.

You can disagree with the whole "acceptable ads" debacle (I did and switched to unlock origin) but ABP is far from a risk to anyone using it. There's just better blockers out there.

That's called Microsoft math

An admission that this isn't about the environment or about truth, and that you are 100% onboard with lying to get what you want.

Sorry, where did I say any of that? I responded to someone making a sarcastic comment about the study only covering 5% of farms and it reminded me of a relevant statistic, so I shared.

Then you made a comment about how we should fight to fix farming so that smaller farms still have a chance, to which I replied that I don't care about helping to save any farms that exploit animals.

Where, in any of that did I say that I do not care about the truth or that the environment isn't a part of the reason I think that's immoral to eat animals?

You're far more honest than most militant vegans I meet.

Well, for one I'm not a militant vegan, I'm just a fuckin vegan person. For two, I don't believe you meet that many militant vegans unless you're intentionally seeking out interactions with vegans, in which case the fact that you characterize them as militant says less to me about them and more about how you probably made comments similar to the very antagonistic, mischaracterizing, lying comment you just made, attempting to misconstrue arguments because you have some sort of agenda against people who just wanna see less suffering in the world.

But hey, I know that for people like you, you just need reasons to hate vegans, so if pretending that I don't care about truth or the environment helps you paint vegans as annoying bad people in your mind instead of actually considering the moral/ethical implications of your food, I'm happy to help.

Nah I'd rather fight to end animal exploitation than help smaller exploiters not get gobbled up by the bigger exploiters.