erenyeager

That’s clearly not the case it’s not about ideological battle, the comments are very clearly not only about ideological battle. I’m very disappointed to hear that you came to this conclusion.

As for the Fez, it certainly is symbolic of ottoman times, and was famously outlawed by Ataturk in favor of brim caps, in what is called the Hat Revolution [1]. This was part of an assault on older values and also had anti religious elements.

Next, your characterization of Erdogan’s government as 20 years of absolute Islamist rule is a very loose definition. I do not think you can liken all of his rule as absolute and after all Turkey is still a democracy yet. Also he is not “Islamist” except in a loose terminology, as he did not change Turkey’s government system and overturn in favor of Sharia.

You also likened the protesters to an “old api” that interferes with new development… how is one to interpret that except you see the protesters and their values as an old impediment to progress, one which needs to be removed or “updated”? It’s not so long ago there were protests for Taksim square for Gezi park.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat_Revolution

Thoughts on Nostr?

This is an insidious implicit assertion that because the current mayor is a “good” secular Turk and the “bad” Islamists are protesting, I even note you did not describe these people as turks… this is a typical contrast for Turkey, a division of white and black turks, going back to the time when Turkey was more oppressive towards religious practice for the sake of “secularism”…

This style of bowing down to some altar of laic secularism and appealing to a western audience is quite overdone and out of touch with the modern day west, which mostly accepts freedom to practice religion especially in Anglophone countries.

Luckily with globalization and the internet, more and more these woven narratives are being exposed for their baselessness. It’s clear that Turkey as a whole has continued its choice to vote for its leader Erdogan of the AKP. This is a signal of the fact that most Turks still support this alternate approach to the country, compared to the changes going back to Ataturk which was imposed on the native population.

That is to say, I am always finding curious this group of white Turks and secularists who assume themselves to be above the others and irreverent to their beliefs. Perhaps this arrogance is what continues to be their downfall as they cannot accept sharing power with the other, more religiously oriented Turkey.

There is a why and reasons we find and insights we glean. The denial of a why is itself an anthropocentric take on biology, influenced by Darwinian thought. But any biological system we study we need a why, otherwise the corollary of your statement essentially leads to no learning or understanding, because everything becomes “arbitrary” and explained away by randomness.

Ironic to say it’s not optimal, really we don’t have the full knowledge. Often when we learn more we learn how little we really know about biology.

It’s a bit anthropocentric to talk about not making sense from an engineering point of view. One example is the recurrent laryngeal nerve which always appears to take unnecessary detours to people because of what is thought to be historical evolution. But there is deep wisdom and insight we have gleaned in this, but I think it’s not for us to say well we could engineer this better, we don’t have the total knowledge of tools yet & it is dismissive and say disrespectful of the wondrous biological systems that have been made to sustain life.

Hubris and attempts to alter inherent nature are often tied up ironically. But we can benefit a lot more from biological humility, realizing there are many unknown unknowns.

Reducing availability of access certainly does work at taking away poisonous substance exposure. Plus people can connect in person in so many better ways, on dignified and beneficial grounds rather than the ultimate harm that comes from drinking culture.

It’s common in our culture to parrot about letting people make their own decisions… where does that take us when it comes to things like covid? When a culture promotes a harmful practice we should call it out. Just like we call out injustice, certainly it is unjust to support a drinking culture that results in so much harm.

All those topics sound like minefields I would be cautious discussion even with good friends, and then only if we have similar views. If I knew there would be a significant disagreement I would drop the topic probably, avoids more trouble.

I think it’s about minimizing liability. I wouldn’t want a work dynamic to turn toxic due to a coworker’s prejudice or some disagreement we had debating over the water cooler. At work you focus on work, sure you can have some chit chat but generally these topics are breached after being acquainted with someone.

Really? How would European business culture approach this? I feel like talking about debating religion when it’s not relevant to a potential employee is extremely short sighted or some type of backhanded mind game; it just doesn’t seem normal to say that at a job interview. After a working relationship has been established if it comes up, that is different, but if the VP just says that based on seeing a potential employee’s work with a church, it’s quite suspect.

Please see this paper and the sections on alcoholic cirrhosis

In north Africa and the Middle East, alcohol-related liver disease constituted the lowest proportion of age-standardised prevalence and death rates.19 This finding could be expected, because alcohol is prohibited in many of the countries in this region, which could lead to both decreased use and the possibility of under-reporting.

Among GBD regions, the highest proportions of cirrhosis deaths due to alcohol-related liver disease were in central Europe (44·0%), western Europe (41·7%), and Andean Latin America (38·1%; figure 4; appendix p 41). The proportion of cirrhosis deaths due to alcohol-related liver disease was lowest in north Africa and the Middle East (5·3%) and in Egypt specifically (4·8%), and highest in Belgium (53·5%; appendix p 41).

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1...

Also see these maps:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/t...

From this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7650014/

You make fun and light of efforts to limit the effects on toxins on society, but I’m sure if you saw people dying as a result of alcoholic cirrhosis or the many diseases and incidents occurring from alcohol abuse you would change your mind if you are a reasonable person, about the current drinking culture.

But as people die these terrible deaths, you continue to make fun of the situation. Consider.

I’ve already outlined why US prohibition didn’t work. Basically it was not long enough and a major cultural shift did not occur in US drinking culture.

A concerted effort and taking advantage of the current rise in sober culture can really help lower rates of alcohol consumption. We saw this so the decline in tobacco usage.

It’s not correct to say any prohibition does not work based on US prohibition in the 1920s. Prohibition for anything can reduce its access and use among people. It’s one of our best tools in preventing problems. This is a false belief in American culture that prohibition of substance does not work, it clearly does work in many countries worldwide in terms of lowering health problems due to alcohol abuses.

In the case of things like marijuana, sex education, these are cultural failures. In both cases, the culture was trending towards engaging in these. Prohibition must also enter the cultural attitudes to be greatly effective, but even a general prohibition over a long scale has an effect.

Prohibition does work provided the culture around drinking changes. Look at countries where alcohol is prohibited much lower rates of cirrhosis and alcohol related diseases. US prohibition didn’t work because most of US culture was not ready to give up alcohol and it was only implemented for about less than a decade. But if alcohol was banned for a larger time period, more education and cultural shift efforts, and more uniform enforcement, we would see much better outcomes and cultural attitudes change.

Alcohol abuse is one of the causes of major health problems in countries where alcohol is widely consumed. Look at a map of cirrhosis rates, there’s a huge lack of cases in places where alcohol is prohibited. By supporting the current drinking culture in the US , you are indirectly supporting the terrible health results like cirrhosis. The best way to stop is to never start.

Prohibition does work, the important part is effecting a cultural shift in attitude towards alcohol, similar to how smoking was marginalized.

We don’t need to live with this crazy culture where drinking is glorified and a big social phenomenon.

There’s already a growing “sober” culture in the US and you can see that production of non alcoholic beer and other substitute goods for a “bad culture” are increasing. As a person in the medical field, the fall of alcohol culture in the US would be very welcome, many cirrhosis and pancreatitis patients I’m sure will have wished to never start drinking.

Hi, how do you suggest proper parenting and framing without also society-level interventions? It seems this is putting a lot of burden on parents, teachers, etc, when also regulation on this can be helpful. For example, smoking is prohibited for those below a certain age from purchasing. Or the intervention the government did with Juul to stop the spread of vaping among teens.

You say not every porn sure will comply, but if even the biggest players comply, don’t you agree this will significantly reduce minors being exposed to porn? And I’m sure with threat of legal action, just like is taken against other entities, can also be of help, even if it becomes a cat-and-mouse game,

I’m saying don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Education from parents to kids is a great effort but that will require a lot more work and dedication.

Porn is illegal for minors

Domestic companies already are privacy disasters. The US can introduce privacy legislation like the EU if this is really an issue. But already porn is illegal for children under 18, so this is just a way to more effectively regulate with minimal externalities. Many people already pay for pornography which usually necessitates identification, so requiring ID for any porn site access is not a huge jump.

Clicking a button compared to ID checks are two different classes of barriers. ID checks will substantially restrict porn access to minors, and help keep pornography companies accountable.

Yes just like we have ID requirements for alcohol and tobacco purchase, the same can apply to pornography which much of it should not be exposed to minors. What educational or beneficial use is quickly outweighed by the many negatives of allowing unfettered access to porn to minors. Regulations on who can access pornography make complete sense and we already have them in the form of over 18 buttons, but these by and far are not effective. Hence since our society already agreed minors should not be exposed to porn, we can take more effective steps like have ID requirements.

Addictive drugs are also only amplifying existing human brain connections. And you can very easily liken porn to an exogenous substance that distorts how sex actually is and promotes fantasy. Measuring harm really depends on the context also. Porn production is often linked with human trafficking and exploitation of disadvantaged people.

Medical definitions separate physician dependence from psychological dependence and generally a psych disorder is anything that causes social dysfunction including an addiction. So heroin has biologically addictive properties like it leads to withdrawal and tolerance, but also one can have a psychological dependence on heroin for example they associated it with a certain location they always use heroin In.

So the terms of addiction in the medical world are really more about where society draws the lines.

Any evidence for fewer rapes due to porn availability? I’ve seen evidence of porn encouraging violent behaviors in men towards women.

Curious where would social media sites that are used sometimes for pornographic purposes fall under this? Obviously something like PHub only serves to distribute porn. But things like Twitter, Reddit, etc. are well known for their “secondary” purposes.

For example there are many chat apps aimed towards teenagers that are prolifically used for exchanging videos and pictures between adults and minors (at least de facto, even if de jure it is against terms). Of course there’s a big difference between a porn production company versus an individual, but often social platforms are conduits for more “black hat” behavior.

Wow, good stuff Virginia. While VPNs certainly circumvent the purpose of this law, it will still have the effect of lowering exposure of minors to this content. Pornography companies have long been avoiding the negative externalities they cause. The false age-gates that are overridden with a button click were long overdue for some regulation.

At the same time there should be some education (parental or community) around pornography, healthy ways of coping with sexual feelings, etc given the wide access of internet, it’s not so easy to protect children these days yet.

Ok from the contents of the comment it appears you may not be interested in recognizing historical wrongs & working towards rectifying them. Even statements like “full legal equality” are very clearly biased towards certain beliefs, views, and culture. In reality there are many laws that have been written with nefarious intentions & this includes selective enforcement or enshrining one particular cultural standard over another. The crack vs cocaine laws of the 80s in the US is a very good example.

You’re acting like the only positive culture history has seen has been “white” culture

I’m certainly not stating this. If it seemed that way then now I will plainly state white culture is certainly not the only positive culture. Every culture has positives and negatives.

This is not about generational guilt, it is about establishing justice. Generational trauma and current day injustice has been enforced against minority groups.

guilt

I’m not here to grant any white people forgiveness or make them feel guilty. this conversation need not focus on the feelings of guilt of white people. Guilt with no action is not helpful. Don’t feel guilty for something you didn’t do. Just don’t support oppression and help in establishing justice.

It’s better if instead of denying established evidence because someone is afraid of feeling guilty, that we focus on how can we as people in society use this evidence to do better today, given the historical context.

Why do you see establishing justice as an attack on white people and their culture?? Unless your culture is to promote injustice which I don’t think most people desire, I don’t believe you should be opposed.

This is not about dismantling a culture and making everyone the same. It’s about establishing justice.

If a culture has injustice and oppression, then no doubt these elements must be opposed.

The best approach to these sorts of crimes is to prevent people from beginning down these paths and rehabilitation and removal from general society for those who are actively committing the crimes and harming society. governments can do a lot to help provide for prostitutes to bring them out of that dark lifestyle. In my opinion, if someone engages in prostitution, they’re already engaging in antisocial behavior akin to violence, and there must be no tolerance for it. Slogans like sex work is work only serve to hide the true degrading nature of selling one’s body for sex.

My previous comment did engage with your points. It’s not about making everyone the same, it is about reducing the unfair aspects and power games that the majority group continues and has in the past, exerted on the marginalized.

If Someone says that siding with an oppressor is justice, I think they should relearn ethics.

Give it for a white person to talk about guilt and race, as if everything had to be centered around how white people feel. That exactly itself is racism. It’s pretty simple, injustice was perpetuated by the dominant group against other groups. It still exists today as well as its effects. The dominant group got to dictate the prestige culture, the policies, the norms, enforce its ways.

If you want to support good goals and justice, you must be in support of policies to combat this injustice. And it begins with acknowledging that by being part of a dominant group there are benefits, and being part of a marginalized group there are disadvantages. If you refuse to acknowledge these things, it’s similar to choosing to ignore injustices happening currently.

Thanks for acknowledging these man and being a voice of reason. So many ignorant opinions and deliberate attempts to ignore injustice in this thread.