Tonight on "everyone who disagrees with me is alt-right"

You literally said you don't know him, AND, that he's alt-right. Fun fact: He is Korean-American, liberal to a core, supported hippies and anarchism in his teens, and won awards for documenting the Occupy Wallstreet rally.

IMO, the closest you get to unbiased journalism in USA is something like NPR.

Cannot vouch for the "accuracy" of this particular graph, but looks similar to others that I've seen:

https://www.adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/

My take on something like CNN v Fox News is that the former are liberal leaning people who see things in a liberal view, and the latter is about equivalently right leaning. However, CNN's bias feels like a natural, unintentional extension of their perspective, whereas I get the impression from Fox News that they sit around and purposefully try to figure out how they can mislead their audience to reinforce their beliefs to keep them coming back for more.

I don't mind bias and selective reporting from agencies that are for-profit, funded by ads, etc. I expect it. I just don't like when networks post doctored images from one part of the country and pretend it's a picture from Seattle, etc... That kind of stuff is worse than a used car salesperson.

Now I recently saw some clips from Chris Wallace v Trump. If everybody interviewed like that, then I'd have a different opinion on Fox News. But if you're only going to ask softball questions and not forcefully fact check on the spot, then don't call yourself a "News" station or a "Journalist."

I didn't just assume. I Googled him. "Alt-right" isn't even in my goddamn vocabulary. I don't subscribe to ideology. I cherry-pick the best ideas from any reliable source. Nothing is ever set in stone. I don't consider myself on any side. I care about the truth, and everyone not in that category can be dismissed as crazy or stupid.

That doesn't mean that you have to believe in my understanding of the "truth", but you do need to be science/evidence-based. You need to be open to being wrong.

I went with the consensus as far as I could find it. I would encourage you to post videos of his that demonstrate his left-lean or otherwise demonstrate my supposed error.

His race is irrelevant. There are plenty of black Trump supporters, which makes no fucking sense on July 23, 2020, but here we are.

If I were to guess I'd say he's likely a professional content creator, and that means he depends on views/watches/likes/subscribes/notifications to get paid. That likely means that his content is biased towards his audience. Since you both just happened to be his audience and you invoked him here I would conclude that he most likely doesn't have very many liberal audience members.

There's no way to make sense of this with him being a credible source. You (and apparently he, at least some of the time) claims he is liberal (left). His viewpoints are apparently generally conservative (right) or you likely wouldn't be summoning him here. Substance matters more than talk.

Append:

Bumping this thread to help keep it alive.

On the subject of content creators, I used to be a fan of Sydney Watson. Though she has always been somewhat conservative in politics, being more centrist myself there were several subjects that I agreed with her on years ago.

She is a dual citizen, Australian and American. She was living in Australia when I used to watch her. She seemed intelligent. Then she decided to move to the USA recently... Now she's beyond hope. A full-blown Trump supporter. Doubling down on stupid ideas. I don't notice any trace of intelligence left in her ideas. I think that's really sad.

It's really important for people to remain true. Not to subscribe to any ideology. We're all capable of being completely wrong, and being convinced that we're right. Our entire understanding of the world/universe/existence is based on some rather short-range, imperfect sensory inputs. The rest we pretty much make up as we go along. It's very easy if you close your mind to being wrong to end up believing in some really stupid shit. It takes groups of intelligent people verifying evidence to filter out bad ideas and keep good ones.

Well you fooled me. Probably because instead of being enraged at the president of the United States for turning America's forces against her own people you're enraged that black people have the audacity to rise up against their oppressors, and in the process a few people have been hurt or killed. Nowhere near as many people as the police and national guard have hurt in those same demonstrations, mind you.

Sorry for the confusion. I was paraphrasing from RationalWiki:

It's really not at all simple or "black and white". It's extremely complicated. There's no boogeyman. There's no one person or group that you can point to responsible for it. That's what makes it systemic.

The oppressors are generally the wealthy people or groups that own and control the governments of the world, and the various agents carrying out their orders. This means aristocrats, politicians, law enforcement, etc.

It also includes everybody that knows (or aught to know) about the oppression and does nothing to stop it. That pretty much includes all of us.

You need to put yourself in the shoes of somebody else. What if you were born somewhere else? None of us get to choose if or when we're born. None of us get to choose where or to whom either. We come alive, and we develop a consciousness, and we're stuck in whatever situation that we're in.

Imagine you are born in the "projects" or "ghetto" of an American city. Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Detroit, whatever. You are black. You are extremely poor. Your environment is hostile. And no amount of honest, hard work guarantees your success.

Every one of us born into better circumstances that doesn't raise hell to fix it is responsible for enabling it.

If "God" were real, and I were him, there would be no "Hell" in the after life. Instead, I'd reincarnate you as somebody whose life is hell that you could have helped and didn't.

I'm GOD!

Stop calling me! it bothers me!

Out of joke. I don't agree with anyone or anything, but everyone is happy in their own way, even if their beliefs are a lie. I never understand a word of what they say, if I appear to understand some things, it is only because I am interpreting it as a programming code made by others, they were programmed that way, but I do not know what it is there for, what it is for, or what is its purpose, it only exists and its existence is not worth questioning. If it were only for me I would erase everything, but the others are stubborn and altered for wanting to keep them at all costs.

A clear example is @Chris Katko, she says she is "liberal", but what is being liberal? It is a political connotation, like "LGBT", "war", "immigration", or even other users who speak of BLM, ultralefts, communists, citations of some unknown politician who nobody gives a damn. And all this is what shows how slaves they are even of his ideas that are not even his. Liberal? Free? Debauchery? How much nonsense.

I don't believe that "raising hell" will fix anything.

If it's about poverty, there would be various instruments of education, regulation, and the welfare state to alleviate disadvantages. But some (most) of that would be "socialism" according to US standards.

In a free country, you can only offer opportunities to people but they have to seize them themselves. Maybe you can incentivize a bit.

I'm not so sure about that.

Last time I checked, the US was a democracy. I doubt that aristocrats, of all people, are of any relevance here.

Sure it's a democracy, but it's like the monopoly version of it.

If you really want to become anything of any relevance outside minor local politics, you have to join the Republican or Democratic party. And if you want to move up the ranks there, you basically have to mostly adhere to the party line. In some very progressive / conservative districts, you can get elected as a representative with some extreme views (e.g., AOC), but you're still basically unable to advance very far in your general party.

This is unless you are independently wealthy and can self-fund. But even that is incredibly difficult, with Mr Trump being one of the few success stories there. (And even with all his money and fame, he still had to join the Republican party to have a real shot, which included changing his stance on a few core issues like abortion.)

The US government has not really turned into a very effective thing. (It's not all bad, and better than most, but still... the super partisan stuff is enough to ultimately destroy it.)

But regarding general opportunity, it's obvious that if two individuals from completely different, unequal backgrounds put same amount of effort that you'll get two different results depending on the advantage one was born over the other. And on the opposite end, there are obviously examples of people who were born into poverty and were able to overcome long odds by a mix of hard work and luck.

But again, systematically and even from an evolutionary point of view, the law of averages are going to win out. The poor people will mostly stay poor. The rich people will mostly stay rich. Some will move from one side to the other for a variety of reasons, but the idea that a little hard work is all a person needs is bogus.

In some ways it's an unsolvable problem, but that shouldn't mean we shouldn't try to equalize the playing field a bit. A healthy amount of socialistic programs does a nation good as long as it isn't to the point to decentivize hard work. And in most areas, the US is a long way from too much socialism despite what the right likes to fret about.

I'm not posting any more politics because we clearly can't meet (or don't want to meet) at any kind of mutual place where discussion can take place. It's like many groups of people all speaking different languages and living in different worlds yet somehow still using English. There's no point in making you angry so I'll just let you be.

As always, I hope for the best for your lives.

Erin, I hope your transition is going well.

It is! :3

I posted the 8 month timeline here: https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/615770/1046685#target

Like, I'm finally happy with how I look. First time... ever. In my whole life, and I'm 28...

I don't feel weird dating now, where before I've always had self-image issues that made me feel 'unworthy'. Like I went on a couple dates this past weekend with a couple handsome guys and I didn't think anything negative about myself.

My new job is super supportive which is wonderful! My new manager's first question was what my pronouns are, not what my start date is. It's awesome to have such a supportive network of friends and coworkers.

I'm pretty much an open book about my gender identity and sexual orientation.

To be fair I'm cool with anything but he/him/his (and it...).

Like they/she (it's what I put on our team bio at my new job) is good, and maybe I'd have chosen xe/xem/xer but I tried to be 'least controversial' without compromising on what 'feels' right to me. So I chose they/them/their and after people using those pronouns for a couple years it just sounds right.

I understand the grammar issue, my brother had the same sort of concerns about they/them/their.

I felt like I was going to face 'oh they're just trying to be special' with xe (or whatever) and 'oh what about grammar' with they, but meh.

@Erin Maus
I hope those 'guys' you're dating know you're trans. Nobody likes surprises like that and I wouldn't be surprised if it turned to violence if you deceived someone into forming a relationship with you. I know a very attractive trans 'woman' who didn't disclose that fact, and all it leads to is trouble.

@raynebc
Stop speaking for the left as if you were one. You're just as biased against the left as we are against the right. Admit it, you have plenty of bogus opinions about the left, from your brainwashing by the right. People don't want to do nothing except laze around and enjoy the 'riches' of the government. You know what poor people do with their stimulus checks? They spend them on goods and services. You know what all the corporations did with their illegal bailouts? Hoard it, give bonuses to CEOs, lay off workers, etc....

We will never agree because you're freaking deluded about what's right and what's wrong.

A lot of straight men (and women, I assume) would be disgusted with themselves if they found out they fell for "something" they previously thought was an abomination. I would view it as less to do with you, and more to do with their own insecurities. Their world view would be shattered and obviously they would blame deception on that, as opposed to revising their views on sexual orientation.

However, that said, even though it would be no fault of your own, I could definitely see some crazy person getting violent due to that. So even if it's not listed on a profile, it's something I'd bring up (as soon as you know) if it's a relationship you ultimately wanted to pursue.

I agree it's ridiculous, but really for a different reason than I assume you mean. It's ridiculous that adults working 40 hours/week make so little money that they can barely survive, especially when they are working for billion dollar companies. So little money that unemployment + $600 is more than they make if they work hard.

That said, it's not the responsibility of COVID19 relief to right that wrong! So there should have been a stipulation that you cannot make more than 100% of your prior salary. However, I get that would be difficult to enforce and calculate on short order, so they ran with what they could do quickly.

I do sincerely believe that most people would rather work for their money than do nothing --- and those that do not feel that way probably shouldn't be working. But if it's make more money doing nothing than working hard at a sucky job, then well, even I'd bite.

But really, you cannot instill a work ethic into an adult by simply refusing all social services. It just doesn't work. They'll either turn into criminals or mooch off of friends and family and strangers. So you really are better off as a society giving away the bare minimum necessities (cheap housing / food) to live. Anybody with an ounce of self-respect will do their hardest to avoid that life; anybody that doesn't care is highly unlikely to ever be useful to society... and you might as well keep them off the streets where you'll spend more resources on police enforcement.