> People deciding not to eat something because "it has chemicals in it" is a pretty ignorant take.
When people say this they are obviously not referring the the definition of "chemical" that a chemist would use. Pretending otherwise is exactly the "nerd-snark" mentioned above which makes people distrust experts because they clearly aren't intending to use the term "chemical" in a sense that would include substances like water.
>Israel targets Hamas while taking steps to limit civilian harm. Civilian deaths are tragic, but tragedy is not genocide.
Israel does not merely target Hamas with incidental civilian deaths, they have been documented actively targeting civilians. This has been indisputably demonstrated at this point. Early on I was much more skeptical since it's similarly indisputable that Hamas does engage in terroristic behavior, but as time has gone on we've had report after report confirming that Israel isn't merely targeting Hamas.
> The moral difference is intent.
Hamas intends to eliminate Israel, Israel intends to eliminate Hamas (justifiable) and exterminate the Palestinians (unjustifiable) to continue their long-running expansion operation and further their grip on the region at the expense of the other native populations.
> Calling this “indiscriminate extermination” ignores Hamas using civilians as shields and demands an impossible standard of zero casualties.
1. I've already explicitly acknowledged the distinction between attacking Hamas, inadvertently harming civilians in the process, and the active slaying of the civilian population which is taking place. The former is regrettable but unavoidable, the latter is evil and it is what is also taking place.
2. I intentionally said "near-indiscriminate" rather than just "indiscriminate" for a reason. Unlike many people, yourself included, I don't view this conflict as a completely black-and-white matter. Israel is instrumentalizing their legitimate efforts in order to implement a wider effort to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
The Holocaust does not justify committing a genocide against another population. Some people having inaccurate, or even immoral, views about what occurred on October 7th does not justify genocide. The fact that Hamas engages in evil acts does not justify genocide perpetrated against innocents.
In short: Two wrongs do not make a right.
It is also worth noting that you are not portraying the matter fairly. You are transposing certain radical elements, i.e. those who actively defend Hamas, on to people who simply oppose the ethnic cleansing and genocide being perpetrated by Israel. I don't support Hamas, and I also don't support Israel.
Furthermore, you falsely assume that people are generally ignoring the evil actions perpetrated by Hamas, which is not the case. It is a false dichotomy to present the issue as supporting either Israel or Hamas. Hamas undeniably has engaged in terrorism, but that has no bearing on whether or not Israel is acting properly in response. The fact of the matter is that Israel hasn't merely been attacking Hamas targets that happen to also have civilians present, but rather that Israel is going beyond that to willfully engage in a near-indiscriminate extermination campaign against unjustifiable targets.
> Like I said, he was excusing political violence. A woman had been murdered by neo-Nazis and he went out of his way to minimize, justify and excuse the act, while condemning imaginary "alt-left" violence at the same event.
I again strongly encourage you to go watch the video or read the transcript since it directly contradicts what you are continuing to claim. Trump explicitly said that that the neo-Nazis should be "condemned totally." A total condemnation is exactly the opposite of your claim that he was "excusing" or trying to "minimize" the events. I will also note that I find it quite odd that you claim to be upset about Trump allegedly downplaying violence, but then go on to downplay and minimize left-wing extremist violence. I believe that all political violence should be condemned, its unfortunate that you appear to believe otherwise.
> I don't find it credible that he died coincidentally the day after being assaulted.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree here, I don't find it likely that I will be convinced to ignore the medical expert who examined the case and the corresponding documentary evidence that points against the idea that Sicknick was killed.
You have unfortunately been misinformed about both examples that you brought up.
> when right wingers killed Heather Heyer, Trump called them "very fine people"
Trump did not call the killer a fine person, nor did he call everyone involved on the right fine people. He explicitly stated that there were, "some very bad people in that group." The "very fine people" was referencing those who were peacefully protesting both for and against the removal of historical monuments. If you watch the original video instead of the selective reporting this is all made very clear. You can watch or read the transcript of the "very fine people" press conference here: https://www.veryfinepeople.info
> When they killed Brian Sicknick, he called them heroes and pardoned them.
Brian Sicknick was not killed by anyone. The medical examiner ruled that he died of natural causes. There is no evidence that he was killed, which was reflected in the difficulty the prosecutors faced, and its why nobody was ever convicted of murder.
I can see particular applications of the law being unconstitutional, i.e. improper rationale for designating a group as being a foreign terrorist organization, but generally speaking I don't expect there would be any constitutional issue with preventing people charged with materially supporting terrorism from being able to flee the country using a passport.
Is there any section of the constitution that you think would be violated by the letter of the law?
An individual remix of a song added to a playlist, which most people have never heard of, multiple years ago does not make it a "groyper meme".
Before the other day when this misinformation campaign began, nobody ever associated the song with groypers. Its always been associated with anti-Fascist, anti-Nazi groups, which contain a completely different set of beliefs. In recent history the only people to ever use the song for political purposes have been left-wing groups: Protestors against the AfD in Germany, communist priest Andrea Gallo, movement against Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, left-wing protests against Meloni in Italy.
Combining the lack of substantial evidence of association with groypers with the history of the song being used by left-wing movements, in addition to the evidence in my post above and elsewhere, its clear that this cannot be reasonably associated with groypers by any evidence-oriented person.
> There was zero substantial evidence for it being a leftist/immigrant/woke/trans person.
I've did not claim it was someone who is trans, an immigrant, or woke, however all evidence currently available points to him being a leftist. Some people early on were lead to believe that the shooter was trans due to reports of "trans-ideology" being found on the casings, but that was a rash, pre-mature extrapolation. The relevant text can be attributed to a wider array of groups/online sub-cultures (notably, the text cannot be clearly attributed to the groypers).
There is, however, evidence that the shooter was on the far-left.
1. Terminology used by the radical-left-wing to slander Kirk found on the casings ("hey fascist! CATCH!"). No Groyper would ever use such a phrase, they don't think of Kirk as a fascist and themselves get accused of being fascists.
2. Reference to an anti-fascist song most often played by far-left figures, particularly those identifying themselves as "anti-fascist".
3. A high school friend described the killer as being left-leaning on issues and that he was the only member of his family who was a leftist. This is hearsay so I take it with a grain of salt, but its still important evidence which fits perfectly with the other points.
Furthermore, all of the "evidence" you put forward cannot be considered by any reasonable person to be evidence that someone is a Groyper.
1. Being online a lot isn't evidence that someone is a Groyper. Massive numbers of apolotical, right-leaning, and left-leaning people are "terminally online".
2. I am aware of no evidence at this point that the killer was an "incel" in the sense that the term is typically used.
3. Being white does not make someone a Groyper. Funnily enough, on the contrary, among the online far-right the groypers are often accused of being non-white due to their relative openness to other racial groups.
4. Being Mormon is not evidence of being a Groyper. On the contrary, Catholics are most represented among the groypers with only a few figures being Mormon.
5. Playing video games is not evidence that someone is a Groyper.
6. I am aware of no evidence at this point that the killer was a "gun nut". Furthermore, even if he was, this would not be evidence that he was a Groyper since guns are not one of the primary issues addressed by groypers and would only tangentially be related.
In summary, none of what you said is evidence of your claims. I am begging you, and others, to engage honestly about this instead of spreading false claims.
> Now that it turned out to be a groyper, you'll have to recalibrate your priors.
It did not "turn out to be a groyper". There is zero substantial evidence for this claim, its a complete fabrication. Elle Reeve, a journalist at CNN who has followed the far-right since the infamous Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally in 2017, said of those claiming that the shooter was a Groyper that, "It’s like they’re grasping at vapor."
It's not impossible, but I find this to be very unlikely.
Nick Fuentes has repeatedly condemned political violence for years, he and his followers have also been trying to get Kirk to debate him, so killing is counter-productive from that perspective. Furthermore, the "attacks" by Laura Loomer that I've seen don't get anywhere near calling for violence.
This is exactly what I was trying to point out. Steam's developer services can save a massive amount of time for developers, time which is especially valuable to indie studios. I still feel that the 30% is steep, I'd prefer if Steam took a cut based on how many of their underlying services you used, but its wrongheaded to deny that Steam provides many useful features for developers that can save a lot of time.
I would note that they do provide quite an immense amount of value to developers. Achievements, transferable inventory system, multi-player (steam networking), among other things. The 30% cut still feels high, especially since most games can't or won't take advantage of every single service Steam provides, but I do think they provide quite a bit of developer value that needs to be factored in.
Flatpak is unambiguously and undeniably free and open source software and the fact that you think it isn't demonstrates that you have been misinformed. The Flatpak project is licensed with the LGPL. Furthermore, the vast majority of software packaged with Flatpak is free and open source software.
> Others can just run a distro for people who believe in open source software.
What about Flatpak is contrary to open source software as you seem imply? Flatpak itself is free software, so is most of the software packaged with it. There are quite a few good reasons to use Flatpak, especially for developers who want to make their software available on different distributions without wanting to worry about packaging separately themselves. There are valid criticisms of it, but being somehow against open source software or being somehow related to Microsoft is not one of them.
> We’ve just been informed that in threatening situations there is no time to chamber a round, but cops are simultaneously supposed to take the time to evaluate the threat to their safety.
I think you have misunderstood the order of operations in a violent encounter. The issue of chambering a round is in light of the fact that you have already identified an immediate violent threat and you need to end that threat. The entire question of carrying chambered/empty is completely separate from threat identification and whether or not a shooting is justified.
You also simply don't appear understand the time scale in which violent altercations and legitimate responses take place. They happen quickly, and so once a threat has been identified you need to remove as many barriers to action as possible. Adding 1/2 to 2 seconds can easily be the difference between life and death after you've already made the judgement about the situation. Again, the issue here isn't whether or not someone has identified a threat but rather how quickly and effectively they can respond after they've identified the threat.
If we want to speak intelligently about use of force and police reform we should avoid conflating unrelated issues (i.e. whether or not an office acted appropriately versus the ability to act properly after a threat has been identified).
> I have limited knowledge of guns. I understood that they had a physical safety switch that had to be manipulated before the firearm could be used. Is that the case?
Some handguns have manual safety switches, others don't. For example, the Sig P365 (an excellent, highly regarded sub-compact pistol often used for concealed carry), has models with or without a manual safety (you can also install a safety yourself if yours doesn't have one). Some handguns also have a "grip safety" which requires you to firmly hold the grip to disable the safety.
> If so, is the safety left off when people are carrying with a round chambered? Or have I misunderstood the purpose of the safety?
Because modern firearms have a variety of built-in safety mechanisms, separate from manual safety switches, which prevent unwanted discharges, the only thing that will cause a good firearm to go off will be the trigger being pulled. Combining this fact with modern form-fitting holsters which fully cover the trigger guard, it becomes impossible to fire the gun while it remains in the holster. This means that even without a manual safety switch you can carry safely without worrying about the gun going off until you draw and pull the trigger.
Echoing another reply to your comment, if you do have a safety on your gun you would typically toggle the safety while training to build muscle memory. This means you would practice enabling the safety, holstering the firearm, drawing the firearm, disabling the safety, and firing in a swift motion so that you always disable the safety when drawing.
When people say this they are obviously not referring the the definition of "chemical" that a chemist would use. Pretending otherwise is exactly the "nerd-snark" mentioned above which makes people distrust experts because they clearly aren't intending to use the term "chemical" in a sense that would include substances like water.