Monsanto paid a bunch of scientists to “discover” that Glyphosate, the patented active ingredient in their RoundUp weedkiller is safe for humans, but the article was ghost-written by Monsanto employees without acknowledgement. The article claimed that Glyphosate does not cause cancer, but The World Health Organisation found that it does. Some people have trouble figuring out who is lying between the company making vast profits and the organisation tasked with keeping people healthy across the globe. RoundUp is used a LOT on genetically modified foods made by guess who to be “RoundUp ready” - resistant to RoundUp. These genetically modified foods were also found to be safe initially, but guess who funded that research who are only now, 25 years later, found to be ghost writing the articles instead of letting the scientists do their own work and draw their own conclusions.

Did you downvote your own post?! The scores are +0-1 when I’m seeing it (and the-1 isn’t me).

Considering there was a 17 hours gap, it’s quite possible that someone had the time to read and downvote it before you saw it.

Yeah, but on my instance, anything you post automatically has a +1 from yourself, which you must have removed.

Your takes on trans people and intersex people seem to all be from concern trolling media and third hand stories. Trans people are like witches that hand out curses that cause harm? I think your skepticism alarm should be going off.

For the record, molesting children is absolutely not OK under any circumstances. I forget what the statistics are, but I remember that the number of incidents of trans people being sex offenders is far lower than you would expect from the prevalence of trans people and of sex offending in the general population.

It seems to me that you were fed a lot of negative stereotypes of trans and intersex people when you were young, and I worry that you are interpreting finding the lack of evidence of any of this in the real world now that you are older as a change in the world when it might be wiser to take it as evidence that the negative stereotypes were always sensational, overblown and inaccurate.

My main argument is that Trump is not under Russian influence because the billionaires would have never allowed it.

Would never allowed what? A stupid and easily manipulated old man who thinks he’s one of them and sticks up for them to be president? They love that about him. He let Musk dismantle regulatory controls just because he was rich and said nice things about him. And why do billionaires need to fear Russian influence? Billionaires only fear taxation of the rich, and Russia is not about to try to get Trump to do that! Russia is an oligarchy and the US oligarchs and plutocrats would love to run the USA that way.

Wait a bit more. The EU is a tool of American influence. Brexit will shine when the EU reveals its true face.

This is conspiracy theory nonsense. The EU is how you resist US influence. When you form a union, you become stronger than the individuals.

And Brexit is a turd that is killing our economy. It will shine like Farage’s sphincter.

They weren’t your rights if you could lose them.

This too is bullshit. Governments write rights into law and governments write rights out of law. By your logic there are no rights. WTF do we use the word for?

You were looking for examples of you being incorrect. There’s a good few right here.

The EU is not the single source of good

Straw man completely swerving my point.

But it’s not just that. It’s the other bad takes. They’re nearly all yours.

Are they wrong?

Sometimes wrong by containing factual inaccuracies, sometimes wrong by containing selective truths and painting a misleading picture, sometimes wrong by drawing the wrong conclusions from accurate facts, sometimes wrong by consistently picking the most negative interpretation and defending it vigorously and ignoring anything else someone has said to derail the conversation from a balanced and nuanced discussion into one that solely debates your taking points.

The EU is of course imperfect, but it’s also the most responsible of the governments I’ve lived under and Brexit has been an almost completely unmitigated disaster that we brought on ourselves. It didn’t even succeed on its sold terms because illegal immigration and dangerous boat crossings to the UK soared under the absence of the EU’s “first safe country” rule, so we can’t she everyone back over the channel any more, and the brilliant trade deals we would be free to sign around the world are few and far between and frequently on worse terms than the EU got. Why? Because we don’t have the purchasing power and negotiating clout & experience of the EU.

The people like you who can’t do anything but talk down the EU because “MuH fReeDumb” cost our country EU investment, foreign investment, healthcare workers (during a recruitment and retention crisis), tax income, trading partners, shedloads of small export businesses, GDP, respect, soft power & influence and real power & influence. We used to have a seat at the top table. Now we sit outside the room. The single most stupid act of national self harm we could have taken short of starting a war.

Whose freedom? Boris Johnson’s freedom, that’s who (and he would have been a much better prime minister without it). Not us, not ordinary people. We have the freedom to pay more and lose our rights.

So no, your takes are crap and this one in particular is stupid.

Of course, some people have always wanted the EU to be a single country, but that’s not how it was sold.

In 1993?! Or 1957?! Make the EU the EEC again!? The only good way to live is in the past? Back to the golden age of low consumer, worker and human rights! Less economic power and regulatory influence globally! Yay! /s

How reactionary is that?

But it’s not just that. It’s the other bad takes. They’re nearly all yours.

Did you downvote your own post?! The scores are +0-1 when I’m seeing it (and the-1 isn’t me).

You’re right about me not meeting an unreasonable trans person. All the trans folks I know or have known in real life are fantastic people who I have a lot of respect for and have gone through a lot of shit from other people. I think it’s worth me doing my best not to add to that and definitely value them as they are.

(Some people who are bullied go on to be bullies, but far, far, far from all, and statistically, yes, there should be some trans people who are unreasonable or bullies, and I think I’ve encountered an unreasonable trans person on lemmy, but I will only ever criticise the mean things they say or their politics, never their gender or presentation.)

Generally, I don’t understand why people think that trans folk haven’t had enough criticism, “explaining”, social rejection, etc etc etc.

attributes malice to your words, and refuses to change their perspective when you try to explain, while demanding an apology for what is essentially an innocuous comment as if you killed their cat.

You see, that’s where I find it much easier than you. If I accidentally offend someone that I really didn’t mean to, especially if they’re in a marginalised group that has had plenty of shit thrown at them for it their whole life, I find it very easy to apologise, back down, maybe try to explain that I didn’t mean it the way they read it, but being careful to very clearly restate my apology for the offence I caused afterwards if I do.

You would rather tell them that they were wrong and that you were right, and you’re prepared to argue it long and hard. I find that completely unnecessary, because I don’t need to win if I didn’t mean to beat them in the first place.

I have difficulty backing down in lots of scenarios but accidentally upsetting someone I didn’t mean to isn’t one of them.

Well, yeah, I know how to behave.

Not how to back down when you didn’t mean to upset people, though.

Thanks for answering.

I’m completely with you on the .ml and the phobias things, but I think your comments about what gay guys wear is an obviously crass comment, that might get a laugh in your friendship group after some specific experience, but I think you should absolutely know not to post it as a general comment out of politeness if nothing else.

The .ml mods take offence at anything even mildly critical of Russia, China or North Korea (or communism of course): You’re not the asshole, they are.

The people taking offence at you asking them to be considerate and put phobia triggers behind spoilers: You’re not the asshole, they are.

The people taking offence at you apparently “jokingly” calling a whole category of people out for their clothing choices while you apparently socially enforce gender stereotypes, in a space designed as a safe space for the frequently bullied, frequently misgendered, frequently clothing criticised trans community? I’m afraid this time, you are the asshole, and an apology and retraction would have been better than being defensive, doubling down and arguing that they ought not to have taken offence.

Who were you criticising or joking about each time?

Authoritarian regimes? Nasty. OK to criticise.

People triggering phobias? Nasty. OK to criticise.

Gay people wearing non gender conforming clothes? Not nasty, just different. Not OK to criticise. Not OK to joke about. Gay folk and trans folk have had everything about them criticised and made fun of their whole lives. It was always going to land badly.

Not that you asked for my opinion, and sorry to butt in, but that’s what I think.

What were the exact things you said on which communities, that got you “dogpiled”?

I’m also interested in the answer to this question.

Step on an eggshell about gender identity that rubs someone the wrong way

You are vilified and immediately banned from lemmy.blahaj.zone

I’ve never found it hard to avoid offending trans people. Just don’t be a dick, be respectful instead.

No more impoverishment by rents.

You’ve put your finger on it there.

I noticed that nearly everything that I saw that was ill conceived, misleading, inaccurate or downright wrong, missing the while point, or just plain nasty in this thread was written by you.

The weird thing is that these people don’t think they’re rich enough and want to extract more money from government and the people, and they simultaneously think that the government gives too much money to poor people.

You have a bunch of crap takes up and down this thread.

Crap. Absolute crap.

And we’re down in growth by 6% to 8% according to economists.

continued ethnic cleansing of its claimed territory

I guess you know little about what’s happening in the occupied regions of Ukraine. Your double standards make me sick.

Why advocate for the dissolution of Israel but not of Russia? What were you intending to do with the Israeli people? Why not split Israel and Gaza along linguistic lines as you propose to split Ukraine? Your solution in Gaza/Israel is the complete capitulation and dissolution of Israel, the invader, reversing the situation as it is, whereas your solution in Ukraine is a two state carving up of Ukraine, the invaded, and no negative consequences for Russia, the invader. Why the discrepancy?

I’m saying that this is untrue:

But we cannot believe anything without evidence

Because we all believe hundreds of things every day without evidence.

The demand for evidence comes after we have decided that we don’t believe something or we’re skeptical or unsure.

We accept things that fit with our mental model of the world without question. It’s things that don’t fit with our prior understanding that we question.

We are a product of our culture, upbringing and experiences, far more than we are the product of cold hard reason.

We are social creatures first and scientist mathematician philosopher lawyers second.

Wow. And the reason that that’s the wrong response to Russia invading Ukraine is…?