Concerning the US Protests and Our Rules

[iota-09]

@DewiAdriyanti

guess you can redeem yourself for that really poor magic trick.

@Tamerlane
and i applaud you for that, honestly, i've read way too few books in the last 10 years, almost eerything i read was mangas or VNs, i need to get my eyes on some proper good 'ol literature

 

[DewiAdriyanti]

Guess what ? Arguing about other's country problem is really a poor way to waste your time

 

[Tamerlane]

I have visual-spatial issues so I listen to audiobooks, and tend to listen to a lot of podcasts and history stuff so it kinda just works its way out as I have time to do other things while listening. @iota-09

 

[iota-09]

eh, i have kinda the opposite problem in terms of attention span, i thought about trying audiobooks but i can't even comprehend a restaurant's menu of the day if it's spelled to me instead of written, still, it's nice that there's alternatives for those who can make use of them. @Tamerlane

and yeah, there's better ways to use one's own time, but there's also worse ones to be fair.

now i should probably go and translate stuff...

 

[Sullieman]

@Ununoctium

and consider what you would do in their shoes.

Not complain, made a fuss, or even discuss the issue in a site created to read manga, for starters. As for the rest of the post, welp I find it funny that you want to guilt-trip people for not wanting to read or think about political shit on a manga site. Let me make this clear, there are people who use this site to chill after a hard day at work, school, etc. They don't want to think about real-world problems and that is fine, that doesn't make then egoists or sociopaths or whatever. Other people might not be happy with their lives and might want a medium to scape their reality, and that's fine too. What it's not fine is trying to impose your own personal values and morality upon others just because you think you are righteous.

(even /a/ or /jp/)

Funny you mention 4chan, despite all its problems /a/ is still the better site to discuss anime and manga. /jp/ has amazing threads when the Comiket is going and many threads that appeal to very niche segments of the weeb culture. Oh, and as an added bonus, I don't have to read the hypocrisy many people spout because we are all anonymous there.

 

[DreamChaser]

So the one that really messed me up when I found out about it was Elijah McClain's case. There's a video going around showing him arriving at a surprise birthday party, and something about him reminded me of kids I used to go to high school with. (The video's here: https://twitter.com/AmberLotus21/status/1266926269876195328?s=20) He was 23, but so skinny he doesn't look it.

And then someone in the comments was like, "I knew this guy, everyone always said he was the kindest person they'd ever met. He was a massage therapist who used to take his violin next door on breaks to play for the homeless kittens." Which I honestly thought had to be a troll, because come on, homeless kittens. But no, there are photos of him playing the goddamn violin for shelter kittens.

And then you find out he was tortured for fifteen minutes and injected with a drug against his consent. His crime was dancing with his headphones on.

The police took their body cameras off, but there's audio. He says "Please respect my personal space" when they slam him into the wall. Audio of him begging them for his life while lying handcuffed in a pool of his own vomit while being beaten, saying, "I'm a vegetarian, I don't even kill flies." In response, a police officer tells him that if he moves again, he'll call a dog to bite him.

None of the officers were charged, suspended, or removed from the force.

 

[vobo]

@Tamerlane
What about academia? Not a perfect analogy, but it's heavily moderated (through the education system, peer-review, etc); most fields aren't echo-chambers and have more productive conversations than anything that happens in a lassiez-faire environment. Admittedly, the criteria and moderation are very different, but I can't be bothered to sift through hundreds of irrelevant, factually inaccurate, or vacuous comments to find the few good ones that seem to pop up (unless I intend to have fun and laugh at them instead of learning anything new). If I were moderating a political forum, I'd be inclined towards instituting a rule like, "You must be prepared to cite any empirical claims".

@iota-09
Dogwhistles are murky waters, but the line needs to be drawn somewhere. Like, if you see someone spamming 1488 and (((name))), a lot of people may not notice anything obviously wrong, but it would be reasonable to ban them. "Jogger" is a lot more ambiguous - anyone claiming it solidly means one thing is an ideologue, but ambiguity is exactly why dogwhistles work. Context is also key. Why refer to a group of people as joggers if they aren't jogging? Obviously, it would be absurd to ban "jogger" wholesale, but I don't see the point in using it in this thread other than dogwhistling or owning the libs (or meta-commentary).

 

[Exile]

@Sullieman, honestly /a/ gone down the toilet over the years as today its pretty much like Reddit only lacking the karma system that makes Reddit the shithole it is when it comes to discussion were its generals, bait, memes and general clogging with stupid crap that makes about 90% of the posts on /a/ not worth even clicking.

However its still more productive that Reddit since it lacks the karmafarming and general circlejerking that plagues Reddit, I also suspect 4Chan problem today is more about social media culture in general that 4Chan itself and the fact some people go "4chan boogyman" just show how much of tools they are and lack of understanding of how 4Chan was never only /b/ or /pol/ and its certainly more open to discussion lacking the control systems that you can find on forums and social media in general, moderation is better because at least its private instead of the Janitor feeling the need to post about why poster is bad and should feel bad.

 

[RCcola33]

@vobo You may want to do some research about academia. You are really misrepresenting it. A group of professors literally used Mein Kampf and replaced words with feminist buzzwords. Also did one about dog humping being misogynistic or something. I believe they both got peer reviewed and accepted. They did 10+ of these sort of things and many were accepted after peer review. Additionally, a large portion of faculty is politically on the left. So almost everything in academia has a politically left slant. Which results in echo chambers.

 

[Kaiofficialone]

It's that Chillock dude and his Pumpkin knight shit lmao. I couldn't give a fuck either way, I come to MD for escapism anyway.

 

[vobo]

@RCcola33 Hence why I qualified it with "most" - Academia isn't a monolith. Neither is a particular field, which is a flawed generalization dervied from those sort of hoax studies. Alan Sokal (a professor who wrote a widely known hoax study) puts it well (in the context of his hoax):

From the mere fact of publication of my parody I think that not much can be deduced. It doesn't prove that the whole field of cultural studies, or cultural studies of science -- much less sociology of science -- is nonsense. Nor does it prove that the intellectual standards in these fields are generally lax. (This might be the case, but it would have to be established on other grounds.) It proves only that the editors of one rather marginal journal were derelict in their intellectual duty, by publishing an article on quantum physics that they admit they could not understand, without bothering to get an opinion from anyone knowledgeable in quantum physics, solely because it came from a ``conveniently credentialed ally'' (as Social Text co-editor Bruce Robbins later candidly admitted[12]), flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions, and attacked their ``enemies''.[13]

As for the grievance studies affair, the papers were largely submitted to relatively small journals, and were only accepted to journals with impact factors less than 2. I fail to see how this represents all "grievance studies", much less all of academia.

Regarding your comment on academics being on the left, that's correlation, and doesn't demonstrate a political bias. It could be the case there is a bias. It could also be the case that the things academics study push them towards the left.

But in more constructive terms, papers that disagree with the "echo chamber" get published all the time. Focusing on social science: if you can point me to some data that is being widely ignored by an "echo chamber", I'd be happy to see it, but I have yet to find any myself.

 

[thedestroyership]

Popcorn time, as an Asian i find it very amusing people put race over everything else. Cops in America use excessive force despite your race. Looting and Rioting also don’t do shit. They don’t convince governments to change their stances on an issue.

 

[leechXlurk]

Just like many b4 me, I applaud MD's neutral stance. There are plenty of platforms/channels for political activism for those who need them, but there are not enough places for those (like me) who would wish to get away from it all. Coupled with the fact that reading manga is the best R&R for me, MD's way of tackling this issue bears even more significance. Kudos!

Edit: Went through the comments again and noticed mods linking to ACLU. Hope this doesn't cause more problems.

 

[RCcola33]

@vobo what you don't seem to understand is it shows a flaw in publishing and peer review. The peer reviewers can clearly insert their biases or ignorance in with little to no resistance. How long does it take before the small journals are referenced and used to allow it to happen in bigger ones? Not to mention, what evidence do you have to believe that it is only a small journal issue? What countermeasures do larger journals have in place such that this would not be a thing? I imagine the process is largely the same and relies on people to be objective to work. I didn't say it represents all of anything. That is a strawman. Why don't you show stats that show most are productive? You made the claim first.

Papers getting published all the time isn't an argument. It's like the news saying COVID cases have quadrupled when they go from 2 to 8 in small states. There is a pretty clear topic that is ignored by the echo chamber. Diversity/Racism. Should be obvious from this entire thread.

 

[uhuh]

@delorean101 Look a bit deep into Venezuela protest, you will see a lot of similarities in the repressive and manipulative strategies the US government and the police/army is using rn, yes i'm saying the US government is using the same tactics the regime of venezuela used in past protest and let me tell you a very popular one, paying people to act violent so they can discredit peacefull protesters, casually most of south america governments are using them and outside of south america they seem to be being used too.

 

[uhuh]

This is a very complex situation, doubt anyone can grasp it completely, what i firmly believe is that the system our governments work based on is a very vulnerable one, i see it as a coin that shows two faces and can be flipped at any momment, is what i think is happening in the US and the rest of our planet, many strange thing happening these years, protest in all south america, Venezuela and other governments showing it's true colors and many other things, def i think the structore of our societies work with needs to be rebuild but ofc powerfull people wont let that happen.

(You all can disagree or think of me as a conspiracy theorist no problem at all on my part)

 

[Plykiya]

@leechXlurk I'm PR, not a mod. Staff can have opinions that differ from the stance the website itself takes.

But aside from that, civil liberties are unalienable rights granted to all US citizens based on the constitution and the bill of rights. Freedom of speech, press, petition, assembly, and the right to not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process, speedy trial by impartial jury, etc etc. It applies to everyone in the United States, so the ACLU fighting for any civil liberty isn't really what I'd say is a side in the matter. The police are citizens as well, this applies to them just as much as it applies to anyone. Losing said civil liberties devolves into a state where people can be arrested solely for disagreeing with the government. Not a good place to be

 

[DreamCarver]

Allowing discussion in specified zones feels like the correct option. Good work on you, team. Even activists need time away from watching terrible things unfold.

Let my privilege be a knife that I may use to cut down the towers they have built.
Let my skin be a weapon against the old world.

 

[DewiAdriyanti]

Ok, this thread is calm like a river now. For now

 

[leechXlurk]

@Plykiya Not saying you can't hv an opinion on the issue or said opinion has to align with MD's stance. I just feel that putting it (with relevant links included) on front page of an announcement specifically proclaiming a neutral stance might be seen as providing (unintentional) fodder to those who would love to flare up tensions, thereby defeating the very purpose of the thread.

Linking ACLU itself isn't the problem; I'm concerned that some would use it to justify making this political. Guess I should reword my original comment.