sparksbet's recent activity
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Comment on Letter to a Liberal member of Parliament in ~enviro
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Comment on Ex-Barack Obama aide says Holocaust education is ‘confusing’ young people into sympathizing with ‘weak, skinny’ Palestinians in ~society
sparksbet Link ParentI definitely don't deny the specific antisemitism of the Nazis and their focus on eliminating Jewish people for sure. I think that rightfully is the focus of education on the topic, since it was...I definitely don't deny the specific antisemitism of the Nazis and their focus on eliminating Jewish people for sure. I think that rightfully is the focus of education on the topic, since it was the core of what happened and had such massive effects on Jewish people worldwide and on the European populations they were forcibly removed from. But I don't know if it really makes sense to define the exact same actions done to other ethnic groups and persecuted minorities out of the meaning of the word, unless there was some more concrete distinction in terms of what the groups were subjected to or the timing thereof that I'm not aware of. I don't think framing the ethnonationalist ideology of Nazi Germany as being "other prejudices they acted on in parallel" is a very accurate picture. Antisemitism had an prominent and outsized place in Nazi ideology, but pretending that Nazi genocides of other "undesirables" was somehow a completely independent thing that happened in parallel just doesn't stand up to scrutiny imo. Ultimately I'm not sure it's really productive to insist that other victims are denied the use of the term "Holocaust." And I certainly don't think a definition that refers exclusively to Jewish victims reflects the mainstream way the term is used by most people, tbqh.
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Comment on Ex-Barack Obama aide says Holocaust education is ‘confusing’ young people into sympathizing with ‘weak, skinny’ Palestinians in ~society
sparksbet Link ParentOh yeah the degree to which otherwise reasonable people will suddenly say horrifying shit when Romani (and other travelling peoples) come up in Europe genuinely shocked me earlier on. It's still...Oh yeah the degree to which otherwise reasonable people will suddenly say horrifying shit when Romani (and other travelling peoples) come up in Europe genuinely shocked me earlier on. It's still so normalized here.
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Comment on Ex-Barack Obama aide says Holocaust education is ‘confusing’ young people into sympathizing with ‘weak, skinny’ Palestinians in ~society
sparksbet (edited )Link ParentI think it's pretty callous to the other ethnic groups who were victims of Nazi Germany's systemic genocide to claim that it is as a tragedy belongs exclusively to Jewish people, unless you define...I think it's pretty callous to the other ethnic groups who were victims of Nazi Germany's systemic genocide to claim that it is as a tragedy belongs exclusively to Jewish people, unless you define Holocaust in such a way that it refers to only the actions against Jewish people but deliberately decide to call the exact same actions against, for instance, the Roma and Sinti, something else for some reason. And even that's pretty weird imo.
I don't think necessarily treating it as a universal tragedy is sensible -- I live in Germany, after all, and there's a pretty stark difference between how Jewish people are affected by it even today vs how it affects white German goyim.
But we shouldn't erase other groups that were very much victims here, especially when they are still treated like shit here and are the victims of a lot of racism to this day. The man in charge of my case at the immigration office a few years back casually dropped a slur against Romani people while using them as an example of people who didn't have the right to freedom of movement in the EU because they don't work. And this was from a man who was in all other respects very nice, helpful, and polite (albeit with the quintessential personality of a German civil servant).
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Comment on EU backs away from chat control in ~society
sparksbet Link ParentI'm usually not the type to police people for calling something fascist, especially in the current political climate, but my main concern is that calling this specifically fascism and describing...I'm usually not the type to police people for calling something fascist, especially in the current political climate, but my main concern is that calling this specifically fascism and describing it as part of the current general trend towards fascism in Europe (which absolutely is a thing) gives parties that are undeniably fascist but oppose chat control (like the AfD here in Germany) a free pass, and it also doesn't paint an accurate picture of how involved mainstream centrist liberals are in these policies. Authoritarianism is not always or automatically fascism.
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Comment on Can we maybe have an informal agreement to avoid posting articles that require you to sell your firstborn child to the devil just to read them? in ~tildes
sparksbet Link ParentYeah, they're pretty awful. I see them much more often when I browse German websites than English ones, they've become pretty popular here.Yeah, they're pretty awful. I see them much more often when I browse German websites than English ones, they've become pretty popular here.
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Comment on Against 'Metroidbrania': a landscape of knowledge games in ~games
sparksbet Link ParentOh yeah I do agree, I think a lot of people (including in this thread) wildly over-apply the term to things that aren't supposed to be clearly solvable puzzles in the first place (I think most...Oh yeah I do agree, I think a lot of people (including in this thread) wildly over-apply the term to things that aren't supposed to be clearly solvable puzzles in the first place (I think most Dark Souls examples fall into this category) or just puzzles that they personally found difficult. Modern point-and-click adventure games sometimes play with the idea of moon logic puzzles as part of the genre's legacy, but actual puzzles of that nature are pretty rare these days. A puzzle being bad or difficult doesn't necessarily make it moon logic, and neither does the fact that you had to look it up!
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Comment on Against 'Metroidbrania': a landscape of knowledge games in ~games
sparksbet Link ParentI don't think most fans of "metroidbrainias" really include 12 Minutes, much like several other examples the author of this article includes are never called metroidbrainias imo. Not every game...I don't think most fans of "metroidbrainias" really include 12 Minutes, much like several other examples the author of this article includes are never called metroidbrainias imo. Not every game that includes puzzles or even time loops is a metroidbrainia. But I'll admit I might be biased in this particular case because 12 Minutes is an incredibly badly written game and is not a game where you can ignore its awful story.
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Comment on Against 'Metroidbrania': a landscape of knowledge games in ~games
sparksbet Link Parentfwiw. I don't think it's useful to combine moon logic with the concept of pixel hunting, as those are two pretty much entirely independent problems that games like this can have (and luckily the...fwiw. I don't think it's useful to combine moon logic with the concept of pixel hunting, as those are two pretty much entirely independent problems that games like this can have (and luckily the rereleases of the Phoenix Wright games all have QoL features that get rid of any pixel hunting issues).
I also just straight-uo disagree with you when it comes to the actual testimony side of things -- while everything may not always be super intuitive, it very much doesn't approach moon logic in terms of puzzle design. Moon logic is usually reserved for puzzles that are nigh impossible to solve without someone telling you the solution because the solution is that absurd -- puzzles like the Gabriel Knight cat hair mustache puzzle, which is infamous enough that it has its own wikipedia page -- and I don't think any testimony in any Ace Attorney game has been even close to that bad. Your Myst example is another bad one imo, because the whole point of criticizing a puzzle as moon logic is that the consequences don't logically follow from the things you need to do in the game to accomplish them. Moving an elevator to access something that is blocked by where the elevator was placed is an extremely clear logical path no matter how difficult it was for you to realize that's what you had to do.
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Comment on Against 'Metroidbrania': a landscape of knowledge games in ~games
sparksbet Link ParentAs a fan of classic point-and-click adventure games, where I think "moon logic" as a criticism originated (or at least became super popular), I don't think you're right on this one. There are...As a fan of classic point-and-click adventure games, where I think "moon logic" as a criticism originated (or at least became super popular), I don't think you're right on this one. There are certainly players out there who call every puzzle they can't solve "moon logic" but there are also a lot of puzzles that really rely on leaps of logic that would be incredibly unintuitive at best. There's something kinda nostalgic about the whole thing but there's so much that really would be absurdly near impossible to figure out on one's own.
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Comment on Can we maybe have an informal agreement to avoid posting articles that require you to sell your firstborn child to the devil just to read them? in ~tildes
sparksbet Link ParentI mean, the vast majority of articles with paywalls on Tildes have links to archive.is already in the comments before I get there. So I think in terms of the preferences of the rest of Tildes, the...So, which do you want me to do? The one where I contribute to the conversation more ignorantly, or the one where I pirate the article?
I mean, the vast majority of articles with paywalls on Tildes have links to archive.is already in the comments before I get there. So I think in terms of the preferences of the rest of Tildes, the answer is pretty clear.
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Comment on Can we maybe have an informal agreement to avoid posting articles that require you to sell your firstborn child to the devil just to read them? in ~tildes
sparksbet Link ParentI definitely wouldn't put any money on the German one being better lolI definitely wouldn't put any money on the German one being better lol
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Comment on Can we maybe have an informal agreement to avoid posting articles that require you to sell your firstborn child to the devil just to read them? in ~tildes
sparksbet Link Parentyeah iirc DW is still accessible without this which is niceyeah iirc DW is still accessible without this which is nice
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Comment on Can we maybe have an informal agreement to avoid posting articles that require you to sell your firstborn child to the devil just to read them? in ~tildes
sparksbet Link ParentI suspect the Meta case is what I initially read about regarding this issue, thanks.I suspect the Meta case is what I initially read about regarding this issue, thanks.
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Comment on EU backs away from chat control in ~society
sparksbet Link Parentwhile I think this "chat control" surveillance is absolute garbage and I deeply hope the EU Parliament will rightfully throw it out, I don't know if this issue is as simple as just calling it...while I think this "chat control" surveillance is absolute garbage and I deeply hope the EU Parliament will rightfully throw it out, I don't know if this issue is as simple as just calling it fascism. In fact when I tried to use one of those websites for contacting your representatives about this issue, it helpfully showed me that one party in my country was already officially against the chat control laws -- that party being the one that's fascist enough that there are calls for them to be banned. This issue is politically complex and kind of orthogonal to the traditional right wing/left wing politics, and and some otherwise relatively progressive political parties absolutely embrace it for various reasons. That's part of why it's so insidious.
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Comment on Can we maybe have an informal agreement to avoid posting articles that require you to sell your firstborn child to the devil just to read them? in ~tildes
sparksbet LinkI agree with most others here that this on its own shouldn't be a reason to exclude an article from submission -- but since it's relevant, I have a question about these cookie popups: I remember...I agree with most others here that this on its own shouldn't be a reason to exclude an article from submission -- but since it's relevant, I have a question about these cookie popups:
I remember hearing that the cookie popups that require you to accept all cookies or pay a subscription fee are in violation of EU law but that it's just not being enforced well. I'm in the EU myself and I have noticed these most often on websites from my home country. Does anybody here know if what I've heard is true or if I'm misremembering something else and these popups are actually totally fine legally? It doesn't make much difference practically for me since they show up anyway, but I'm curious.
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Comment on Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world in ~health
sparksbet Link ParentThe scale has definitely increased and the internet has definitely been a big part in that, but I really do think you're severely overestimating how recent anti-vaxx stuff is. It wasn't the...The scale has definitely increased and the internet has definitely been a big part in that, but I really do think you're severely overestimating how recent anti-vaxx stuff is. It wasn't the mainstream (which is why most people just got whatever the doctor recommended) but it definitely existed.
What is recent in the US is how tightly it adheres to party politics. Alternative medicine and specifically anti-vaxx is basically a core part of right wing politics in the US now, whereas it used to be something with some bipartisan appeal that happened to be disproportionately popular among right wing women. The Green Party used to include homeopathy and alternative medicine prominently in their platform, even! I think the political polarization when it comes to alternative medicine was already starting when Trump first ran (the Green Party officially dropped it from their platform in 2016) but obviously Covid had a huge impact by making vaccination and "alternatives" like ivermectin such central political issues. It forced the issue into the spotlight much more suddenly, I think, than it otherwise would have, but it had definitely already been growing for a while.
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Comment on Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world in ~health
sparksbet Link ParentI think if you think vaccines weren't an issue before YouTube became a thing, you really just are not very familiar with these people at all. Wakefield's first big "vaccines cause autism" paper...I think if you think vaccines weren't an issue before YouTube became a thing, you really just are not very familiar with these people at all. Wakefield's first big "vaccines cause autism" paper was published in 1998 and it entered the public consciousness as a big thing in the early 2000s before YouTube even existed at all. I didn't get flu shots growing up even though even by the time YouTube did exist for my mother to watch, she didn't watch it -- and she still doesn't, to my knowledge.
There are absolutely other ways that this misinformation spreads and has spread for a long time. A lot of it is very based on word-of-mouth through in-person community (my mom got many of her bad recommendations from women at church). If I were to blame a particular social media source here, it would probably be Facebook rather than YouTube or Tiktok, as Facebook is much more designed to amplify this same effect and used to be more popular among the demographics mainly into this stuff. Facebook Groups are an absolute haven for this sort of thing afaik. But it's also extremely possible to get sucked into this with very little to no social media use at all, especially in certain preexisting social circles.
Also, most of the "alternative medicine" fans I've encountered absolutely go to the hospital. In fact, they often go more often than most people, since often undiagnosed or inadequately treated chronic illness is a big factor in why they turn to "alternative" sources. And you can absolutely find MDs who will go along with this grift for money too -- the names of doctors like this are likewise circulated in these same groups.
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Comment on Social Democrats in Denmark suffer sweeping election losses – PM Mette Frederiksen's centre-left party loses control of Copenhagen for first time in more than 100 years in ~society
sparksbet Link Parenteven just reading the news coming out of Denmark it's reassuring to know they're not center-left. If "we will forcibly evict and relocate non-white people out of any neighborhood with more than...even just reading the news coming out of Denmark it's reassuring to know they're not center-left. If "we will forcibly evict and relocate non-white people out of any neighborhood with more than 50% non-white people" is a center-left policy, I sure don't wanna know what right wing policy is in Denmark!
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Comment on How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers in ~science
sparksbet Link ParentAbsolutely agreed on this re: the disparity in learning pre-reform English.Absolutely agreed on this re: the disparity in learning pre-reform English.
Fwiw, I don't think the person responding to you was referring to your sentiments on climate change as "premature panic", but rather the more specific political circumstances surrounding this MOU (which I personally don't know remotely enough about to opine on whether they're right).