Fal's recent activity

  1. Comment on France becomes the first EU country to ban social media for children in ~tech

    Fal
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    French lawmakers voted Tuesday to ban social media use for children under the age of 15, making it the first country in the European Union to introduce such an age limit.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Andy Burnham succeeds Keir Starmer as the UK's seventh prime minister in ten years in ~society

    Fal
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    On Monday, outgoing Prime Minister Starmer traveled to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to King Charles III. Shortly afterward, Burnham made the same journey and was invited by the king to form a new government.

    Burnham then returned to Downing Street, where he delivered his first remarks as prime minister. He said: "It requires my generation of politicians to raise our game." He said politicians are "acknowledging that many voters have grown frustrated with politics."

    10 votes

  6. Comment on Hong Kong police raid independent bookstores and arrest five people in ~society

    Fal
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    Hong Kong’s national security police on Wednesday raided two bookstores, seized boxes of books and arrested five people on suspicion of sedition.

    The police accused two men and three women of displaying items “with seditious intention” and selling publications with “seditious content” that included “inciting hatred” against the Hong Kong government, its judiciary and the police, according to a government statement.

    It was the third time in recent months that the police have arrested proprietors of independent bookstores, as part of a broader crackdown in the city that has increasingly focused on literature. The authorities are using a 2024 national security law to squash any dissent. The offense of “seditious intention” is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

    21 votes

  8. Comment on Japan relaxes royal succession rules - but ban on female emperors remains in ~society

    Fal
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    The Japanese parliament has approved a bill to relax imperial succession rules, amid concerns over the dwindling size of the imperial family.

    The bill, passed by the upper house on Friday, allows the imperial family to adopt distant male relatives over the age of 15 and lets women keep their royal status after marrying outside the family.

    But it does not change the law barring women from ascending the throne despite wide public support for a female emperor, meaning Princess Aiko, the only child of the current emperor, is still not eligible to succeed the throne.

    9 votes

  10. Comment on MapTap: Daily challenges to test your geographical knowledge in ~games

    Fal
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    www.maptap.gg July 15 100🎯 99🎯 100🎯 95🏅 100🎯 Final score: 984 Fun game! That last city I feel was definitely way easier than the fourth one though

    www.maptap.gg July 15
    100🎯 99🎯 100🎯 95🏅 100🎯
    Final score: 984

    Fun game! That last city I feel was definitely way easier than the fourth one though

    2 votes

  11. Comment on What did banning Airbnbs in NYC accomplish? in ~finance

    Fal
    Link Parent
    I don't doubt that prices have gone up generally but I wouldn't be surprised that much of that $280 price tag is attributable to the upcoming World Cup final hosted near NYC

    I don't doubt that prices have gone up generally but I wouldn't be surprised that much of that $280 price tag is attributable to the upcoming World Cup final hosted near NYC

    4 votes

  13. Comment on Woman who dated US Senate candidate Graham Platner says he sexually assaulted her in ~society

    Fal
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    Graham Platner suspends Maine Senate campaign after sexual assault allegation

    Graham Platner suspends Maine Senate campaign after sexual assault allegation

    Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner announced Wednesday he is suspending his campaign after a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were dating five years ago, ending a Senate run punctuated by personal controversies.

    Platner announced his decision in an 11-minute social media video. He vehemently denied the sexual assault allegations, calling them "false" and "not real," but said the pressure from state-level and national Democrats had made it impossible for his campaign to continue. He blamed the "political establishment" for the situation.

    "This is incredibly difficult, because I know that some will think it's an admission of guilt, and it most certainly is not," he said. "We're not doing it because of the allegations, we're doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power."

    7 votes

  14. Comment on Marine Le Pen to run for French presidency despite embezzlement conviction in ~society

    Fal
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    Marine Le Pen finished a whirlwind day of legal drama by launching her fourth bid for the French presidency and a high-stakes appeal of her latest embezzlement conviction.

    The longtime face of the French far right arrived at court on Tuesday banned from running for public office after being found guilty of misusing European Parliament funds last year, and the expectation was that the decision would not go her way. But while the three-judge panel who heard Le Pen’s appeal upheld her conviction, it revised the lower court’s election ban in a manner that would allow her to run in the 2027 presidential race — the first round of which takes place April 18.

    However, the appeals court also sentenced Le Pen to three years in prison, two of them suspended and one to be served under house arrest. As recently as last week, the far-right leader had said she would not run for president if wearing an ankle monitor and would cede the role to her party’s president, Jordan Bardella.

    Instead of accepting the court’s ruling and hoping she could get her sentence knocked down to six months for good behavior, the 57-year-old took a major gamble: She announced on prime-time television that she would once again appeal, this time to France’s highest court.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities

    Fal
    Link Parent
    I'll defer entirely to @DefinitelyNotAFae's explanation as I'm not nor have ever been Catholic, but I'm pretty sure missals are translated into the common language. I think it is kind of like the...

    I'll defer entirely to @DefinitelyNotAFae's explanation as I'm not nor have ever been Catholic, but I'm pretty sure missals are translated into the common language. I think it is kind of like the libretto booklets sold at operas to translate the script into the local language (although I think screens with subtitles are more common in opera nowadays).

    2 votes

  18. Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities

    Fal
    Link Parent
    I mention this in my other comment, but as I understand it new Catholics have to undergo instruction in understanding the rites, which is taught in common language. Also I'm pretty sure that...

    I mention this in my other comment, but as I understand it new Catholics have to undergo instruction in understanding the rites, which is taught in common language. Also I'm pretty sure that Catholic priests have to have a M. Div degree, and somewhere in the ~8 years of schooling they're required to learn Latin, so I think we can safely assume that the priests speaking do actually understand Latin.

    9 votes

  19. Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Dead languages are still understood and intelligible, they just don’t have native speakers. People understand Latin

    Dead languages are still understood and intelligible, they just don’t have native speakers. People understand Latin

    28 votes

  20. Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities

    Fal
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I mean that's just an argument you can make about religiosity as a whole, which isn't a particularly productive line of discussion. My point isn't to make a claim whether this practice is good or...
    • Exemplary

    Equally silly in all cases. Common doesn’t mean good.

    I mean that's just an argument you can make about religiosity as a whole, which isn't a particularly productive line of discussion. My point isn't to make a claim whether this practice is good or bad, but the fact that the same phenomenon shows up independently across so many unrelated traditions suggests that a reductive explanation like "liturgical languages only exist to trick people and maintain control" doesn't tell nearly the whole story. Its not like the Buddhist monks are winning huge levels of societal control when someone alone in their house chants a sutra in a dead language.

    As @stu2b50 points out, these are rituals, not university lectures. Even if a longtime Catholic churchgoer can't hold conversation in Latin, they know what words and phrases mean, so clearly some kind of meaning is being transferred. Besides, learning Catholic doctrine isn't necessarily going to happen during mass anyways, that's what catechesis is for. Joining the Catholic Church as an adult through the OCIA involves months of common-language instruction in scripture and doctrine specifically so people understand what they're doing before/while they participate in Latin rites. This isn't even Catholic-exclusive, Islamic madrasas are taught in the common language, as are explanations of Buddhist sutras, and so on.

    If the speaker isn’t using a language the listener understands, there’s no meaning being transferred. The reason for Latin mass as far as I can tell is to insulate people from what their religion is actually about and maintain vibe based group identity. You can’t have doctrinal schism if nobody knows what the doctrine is.

    I fully get where you're coming from, there's definitely historical cases of organized religion obfuscating theological meaning from the masses (there's a reason the Church resisted vernacular Bibles for so long). But like... this just isn't historically true? Not only has there been a number of schisms from the Latin mass, we're literally commenting on a post about a Latin-Mass-exclusive group being excommunicated over a doctrinal dispute. SSPX has celebrated "unintelligible noises" for 50+ years and somehow still managed to develop such a specific, deeply-held doctrinal position that Rome just declared them in schism over it. If Latin liturgy successfully prevented people from knowing what the doctrine was, this article wouldn't exist.

    41 votes