It is a perfectly coherent argument that Boeing is more harmful than Lowes despite both being $120 billion megacorporations. You have a point, but there are real functional differences between the actions a person or a corporation or a country takes. Make another pro-nihilist argument, I will listen, discount the validity of viewing the world through any other lens and I will not give a shit

I do not think it is a coherent argument to lean on history to discount the effects of brand new surveillance and killing tools. Drones are supposed to be able to limit casualties with precise strikes but the disconnect between the operator and the victims is so great that it makes the act of killing easier, evidenced by so many botched attacks during Bush and Obama administrations. Which way does the pendulum swing? We don’t have historians and declassified documents and longitudinal studies to rely on for an answer. Maybe our children’s children can fill us in, but in the meantime I actually feel very confident claiming that expensive advanced weaponry widens the gap in power between oppressor and oppressed. The fact that practically nobody from the US died while the Misdle East cowered is evidence of this; I think Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge actually reinforce this claim as well. Clashes and bloodshed and genocide are ancient—but I think the systemic rounding up and genocide of millions in just 4 years is quite difficult to accomplish without fairly modern weaponry. There are only a handful of genocides that even compare on a numbers scale and only one I can think of is pre military industrial complex. I don’t see how today’s superiority through guided missile, drone, etc. systems differ from yesteryear’s superiority via small arms in that regard.

I’m sure it would be interesting to talk to you in some other set of circumstances—I think you have twice now made a salient point about how seemingly innocent industries end up fueling these genocides, just now and elsewhere regarding steel manufacturing—but under these circumstances it’s like pulling teeth. You are arguing that advanced weaponry does not increase bloodshed, which I disagree with, and you are avoiding any discussion of responsibility, which I think is a pretty natural impulse within all of us but it really fucking matters. I hope at least that you enjoyed interpreting everyone’s critiques in the worst possible light.

Yeah, that’s a pretty pointless response on the Uyghur front and I don’t think we’re making progress on the “how easily is the genocide carried out” front so let’s just drop everything else and hone in here:

China’s comprehensive surveillance system is what makes tracking the movements of Uyghurs possible. It is what has made detaining and killing them so easy. So the people that made that system possible are responsible. Please explain how actually it’s nobody’s fault because things just happen.

It is pretty radical to argue that a small contingent of Zionist Israelis would be successfully eradicating the people of Palestine if both sides just had sticks, so the U.S. should just keep manufacturing and selling MK-84 bombs. Or we can talk about how absurd a claim it is that the arms industry is looking out for the little guy—you know, the group that can pay for less of their product? Thank god for arms manufacturers—that’s probably what Uyghurs think when they’re stopped at checkpoints by military police

So do you work for a defense contractor or do you just have great respect for the act of killing in general

Yeah that’s a great counterpoint if the entire world spoke Esperanto but languages still exist so

Yeah it’s funny the nostalgia that gets attached to the old sponsor. But I think it’s because you forget the company. Nobody gives a shit about Sears anymore so I think it’s one of the best examples. It’s just what people call it, and refusing the new name isn’t defending Sears’ honor, it’s taking a stand and claiming practical ownership over something in your community. It’s eschewing the idea that someone’s virtual monetary exchange that’s represented on a couple of spreadsheets and in a bunch of advertisements news articles somehow matters more than what the actual people call something

Baited

Nice bait

Firing someone after they notify you of an inability to be present is bad, and there are many cases where it’s illegal, such as in the U.S. when FMLA paperwork exists. We’re not discussing that, nor are we discussing how a real manager reassigns mission critical work and doesn’t blog about hirings and firings. No—we’re discussing whether it’s hypocritical. I disagree with your usage of the word “most”. I truly do not believe that most workplaces are one person away from missing an important deadline. Most workplaces I’ve experienced get over it extremely quickly, but that is just as anecdotal as your workplace experience.

If we assume most workplaces are exactly like your hypothetical workplace, which is to say, happy to let someone go despite how long hiring someone new will take, then these workplaces are still usually not up against the wall when it comes to someone taking time off; they instead spend most time in a state of not caring whether or not they have full staffing, which means taking time off shouldn’t be an issue for most of the year. So again, in a world where every workplace is understaffed and hyper focused on deadlines, the mathematical odds are that this action was still hypocritical.

But those are just odds! I could be wrong. This person who publicly posts about workplace drama and fronting may also also be a very fair and judicious person. Maybe they just care so much about their clients.

Because they’re likely hypocritical. Most workplaces are not on the brink of collapse one week due to one person calling out and yet capable of handling their absence for the next few months.

And I’m being a tad more pedantic pointing out that “they are no hypocrite” and “they are not a hypocrite necessarily” are not the same statement, that one of them is baseless, and that you lead with the baseless one.

They are no hypocrite for firing them assuming your fantasy scenario is reality

Lol. Cool from a universal perspective but I live in a city with plenty of run down buildings and I’ve gotta disagree. Make it a usable building or make it a useful or usable green space. Land is finite, wasted space in cities leads to sprawl elsewhere

Understandable to disagree with whether or not restoration preserves the history and soul of an architectural wonder but I have to ask—what’s the alternative? Leave it as ruins? Build something truly modern and uninspired?

Okay, so again, no new machine learning ever, unless you can prove it’s done without environmental impact or affecting peoples’ right to a dignified existence. That’s the wrong righted. That’s what you’re advocating. Am I misunderstanding?

Sure, if we presuppose that credit cards exist as a way for a middleman company to make a huge profit and pay their CEO tens of millions of dollars annually. If we instead consider them a regulatable utility, the necessary rates for viable operation go pretty far down. The business model of “convenience is free or even costs less than cash for those who already have plenty, and this convenience is funded by the destitute who are being held down by the exact same people” is also suspect to begin with, and I’d rather DiSrUpT tHe EcOnOmY than remain complicit, which I am

It’s nice to think that there is some form of cosmic justice present, and that wealthy people have some sort of unique-to-their-situation guilt that balances out how easy their lives are. But that’s all it is. Nice to think about.

Would start by looking up how plants interact with each other and with mycelial networks—monocropping deprives the farm of an important support network, and the soil and plants’ subsequent underperformance leads to unsustainable use of pesticides, additional water supply etc. to compensate. Monocropping to simplify the field layout and crop gathering makes plenty of intuitive sense, as does cutting down all your trees so you can plant more crops. It’s also not a good long-term plan to treat these unfathomably complex systems that have evolved over millennia as something we’re going to improve using our intuition.

Sure, because you’d realize the developed world’s wealth comes from exploitation and that you don’t actually want to give it back