Women “would have their uteruses removed when they turn over 30,” Naoki Hyakuta, leader of the Conservative Party of Japan, said in a stream on his YouTube channel on Friday.

On the channel, he also said that he would make it law for “women who are single after 25 years old not to be allowed to marry.”

(…)

Later, Hyakuta posted an apology on his X account. “I cannot deny that the expressions were too harsh,” he said. “I apologize for those who were offended.”

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I’ve been saying it since 2015, but it bears repeating!

      The global conservative propaganda machine — lead by the US and Russia — is using all of the data obtained from surveillance capitalism to target, A/B test, and iterate on psychological warfare across social media in real-time (as close to as the platforms allow). The most criminally corrupt and sociopathic benefit the most, as there is no limit to how depraved they will go — bots, lies, disinformation, deep fakes, utilizing actual criminal enterprises and scam operations, illegally obtained data — they will do whatever it takes to succeed.

      There really isn’t much difference between persuading you to buy a product and persuading you to vote for a political party; they both attack similar weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and the process of building the data pipelines and statistical models is nearly identical. People who knew history were always saying that this is what surveillance capitalism would lead to eventually. I don’t think any of us thought it would happen so quickly, but the lack of regulation and highly centralized nature of social media meant that a relatively small operation could access 90% of the Internet using population.

      • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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        2 months ago

        Persuading you to vote for their guy, or if you’re disinclined to do so, persuading you to not vote by instilling disgust/outrage (see also: “Genocide Joe”) or just a blackpilled sense of powerlessness.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Unchecked access to the internet by people who aren’t emotionally mature enough to handle it.

      Allowing all of humanity onto the internet when 30% of people still believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows was a mistake.

      • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        Allowing all of humanity onto the internet when 30% of people still believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows was a mistake.

        You are referrering to children. Right? And I’ve lived a considerable amount of my life taking this as an urban legend. Not a fact.

        • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          My apologies. I totally flipped some numbers. It’s actually 7% of people (not children) surveyed believe that chocolate milk is from brown cows.

          Now the survey wasn’t too robust with 5000 total respondents but it’s still embarrassing that that number isn’t like “Seven American adults in total believe chocolate milk is from brown cows”

          Here’s a CNN fluff piece on it https://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/chocolate-milk-help-trnd/index.html

          • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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            2 months ago

            No need to apologize. At best, I have to do it, because you managed to make me laugh while at the same time lose a little bit of hope for humanity.

            How can someone be that uninformed?!

        • 418_im_a_teapot@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Here’s a real number. 56% of Americans read at or below a sixth grade reading level.

          When complex topics like the economy are discussed, _at least _ 56% can’t comprehend the concepts because they lack the vocabulary. They do not understand how government works, or their own bodies, or diplomacy, or historical contexts. They are not capable of being part of many important national conversations.

          Now couple this with the fact that Democrats are terrible at messaging and simplifying complex policy into digestible sound bites while Republicans have perfected it, and you can easily see how we get to where we are now.

          • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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            2 months ago

            My sincere apologies upfront for my next sentence: I do not fathom what 6th grade reading level entails. Not in the USofA nor in my little barbarian european country.

            What I am aware is that children’s books and how they are taught to read is a diservice for them, with an overwhelming(ab)use of unnecessary images and infantilizing story telling.

            This isn’t an argument to have children read “War and Peace” as a bed time story but kids could dispense with all the garbage being thrown at them (including school text books) and most parents happily buy them and instead having something that actually challenges intelectually.

            And using a dictionary doesn’t hurt, unless you drop it on your toes.

            • datavoid@lemmy.ml
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              2 months ago

              In America they seem to prefer banning books that might cause some sort of empathy or critical thought.

      • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        To be fair, chocolate milk comes from milk.

        Milk comes from cows.

        Most cows are at least partially brown, many 50% or more brown.

        Conversly, albino cows constitute a small portion of the milk supply.

        So it is, arguably, a correct statement.

      • 418_im_a_teapot@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        And many of us men are just as baffled by it. I honestly don’t understand why there are so many men – who I’m sure shutter at any mention of a woman’s period – that feel the need to control every aspect of reproduction and do so in the most cruel ways.

        But also, the women who voted in support of those men are exponentially more baffling to me.

        My brain hurts trying to understand it.

        • Seleni@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Imagine being told every minute of every day that you don’t matter. That as a woman, your only purpose is to glorify men, support men, breed more men. That it’s the greatest and highest calling of women to surrender your life and your choices to men.

          That women are stupid and sinners because of Eve’s actions, and will be forever. So you can never be allowed any kind of authority, because like Eve you’ll just do something foolish or abuse it.

          Now imagine everyone and everything around you shows and supports this worldview. All the time.

          That’s where it comes from. When something is all you’ve ever known, then it’s normal. And, even if you consciously don’t believe it, it still worms its way inside of you.

    • foggy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Russian state media just showed nudes of Trump’s wife during prime time tv.

      We’re in a weird spot.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      WTF is even happening in this article? An official / novelist says “women would have their uteruses removed” and there is no additional context? Is he describing a fictional future? What? Why is this presented as some kind of news? What’s this “would” phrasing? Would under what conditions?

      Before we panic about the world let’s get some basic context to this drivel. How does sterilizing women over 30 address population decline, even in the most bizarre fictional speculations?

      • oktoberpaard@feddit.nl
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        2 months ago

        I think that the idea is that by setting a strict deadline after which women can’t have children or marry, they are forced to start a family now or risk regretting it later. That’s the only way I can make sense of this bizarre scenario.

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I guess maybe… It’s a ridiculously terrible notion no matter what your priorities are.