I think it just takes quite a few moral failings to even achieve that level of wealth in the first place in the vast majority of cases.

Here specifically, these people are authors and IP holders in a society that places a lot of value in ignorance and in very chauvinist and racist ideas. By hook or by crook, they’ve made something original. They have some merit, and you would expect them of all people to see those societal failings for what they are. To not comment on them, or to uphold them, or to mask them, (arguably all the same thing) is a decision they made in their work. I think we vastly overestimate how easy it is to do that across an entire body of independent work if it doesn’t align with your beliefs.

It makes sense that a person who has the merits and will to do something like that, again, entirely without challenging such obvious failures (as most in their position would), would be chosen to win the broad favor of a society that desperately does not want to be challenged or its failings acknowledged (esp ruling class, the ones with something to lose and wealth to spare to push these things), and would gain a lot of its wealth. Especially in ye old early-internet world when people weren’t discovered as easily. Then, when their platform is secure, the mask slips.

It’s not a conspiracy or an aberration, it’s survivorship bias. These people are a product of our society. We have to reckon with that.

edit: I realized I could expand on what I meant in a few places so I sprinkled a bit more in.

Cool. What does that have to do with their history and the way they are treated by the west? You know so much, can you tell me that? What do you suggest should be done about it? Just to clear things up, so I’m not “putting words in your mouth” by literally repeating what you said verbatim and responding to it.

Also its “virtue signalling” now to insist people be treated with respect and that their material reality shouldn’t be dismissed? wtf??? As you said, we have the same “ignorance and cultural failures” in our society. Do we deserve to be bombed and occupied?

Huh??? Did I say anything about that? Does this racism excuse anything we’ve done to them? Seriously, project much?

What the hell should we do about it, fucking invade them again? Continue blockades that don’t even achieve their stated purpose and just make things worse for their people? Cause that’s gone over so well… the only real interaction with most foreign nations being that of sanctions, acts of war and colonization, arbitrarily imposing their own values, and constantly talking down on them both as a nation and as a people, definitely is going to make them love foreigners.

It’s not an “excuse” brother it’s just material reality, why do I have to be “excusing” anything? Is it too much to treat them like humans worthy of a basic level of respect??

Let’s talk excuses though. It’d really be no fucking wonder if they hate us like you say they do. You would hate foreigners too if they talked about you like that and preyed on your downfall the way western nations do to the DPRK. In fact you’ve shown very clearly that you have the exact same hate which you’re trying to condemn here. Calling their home a “shithole”, your only response to a very brief overview of their history not being one of understanding or empathy but simply to lash out and call them racist, which I can only assume is to imply they deserved it. What’s your excuse??

The comment they were responding to there was literally calling them on it

some bombing or shooting or human rights abuse next week will shoves it down the memory hole for good.

Next week? Try last night in DC. I’m doubting this will even register tbh

Do I not understand or am I being deliberately obtuse? Get your story straight.

In that case though thanks for proving my point. Allow me to edit my reply.

did I say that gamergate participants were career politicians? Do you think I think they had the ability to pass laws?

Yes, you did, you compared this issue to the civil rights era, and then you went on to compare it to gamergate, as if all things were equal between them. Welcome to the transitive property! Or are you now saying that this situation is not comparable to gamergate? Hey look, I can be condescending too! Know why? Well cause, I don’t think you’re an ally >:(

I was using that example to demonstrate why the comparison was insulting, because, as we both agree, internet critics are in fact not politicians. Taking normal people criticising someone, whose internet presence thoroughly warrants criticism; and comparing that to a fight against the American ruling class, to win human rights for a group of people whose humanity is absolutely not up for critique or questioning; shows you don’t give a fuck about civil rights beyond the era’s ability to serve you in an argument. The fact you’re still doubling down on it is very telling.

I’m not being obtuse, I’m very openly refusing to entertain your argument because it trivializes a serious issue that is deeply important to me. This is the most stunning display of dunning-kreuger I have ever witnessed. Nice alt btw. Pretentious ass bad faith radlib. Ick.

Wow, a country that experienced harsh Japanese colonial rule from 1910 until being forcibly divided by the US after the second world war, creating a war-torn pariah state facing crushing international economic sanctions, is a shit hole? Color me surprised!

She said she’d continue pressure that wasn’t happening? Wow, what a fucking saint.

Former Israeli ambassador, Michael Herzog, made a startling admission about Biden’s support: “God did the State of Israel a favour that Biden was the president during this period. We fought [in Gaza] for over a year and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.”

Biden never pressured Israel for ceasefire, as Israeli officials boast of exploiting US support

For the first four months of the Gaza war, the Biden administration opposed a full ceasefire, instead opting at best for a temporary “pause” to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, which was briefly achieved in late November 2023. Biden said earlier that month: “a cease-fire is not peace… every cease-fire is time [Hamas members] exploit to rebuild their stockpile of rockets, reposition fighters and restart the killing.”

A senior member of Israel’s negotiating team said in April that “Since January, it’s clear to everyone that we’re not conducting negotiations. It happens again and again: You get a mandate during the day, then the prime minister makes phone calls at night, instructs ‘don’t say that’ and ‘I’m not approving this,’ thus bypassing both the team leaders and the war cabinet.”

Throughout this period, Biden refrained completely from publicly calling out Netanyahu for explicitly sabotaging the talks.

On May 5, Hamas accepted the April proposal with reservations and amendments, but before the Israeli negotiating team got to formulate a response, Israel’s prime minister rushed to denounce Hamas’ position as “delusional” and ordered the immediate invasion of Rafah on May 7.

Biden, who had promised to halt arm supplies to Israel if it violated his “red line” of invading Rafah, decided to instead suspend one shipment of MK-84 2,000-pound bombs to Israel and nothing more.

After lengthy negotiations, on July 2 Hamas accepted an updated Biden proposal with minor amendments, particularly relating to assurances that the ceasefire would lead to ending the war instead of a mere pause, according to multiple senior Arab and Palestinian officials involved in the talks. Hamas were informed that the US and Israeli negotiating team were both on board. However, a few days later, Netanyahu issued four new “non-negotiable” conditions that mediators and even Israeli security officials saw as intentionally sabotaging the deal. The conditions were: resuming the war after a pause “until [Israel’s] war aims are achieved”; no IDF withdrawal from the Philadelphia corridor between Rafah and Egypt; Israel would restrict the return of over one million displaced Gazans to the Northern half of the enclave; maximizing the number of living hostages to be released in the first phase.

In August, ahead of the Democratic National Convention, the US opened a renewed round of negotiations, having received Iranian and Hezbollah promises of refraining from retaliation if a deal was reached.

Instead of building upon Biden’s proposal and pressing Israel to compromise, the Americans simply incorporated Netanyahu’s four impossible conditions as “a bridging proposal.” They attempted to entice Hamas to the table by getting Israel to reduce its veto on which Palestinian detainees it would release in a deal (Hamas presented a list of 300 heavily sentenced individuals, “the VIPs.” Netanyahu vetoed 100 names, including Marwan Barghouti, and insisted on only releasing prisoners with less than 22 years left in their sentence. The Americans lowered this veto to 75 names then 65 in August, per a senior Arab mediator).

As soon as the DNC ended, Biden blamed Hamas again for the failure of the talks, and effectively stopped trying to get a deal, with US officials declaring in September that a ceasefire deal has become unlikely during Biden’s term. Since then, the White House has attempted to re-write history and promote an official narrative blaming Hamas for Netanyahu’s systematic foiling of the talks.

The Biden Administration’s False History of Ceasefire Negotiations

Sorry to make you read more than the first sentence of an article. In fact I suggest you read the whole thing, since I picked out these quotes pretty arbitrarily. I know you won’t though, because you probably think you’re immune to propaganda so long as you only read the “right” news that just happens to be entirely in agreement with both you and the status quo that has allowed a genocide to happen before our eyes.

I only get one if I’m really dehydrated and/or my skin is dry.

suggesting that any and all criticism towards any woman on the internet simply must be based on her gender

I haven’t said that.

Do you know what the term “suggest” means? Have you witnessed the other people in this thread whose behavior you are trying to explain? Did you not literally follow that up by saying “I don’t think you’re an ally”? An ally with whom? What am I then?

did I say that gamergate participants were career politicians? Do you think I think they had the ability to pass laws?

You made the comparison to the rhetoric about forced bussing in the civil rights era??? I said it was an insulting comparison, then you doubled down, and now here you are agreeing that it’s a bad comparison because you think I made it.

Uh. Sexism is bad, I think.

Somebody should award you a nobel peace prize. That doesn’t explain why people are defending this particular artist so fervently or any significant events that would qualify as a “quick overview of the situation”?

Lol. Lmao even. And I’m the one being “deliberately obtuse”. Holy fuck you’re annoying, your arguments are bad, and the fact you avoid the actual argument; where one might actually prove sexism, rather than make a bunch of paranoid conjecture about people engaging in the age old tradition of gossip; is not a point in your favor. You have not “earned” the right to condescend, nor to decide who is and is not an ally. This isn’t even what I was asking about in the first place and you’re really only proving my point. Go away.

That just proves my point that they aren’t on the lookout for cops and the stealth vehicles aren’t solving any real problem.

Is that what I said?

Well if you get rear ended at least you can take solace in it being the other person’s fault.

If the roads were designed with traffic calming in mind you wouldn’t need stealth vehicles to enforce the law. The law would be intuitive and you would feel unsafe breaking it regardless of police presence, meaning there would be a lot more things on your mind than looking out for obvious police vehicles. A clearly marked vehicle would do the job.

If the mere visible presence of a police vehicle makes people drive less recklessly (because if it didn’t these vehicles would be pointless), is that not already accomplishing the goal of road safety? You would give up the broader effect of people seeing the vehicle and slowing down, just so a cop can write a couple tickets for whoever they choose out of the group? To me that sounds more like exacting revenge for a perceived slight (ntm a HUGE opportunity for police to abuse power and profile targets) than simply being concerned for safety.

Also if a driver is truly reckless, would it really matter if the police vehicle is marked or not? Reckless drivers aren’t known for their perceptive ability or for that matter their respect for authority… This only allows police to catch drivers that would have taken their presence as a reminder to verify that they are following the laws.

So to that end, this expansion of the police state is only to promote rule abiding by instilling into drivers, at least the ones that care to follow the law, the constant paranoia that police could be watching. This will inevitably fail and result in less safe roads, because humans aren’t machines that can go on forever operating on an exact set of instructions. But at least some of those drivers will have expensive tickets to pay when they slip up, and at least the police get to say they did something.

Rather than just having sensible rules that you would have to go out of your way to break, along with implementing other safer means of transport so that there are fewer people at risk for driving incidents. I would much rather see promotion and investment into a bus line than a swanky new stealth police vehicle, for example.

What am I looking at

At least god doesn’t have six fingers.

Nope, he only has 4. As intended :)

I pity you.

Uh, they spent the small amount of energy it takes to leave a few comments on the internet because the same painfully unfunny comic strip keeps coming up in their feed and they don’t understand where the popularity comes from? That’s why I’m here at least. Lemmy is still relatively small, I don’t get that many posts to interact with. If it’s so much energy to spend, then I’m fundamentally asking the same question as you. Why are these people spending so much of their energy defending her?

I don’t see why it has to be anything more than that and I really don’t appreciate the condescension, to suggest that I’ve fallen for some rhetorical manipulation that you think you’re somehow immune from. Yes, I was also here on the internet when those things were happening. It’s not that I don’t understand it, it’s that this is not that. There are legitimate reasons to dislike this person and their comics.

Do you really think that being annoying like this; suggesting that any and all criticism towards any woman on the internet simply must be based on her gender; is going to dispel negative attention from actual sexists? Do you really think that you aren’t gonna get a lot of false positives, from people simply expressing their legitimate criticisms on a platform specifically made for the purpose, and push those people away from whatever your message is by presuming to know what they are thinking and aggressively using that to condescend to them and dismiss anything they have to say?

Also yes, it was very obvious even to the least politically engaged person that gamergate was about sexism. Yes, even as it was happening. That’s like the whole reason people took part in it. They knew what they were doing just as well as the people calling them on it and were pretty open about their sexism. They weren’t career politicians trying to pander to a racist base without sparking major backlash, so they could quietly pass laws to prevent integration; they were gamers having their little boys club on the internet, being flagrantly sexist and bad faith. What even is this line of reasoning??

If you like this person as an artist and identify with the comic you can just say that and engage normally, if you don’t then why would you go out of your way to defend them and suggest that their gender has anything to do with it? You don’t have to keep explaining the same point, I know what you’re saying and I disagree.

Is it? I’ve never seen this before and seen lots of this artist’s comics posted here. It does seem it’s just as much one side as it is the other though.

Also I understand the concept of fear mongering veiled bigotry. That doesn’t even remotely appear to be what is happening here and, not to be overly pearl clutch-y, but as somebody with intimate knowledge of this history I honestly find the comparison to the civil rights era insulting. People expressing their dislike of an artist with questionable behavior on the internet is not the same thing as politicians in the real world using fear tactics as a fig leaf for their racist goals of preventing black people from fully integrating into american society.

I understand you mean well but this doesn’t really answer for me why the defensiveness is so over the top.