> the police went around to make those allegations
I'm not sure I follow this. It seems like there were two complaints, one of them was clearly a complaint of rape (I'm not saying a rape definitively occurred, but the accusation was intentionally breaking a condom and not using protection against the wishes of a partner is considered rape in Sweden) and one was a potential claim of rape (it is unclear in the other complaint if the preference for protection was a retroactive regret or something established before sex). Anything that transpired after that, no matter how shady, is irrelevant to the initial allegations. There were obviously people who wanted to use those allegations to achieve some political end. However that doesn't invalidate the accusations which deserve to be evaluated on their own merits.
What I want to know is how exactly could any of this be successfully prosecuted, save for explicit admission from the alleged perpetrator? Would a valid Assange defense be simply "She said to not wear a condom"?
It is often incredibly difficult to prosecute sexual crimes like this that don't involve a violent struggle. There is almost never any evidence that can distinguish beyond a reasonable doubt non-consensual sex from consensual sex. It is almost always the word of one party against the word of another. However, like the previous examples of police impropriety, that has no bearing on the validity of the accusations. Victims should feel welcome to come forward with their experiences regardless of the likelihood of their accusations resulting in a conviction.
Absolutely agree with the last statement, I was mostly thinking from a prosecutors perspective. Is there any other crime that can only be prosecuted by the criminal admitting what they did?
Is team netflix really afraid that if they made quality instead of quality that people wouldn't subscribe? $4/week for 1 excellent movie and 2 good TV shows week, for the whole household/freeloaders, including offline and HD, is a pretty darn good deal and everyone gets to sleep.
I am not a native English speaker, but queer is repurposed by the LGBT community to include everyone, under a single name [1]. It can even include heterosexuality [2]. I definitely do not read it in any derogatory way, and would identify myself as queer.
Well you can’t assume a fair playing field between USA and any other country, let alone a developing one. They needed protectionist measures to be able to industrialize as well as they did.
I'm pretty curious about this as well. I read an article a few weeks ago where some developer went into how TikTok is "worse" but nothing stuck with me about it but it was posted here. It's been mentioned a few times that the real problem is the data collected is sent back to China and Singapore but again I'm not entirely sure how that's "worse" than having it given/sold to companies and governments outside of Asia.
I don't think it's about whether or not it is worse than FB etc. I don't think it is..it's about who it reports to and what their motivations are. If FB was reporting to an openly authoritarian and hostile regime...we would probably having this conversation about them. (and currently we sort of are actually given our govt issues)
True, but if we continue on our current trajectory (climate change, social inequality), we won’t make it to that future. While I understand, we have enough curious people to invest many long-term possibilities and theories, I do think we should focus more on current pressing concerns when we decide on such a costly project. I can’t help but think of the possibilities of building renewable energy, sanitization for the parts of the world that has been historically and systematically left behind.
As the looks of it, US is pretty non-free when it comes to peacefully protesting. So I guess this feature is very timely and directed towards users there ;)
It's most certainly not just the US. In the (western European) country where I live, for instance, even a static protest or demonstration with no chanting or marching and only a few participants requires non-trivial and somewhat expensive police approval ahead of time. Most larger spontaneous events seem to just ignore this and the police haven't generally responded violently, to their credit.
There are people committing suicide, being harassed and not being accepted as they are so using wrong gender is pretty fucked up thing to do especially because it is so easy to do right.
This may be insensitive (and I apologize if it is) but if being referenced by normal pronouns is enough to drive someone to commit suicide (or cause emotional distress), I'd argue that this person is in more need of medical treatment than having his or her quirks pandered to by others.
Using a language normally doesn't cause problems for healthy human beings.
Using the wrong gender is enough to cause someone to commit suicide? So instead of getting to the bottom of the issue as to why calling someone "him" instead of "her" is enough for them to take their own life, and then putting up the safety nets so that this does not happen (which CAN be done - type any vaguely suicidal query into Google and you can see suicide hotlines and help center phone numbers and locations at the top of the page), it is more effective to pressure others into using the "correct" pronoun?
It is hard enough to get people to talk strictly about work, at work, but somehow it's easier to convince people to change their entire thought process so that they use the terms you deemed acceptable?
You can’t refuse to use someone’s preferred pronoun just because you want to. If someone wants to be called he, using them is insulting and demeaning. You would be literally not accepting how he is. Obviously this is not the case in generic writing. But I don’t think that is how 2 people want to communicate.
Yes! I absolutely can refuse to use someone's "preferred pronoun." I summarily reject your assertion that using the gender neutral and grammatically correct "they" in place of "he"/"she" (not them) to refer to anyone is ever insulting or demeaning. You can say it's insulting and I just don't agree that is true in general. Yelling loudly and with outrage doesn't make your claim stronger than mine.
I am not rejecting anyone's gender, I am simply not acknowledging it because it is usually not germane to the discussion.
It's not that I don't believe people deserve respect, trans or otherwise. I just don't think it is an appropriate point for discussion in most instances.
If a white man says they wish to always be referred to as "the white guy" am I also obligated to do so? Is it not "accepting" of their whiteness if I don't use language to refer to it everytime? Especially so if they are on the internet and I can't even see them?
I don't know what color you are. I really don't care. I have no interest in referring to your race when addressing you, likewise your gender. I communicate with people everyday and gender, race, creed, and nationality just never come up.
And if someone insists on sharing their pronouns or their race or creed unsolicited, that is on them. That should not obligate me to do anything with it.
Edit: I've been downvoted. But would anyone actually like to explain how referring to someone in a gender neutral way is somehow more insulting than referring to them in a race, religion, ethnicity, or any other identity-forming aspect neutral way? Things we take for granted all the time when we use the neutral (not just gender) pronouns them/they?
As you said, race, religions, genders and so on are all about identity. And people are defined by their identities.
If you know the person you're talking about is a cisgender woman, using the gender-neutral pronoun will feel insulting, because by assuming she may or may not be a woman, you look like you're not accepting her as a woman.
It gets yet more offending if you're doing this for a transitioning person. The change of pronoun is their first way to make their transition known, well before having expensive surgery or getting a court order for having their name changed. Refusing the use of their preferred pronoun means you don't accept their transition nor their new gender.
Whether these people are here to see your messages or to hear you talk doesn't matter.
You could be as insulting when talking about ethnicity or religion, in some way. But gender is special because it finds its way in every conversation at some point. Pronouns are used everywhere and every time, you cannot escape it.
Finally, it all boils down to what it costs you not using the preferred pronoun of someone, when you know it. What are you winning for doing this? What's the expected outcome of this "active and voluntary refusal" for you?
I don't think you assume all people you encounter on HN are bald and blind just because you don't know the color of their hair or their eyes. Why would you be so adamant doing this specifically for their gender?
> because by assuming she may or may not be a woman, you look like you're not accepting her as a woman.
Listen to yourself. Repeat that sentence to yourself slowly. "Assuming she may or may not be a woman..." Why, yes, I assume everyone I talk to may or maynotbe a woman!!
And there is where everything you say falls apart. It does not follow that I am not accepting "her as a woman" simply because I assume they are human (which is essentially what "may or may not be a woman" encompasses).
Also, everyday I refer to people as "they" without even thinking about it. I have never heard anyone feeling insulted by that outside of these "woke" mobs on the internet. This "think of the cisgenders" argument does not hold water. Most people, trans or not do not go nuts if you simply use a neutral word.
I have probably said "They left the keys on the table" or similar when referring to my own damn best friend ("he"/"him") and wife (a very clearly "she"/"her"). Why do you think I'm going more out of my way for someone that is attention seeking.
> Finally, it all boils down to what it costs you not using the preferred pronoun of someone, when you know it. What are you winning for doing this? What's the expected
outcome of this "active and voluntary refusal" for you?
I answered that. The refusal to engage on a topic that is not germane to a discussion. I don't mention your race, likewise I don't mention your gender. It does cost me something, having to keep track of this additional piece of information. If I am on a first name basis with you, I'll use that and I'll probably use your preferred pronouns, or I might use "they" like I do for my own wife and friends all the fucking time.
> It gets yet more offending if you're doing this for a transitioning person. The change of pronoun is their first way to make their transition known, well before having expensive surgery or getting a court order for having their name changed. Refusing the use of their preferred pronoun means you don't accept their transition nor their new gender.
It is not the world's burden to acknowledge a trans persons gender change hardships. You can still have meaningful, respectful conversation and relationships with people without acknowledging all their life troubles. All sorts of people are marginalized or have terrible hardships. I don't refer to AIDS patients as "HAARTs-men" either (those drugs are expensive too), and I haven't been asked to lately. Trans people often need a support system - friends, family, professional caretakers. Expecting everyone they deal with/society to use language in a very regimented and new way is immature and inappropriate.
Again, it doesn't follow that not using "preferred pronouns" and just using "they" or "them" means I don't accept their new gender, it just means that it is not something I care to discuss.
> I don't think you assume all people you encounter on HN are bald and blind just because you don't know the color of their hair or their eyes. Why would you be so adamant doing this specifically for their gender?
You have totally lost me. I don't refer to people as bald or blind. Likewise I don't refer to gender either most of the time.
Edit: oh I get it... you seem to be equating blindness with unspecified eye color and baldness with unspecified hair color, is that right? That’s nonsense. This took me a while because it is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Blindness, eye color? Where to begin with that one?
> You could be as insulting when talking about ethnicity or religion, in some way. But gender is special because it finds its way in every conversation at some point. Pronouns are used everywhere and every time, you cannot escape it.
No it doesn't. It doesn't have to any more than ethnicity or religion. I agree, it can. It can be used by people like you to drive wedges into productive discourse and make trouble. But you can escape it if you want, just use a neutral pronouns.
What do you say about languages like spoken Chinese that don't even have gendered pronouns?
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