aski3252

As I had heard it described by a few people, it was considered cool in the 70s to have gay friends.

By a very very very small amount of people maybe, those who were considered to be radicals. Not only did a majority of people believe that homosexuality should not be accepted or tolerated, this was a time where at least half of the population believed that homosexual relations should be illegal.. And this didn't change until quite recently.

people were still living in the wake of the hippie revolution.

The "hippie revolution" was pretty much dead at that point. And of course, "normies" always hated the hippies. They were considered to be radicals, they were probably seen in a less favourable way than people see "antifa" today. And at that time, the hippies were associated with murderers and cults (Jim Jones, Charles Manson).

Recreational drugs were very widely used, as was all sorts of things like swinging…

Compared to how things were before the 60s, yes. But that's just because before the 60s, "free love" was unthinkable and recreational drugs simply did not exist in the eyes of the general public (outside of alcohol and tabacco). But we also shouldn't forget that those things happened in very specific metropolian areas.

So, having gay friends was considered normal

Again, by a very very specific subsection of people. It's as if you said that today, it's considered normal to have a "gender-fluid pan-sexual furry who identifies as a fox" as a friend. But for 99% of people, it just isn't.

by the 1990s, the mainstreaming of gay actors and gay themes in TV began to take off.

And it's not until the 90s that views on homosexuality slowly started to change. In 1997, it was still more people who believed that homosexuality should be illegal compared to those who believed it should be legal. Views on homosexuality only really started to radically change in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2008, while most people believed that homosexuality should not be punished by a law, it was still half of the population that believed that homosexuality is immoral and should be discouraged. In 2023, 64% believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable while 33% belive it's not. So there has definitely been a radical change of attitude towards homosexuality that is still going on, but this only happened relatively recently.

And of course people who are still opposed to homosexuality have noticed this shift too, which is why politicians have shifted focus away from scapegoating homosexual men towards scapegoating trans people (who are still a lot less tolerated today than gay men). The same talking points which are today used against trans people ("they are crazy and mentally unstable", "they are pedophiles") were traditionally used against homosexual men.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/4045/Some-Change-Over-Time-American-Attitudes-towards-Homosexuality.aspx

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx

I’d also like you to know that, if I had my way, we would have not made any provocative posts at all and pot a moratorium on such content in order to establish trust

In my admittedly biased view, to a majority of people on the right, provocation is an elemental part of their behaviour. It seems that some people orient their entire identity based on "triggering the libs/triggering the left" and then complain when they actually succeed..

I had a discussion the other day with a user here who had the username "Ihatretroons" who was complaining that people would unfairly accuse him of, well, "hating troons". To me, this is absurd. Everyone should know by now that people on the internet form their opinions based on the smallest amount of information, when you choose the username "ihatetroons", most people will obviously think you hate trans people..

and that violence can only be done if it is defensive and meant to protect the innocent.

Right but every possible group that advocates for violence of course claims that their violence is defensive and meant to protect the innocent. The violent far-right neo-nazi white supremacist claims they only want to use violence to "protect their white children and their people from white genocide". Far-left antifascist militants claim they only want to use violence to "defend their community from fascists using violence against them". Anti-trans militants claim they only want to use violence against trans people to "protect children from getting abused and child trafficked". And my guess is that pretty soon, we will start to see violent environmental activists who claim they only use violence to protect the environment from destruction. And the state/police/military of course claims it's using violence "to maintain peace, order and stability".

Nobody claims that they want to use violence just because, they always claim it's defensive.

I’m gonna have to maintain that if you come from some small European shit hole and you travel a short distance to a neighboring country you are not more traveled than a new yorker who has visited south Carolina and Texas.

Fair.

This is like an American going to the Bahamas. Like everyone does that. Most American do visit mexico.

Yeah but those are actually different countries. An American travelling to Mexico is different than a Californian travelling to Texas.

its just like a 13 hour plus flight and hard with kids.

Yeah I completely understand why Americans don't travel as much overseas, all I'm saying is that it's kinda funny sometimes when Americans talk about other countries with a lot of confidence even though they have never even visited that country.

And I also think it's pretty funny when Europeans think they are basically a native just because they visited a country a couple of times.

Its just like a Romanian almost never goes to see Texas.

Sure, but again, you claimed that the US is "more Like the EU in form and function". That's just not true, the EU doesn't really have a federal government at all, it doesn't even have law enforcement or a common cultural identity. I would say that a Romanian has about as much in common with an Irishman as he does with an American. And I'm not saying that someone from Texas is exactly the same as someone from California, but the cultural differences are smaller.

That sucks, I had this happening once on lemmy as well.

Most US states are larger than most European countries.

In terms of geographical area maybe. In terms of population, no.

They also vary in culture nearly as much. Its more Like the EU in form and function.

No, absolutely not, you underestimate the impact that different languages and a history full of international conflict has. Until WWII, Europe was constantly and brutally fighting each-other. Until very recently, you had a large array of different political entities and systems, from small republics to empires.

All the regional differences that exist in America exist within European countries too, they just have a longer history.

The main point I make is often many Europeans look down on Americans for never visiting another “country”.

I wouldn't say I "look down on Americans" for that, it's just a stereotype that Americans always think of the US as this magical, special and unique place in terms of diversity and regional differences while at the same time, they believe that everyone in Europe basically has the same views and opinions on everything because "Europe is a homogeneous place", all without ever having visited Europe.

It was a common meme for a "typical american" to say something like "Yeah, an European country providing healthcare for people is nice and all, but that wouldn't be possible in the US. It works in Europe because they are so small and homogeneous and America has so many differences and is so large, it would never work.". Meanwhile, half of all US states have a population of 5 million or lower.

Because some English ass hole visited Ireland and Romania once

Most people from Europe tend to travel more than Americans, it's not just a once in a lifetime thing. Even poorer people will go to a neighbouring country or something for vacation occasionally.

hardly different than a Texan visiting California and new York.

Of course it's different. The difference between the average Texan and the average Californian is a slight accent and some specific differences of opinion about very specific topics. The biggest thing will probably be that the average Texan sees himself as more of a countryside/rural person and the average Californian sees himself as more of a city person, but again, you will have those kind of differences in the smallest of countries.

The average Irish person and the average Romanian person will barely be able to effectively communicate. They have a completely different language, a completely different history, a completely different identity and completely different values. So much so that they will be completely unfamiliar with traditions, customs, etc of the other outside of some stereotypes.

A Texan and a Californian will not have any issues interacting with eachother at all, their biggest difference will probably be rural vs urban thinking. Every Texan knows at least one person from California, probably they know a Californian personally or they are familiar with at least 1 Californian due to TV, radio, etc, same thing the other way around.

I will take whatever I want as hard as I want it.

Completely off topic, but it seems then that you can actually change the username, or at least the display name in lemmy. That's pretty cool.

I honestly doubt Europeans know all the us states, the Canadian provinces and the various south and central American countries.

Do you know all central American countries by heart? Also most countries in Europe also have many different regions, provinces, states, cantons, etc. I think it's very common for Europeans to know the different regions in their countries and for the rest to know the country and capital city, at least for European countries.

Like yeah I don’t know the names of all the eastern European countries

As an European who is pretty bad at geography, eastern Europe is very hard for me as well.

what language Albanians speak

Well that one is easy, Albanian ;).

Afghanistan is the middle east

Your country basically fucked Afghanistan for decades, but you don't even know which general region it is located at? But to be fair, I'm not sure if I could point to it on a map either.

Yeah except he never said what this meme claims he said.. It's completely made up. I don't think the word "gender" is even mentioned in the whole episode..

https://youtu.be/7cGN1sLYMhA?t=544

So no, 90s kids certainly won't remember, unless they are right wing 90s kid who remember it because they made it up..

They are like the bisexuals of the 1990s: they signal their uniqueness to get prestige without making any commitments.

What was "prestigious" about being a "homo" in the 90s? What is prestigious about being trans today? They are overwhelmingly hated all over the world for who they are, the push against that hate has been met with extreme scepticism by a lot of people.

Even in the US, THE example of "the progressive west", the last president has claimed that if he becomes president again, he will go after all transgender healthcare..

Also, what are you implying when you say "without making any commitments"? Isn't one of the right's main criticisms that the changes are too permanent/not reversable? Shouldn't you be happy that they "aren't commiting"?

So… To me, when anyone starts taking such hormones to lactate and presents this to a child, they are not doing it as an actual woman, but they are doing it as a person who is deeply troubled…

Yeah as I have said, I have my concerns with this as well. The only thing I find a bit strange is that your concerns are about "it not being natural" which to me, is just a weird justification for anything.

And if I was a male who was lactating due to a medical condition, I would not offer it to my own baby.

And I'm not saying you should (unless maybe you are in that desert scenario or something like that). I'm just saying it's not as "unnatural" as you might think, or rather nature can be pretty fucked up and weird in it's own right.

Not only would it take me entirely out of my comfort zone, it wouldn’t be healthy for the baby.

Right and to me, the first one is not very important. It's the second one that should be important, no?

But this is pure, disembodied reason thinking purely along Cause>Effect lines without the proper context of healthy human living, culture, and norms.

And this is exactly where I believe our main difference in thinking comes from.

You talk of "proper healthy human living", "proper culture" and "proper norms" or of human behavior being "unnatural". To me, humans have abandoned nature thousands of years ago. And in the past 100 - 200 years, we have also start to abandon virtually all traditional social norms, social structures, hierarchies, customs, culture and norms, etc.

And some people say they want to go back to "traditional society", but first, I don't thinkt that's possible, and second, many just want to go back in some specific cases, but keep the rest of the progress they like, which certainly doesn't work.

At the very least, I think that's clearly the direction we are heading towards. Young people will keep on questioning and opposing older traditions, norms and customs, I believe simply because the world they grow up in is different to the one their parents grew up in. And I don't think this is happening for artificial reasons as some want to claim, I believe it's the extreme impact that our technological and scientific progress has caused, it would be unreasonable to see everything in our world radically transform, but to expect that specific customs and traditions stay the same..

I have seen that a lot of the people who voted against us were not just mistaken, but extreme in their views.

I think it's pretty silly when people say "we are banning the nazis" when they are talking about you. I mean many do it to provoke you and piss you off while they know you are not actual nazis, but still, it's pretty silly. But at the same time, I don't really know how to address it, it's just how people on the internet seem to act and you people certainly like to provoke, so you almost have to expect a reaction.

But I also actually think that guys getting their hatred out in stupid internet posts is OK. Maybe even helpful.

I don't see how it helps anyone.It certainly doesn't help with finding any practical solutions to any problem, it certainly doesn't help in making the internet less toxic and it certainly doesn't help with finding any kind of compromise or common ground between the camps. All it does is making people act more and more extreme and unappologetic on both sides.

I think anyone who is willing to start using violence for political reasons is already insane.

Yeah a lot of people say that, but EVERYONE is using violence for political reasons. The left is, the right is, and the center is using violence against both the right and the left to keep the status quo. But of course, there are different levels of violence and I think we can both agree that using random and extreme acts of violence is not only insanse, but also impratical. But I also think that at the end of the day, it's a consequence of people being desperate and hopeless.

There’s nothing I can do to help them. They are at timebomb who will go off for some strange social or religious reason if not for a political one; they are attracted to anything that justifies a violent outburst.

Here I agree with you. But I know that fantasising all day long about violence and "finally getting revenge" while blaming "the opposite side for everything" will certainly not help. And this goes for both right wingers who are fantasysing about lining up and shooting all the trans people/leftists/sjw's as well as all the extreme lefties who fantasise about "bringing out the guilitine" and executing all the rich people, racists and right wingers.

I think free speech is never dangerous, so I am not into censorship.

I'm not into censorship either, but I think we have a different definition of censorship. To me, moderation does not restrict free speech. One could even argue that moderation makes free speech possible.

It depends very much on where you go, which is why I said middle east.

But "middle east" isn't one place, right? There are plenty of destinations in the middle east that are insanly popular vacation spots for westeners. Many people got rich through oil there and they know that it won't last for ever, so many places in the middle east have been shifting focus to tourism for decades now. Hell, the world's most popular international sport event was last held in the middle east, they are spending a lot of money to signal to westeners that they are welcome and will be treated like kings..

And it seems to be working as many westeners, especially Europeans, enjoy traveling to the middle east. I know a lot of people who go to the middle east for vacation and while I personally am not really extremly interested in traveling there, I have not heard anyone feeling afraid of the government there..

And you’ll find that much of the “privilege” you feel is fear of your government.

I don't find that at all.. I'm sure there are places in the middle east, like places in Afganistan for example, where I wouldn't feel save. But even Afganistan/the taliban are begging for tourists, so I would mainly be afraid of ending up in the crossfire, not that the government will specifically target me for being white.. There might be other groups who target me for being white and the government will probably fuck with me if I disregard the rules, but certainly not more so than the government fucks with the local people, who are generally seen as "non-white".

If they don’t fear reprisal it will go differently as it did for those idiots who were driving across the middle east trying to prove the world was all full of love.

No clue who you are talking about, you are gonna have to provide a few more details.

I never said anything about banning CRT.

But that's ultimately why politicians rant against "CRT", right? They want to "ban CRT" and so far, they have been successful in 16 states. And the problem of course is that according to those politicians, "CRT" can mean pretty much anything vaguely related to race, which is great for them because they can use "anti CRT" to ban a relatively wide range of topics.

This is what gets me with many conservatives, you say stuff like "we like free speech, we don't want to ban free speech", and then as soon as some politician wants to ban something you don't like, you support them..

But the talking points here are CRT concepts.

According to politicians, CRT can mean virtually anything even remotely conntected to race..

You mean bc the left

Ah yes of course, another thing to blame the left for..

so they block us on other platforms

I think the reason why you get banned on the big platforms is because you are bad for business and because you turn every community into a call of duty lobby where a bunch of (either emotional or physical) 14 year olds scream slurs at eachother.. That's not a place where businesses want to advertise, woke advertising and pretending to care about social issues is the latest fad and you don't fit into that, so you get the boot..

Also, you are free to have your community here.. Nobody can censor you.. Of course people and other services can block/defederate you, but you could still have a conservative utopia here where you have discussions. Instead, all you do is complain about "the left", as you always do.. What happened to personal responsibility?

I know I'm repeating myself, but you can't call yourself "Ihatetroons", simultaniously cry about how the left unfairly accuses you of "hating troons" and expect anyone to take anything you say seriously..

THIS IS A MEME SUB.

Yeah no shit.. But there are 2 subs on this server which have any content, and both of them are meme subs.. Is the left stopping you from participating in non-meme subs on your own server?

Again, not by our design.

So the left is also responsible for how you design your spaces?

there are in fact other communities on this instance.

Are there? The closest to being an actual community is ask-exploding heads, and there are like 5 posts with comments in it.. I mean I get it, the defederation trend doesn't help this community grow, but if your whole position is an uncompromising and provoking attitude, I am asking myself once more what else you would expect the big instances to do.

Even from a pragmatic point of view, what admin would voluntarily say "oh yes, I would love to have more controversial memes on my server, that's always fun.". In reality, all this gets you is more people complaining about stuff on your server and/or a bigger moderation effort. You have to be pretty passionate about anti-trans memes in order to federate with a server like yours, or be a small enough server that not enough people care.

I think you may be confused on what free speech means.

We are talking about "free-speech" in the context of an international online forum, not in the context of US law, so I do think it's a bit interesting to think about how your "free speech" forum has a very one-sided narrative.

Did you expect something different?

No, to be honest, I didn't. But it still is interesting to actually see that even if you have full control over your server, even if you get to make the rules, you are still doing the same thing as always: Blame "the left" for everything all day long without suggesting any viable solutions.

If you want discussion, there’s DMT if you have thick enough skin

ok. Thing is though, I don’t really care.

Yeah, but again, I can't really believes you.. To me, you obviously seem to go out of your way to be percieved as a transphobic biggot.

It's like the 16 year old punk kid with a huge pink mohawk who will insist that "I don't give a fuck what people think about my looks", yet he will spend 2 hours a day to get his look just right..

So I don't know exactly what it is, maybe you crave attention, maybe it's a sex thing, idk, but I think you definitely care, whether you realize it or not..

my main goal with the s/n was to create something that the most disagreeable, sjw/activist cunts would probably block on sight so that I wouldn’t need to bother with them.

If what you are saying is actually serious, your logic would be deeply flawed. If I was annoyed by star wars fans on the internet, the last thing I would want to do is call myself "star_wars_sucks" because obviously, all that would do is provoke star wars fans into attacking me.. And I also can't really figure out how posting "star wars sucks" memes would help in any way.

The best way to not get bothered by people is by not mentioning the topic that annoys you at all and maybe block people who bring it up, but if I was posting memes online about how "star wars sucks", I would definitely expect to be bothered by star wars fans.

If you want discussion, there’s DMT if you have thick enough skin

Damn, you really think of yourself as an edgy badass, don't you? DMT is another right wing meme sub imo, nothing special.

They can dress it up with pretty words.

The point is that you seem to believe that people can just go to a hospital and get surgery instead of going to a therapist. Thats not how it works, you go to a therapist first.

they were posting off-topic shit repeatedly and frequently

Which is annoying, but the solution to that is moderation, right? Back in the forum days, you had admins who would remove your post instantly if you dared to post the wrong topic to the wrong place. But at one point, the idea that doing that would be "against free speech" became popular.

What else do you think would solve this issue?

Funny, bc all the stuff I was talking about was from BEFORE I decided to adopt that little moniker.

Even if we forget the username, you make it a point that you are “extremely frustrated with” the trans community, you call them "trannyfags", talk about them "mutilating their bodies", even admit that you don't like them. Did you also only start doing things like that when you adapted the name?

I mean we are talking about the internet here, people misunderstand eachother constantly and chronically irregardless of the topic. You can recieve death threats for saying something like "Videogame x was pretty good, but y was better".. How can you act in any way suprised or offended at people on the internet calling you a biggot for anything? Didn't you just mention "thick skin" and the importance of "free speech" and "posting offensive content"? Now you want to tell me that you were so offended at somebody calling you a biggot that essentially you became a biggot, at least as far as your online appearance goes?

I do hate the politics behind it.

I'm not quite sure what you mean with "the politics behind it", but isn't everyone sick of the culture war politics stuff?

I know you will probably disagree, but from "the left's" perspective, it isn't the left that's pushing the trans stuff. The left just wants what it always wanted, essentially the same thing you also claim to believe in: To let everyone live their lives how they want as long as they don't restrict someone elses' liberty. It's right wing politicians who scapegoat social minorities in order to divide people.

I get that you probably would love it if you could somehow get me to see that I’m a bigot and change my ways.

I mean your views are your views, if you genuinly don't want to hurt anyone and don't want to restrict anyone's freedom, I don't care too much what you believe in.

If I'm being honest, the thing that annoys me about right wingers the most isn't their view, it's how many present their views. And it's not even you choosing the "wrong language" or whatever, it's you seemingly going out of your way to provoke and be offensive, at the same time acting all offended when people inevitably get offended by your provocations and don't want anything to do with you, and at the same time you then complain about the left getting offended.. It's so frustratingly confusing and makes most dialoge impossible..

And don't get me wrong, I see similar behavior on the left as well, you have left leaning city people who unironically believe that all rural people are backwater hillbilly incest racist biggots. But that just makes it more frustrating as both sides just focus on complaining about the "idiots" on the other side and nothing ever gets done..

And while I will not be able to stop myself from voicing my opinions as you can see, I don't have any expectations of you changing your views. This is mostly about my interest in the views of people who think radically different than me or perhaps about if we have any possibility of getting along or at least share our views despite having radically different views.

But the fact remains that leftists drove me to it and that I don’t intend on changing.

Damn, the left really does control everything, doesn't it, even your own actions are actually the actions of the left at the end of the day..

If it eases your conscience to chalk me up as a trans hater, go right ahead. I really don’t care even a little bit.

Yeah again, this does make me think that it is indeed a sex thing. You get hard by people calling you a disgusting transphobic biggot, don't you, you naughty naughty boy..

Jokes aside, you have been a good sport, so thanks for suprising me and actually giving me somewhat of a "civil conversation".

If you go to the middle east and start dancing around in speedos as a white male you’re not going to feel very privileged.

So if you go to the middle east as a white person, especially a white man, you will feel incredibly privileged.. Maybe more so than in the west.. Of course there are significant differences depending on where exactly you go, but in a lot of places, there are significant differences of standards that apply to tourists compared to locals. And as a white person, people of course automatically assume that you are a tourist and they will be much much more tolerant towards behaviour that is normally not tolerated.

For example, there are many places where alcohol is completely illegal for locals, but it is completely legal for tourists. And if you wear a speedo, you might get some looks, but if your white, everyone knows you are a western tourist and will most likely tolerate it. If you are a local and/or non-white, chances of it being tolerated will probably be lower. And certainly if you are female, the chances of it being tolerated is virtually 0.

And there are many laws where the police either looks the other way, or it officially does not apply to westeners (anti-LGBT laws, sex outside of marriage laws, etc.)..

There’s nothing CRT can predict that “financial class theory” won’t predict better.

I mean there are a lot of different theories about many different things that might or might not be interesting for certain people. I'm not an academic, so I don't know if CRT is usefull or not, but at the end of the day, a theory is a theory.. It probably has it's limits of usefulness, but using the state to ban/outlaw a theory seems very questionable to me on principle.