valaramech

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Correct. Freedom of Speech does not imply freedom from consequence and only protects you from the government. The State can't tell you what you're allowed say and can't jail you for saying them (outside of a limited band of things that have been thoroughly litigated). However, that does nothing to modify the social contract. If you say something that most people don't like, they're going to get you to stop saying it one way or another.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

I made it a lot farther before I just couldn't anymore. I was kinda hoping for some kind of real self-reflection or ability to further understand the mindset of people like him but it's just the same "sigma grindset" bullshit they always spout.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)
  1. "Incitement" is a long-standing, widely-accepted exception to the first amendment not mentioned in the amendment itself. Just because the literal text of the document does not include an exception does not mean our legal system can not invent one. While I generally agree that speech should not be regulated outside of extreme circumstance, this is a very common human thing to want.

  2. No argument on the second amendment. I do believe that more needs to be done here, but banning firearms - effectively or otherwise - is simply not an option in the States.

  3. Your freedoms stop where another's begin. I don't see this as a reduction in freedom, it's a protection of the freedoms of those who are being protested against. Defending against violence is not, strictly, an attack on freedoms.

  4. See previous point. Religious freedom must end where another's life and liberty begin. While I generally agree that individuals and religious institutions should be allowed to freely practice their religion, this must be tempered by the individual rights of others. With specific respect to the LGBTQ+ community, many religious groups actively dehumanize and some actively promote violence against them.

I would argue that this situation ultimately boils down to a lack of understanding of authoritarian rule and the damage that can occur because of it. The American education system is largely gutted when it comes to history - our own and otherwise - and I believe this trend toward authoritarianism is largely due to that - and persistent class warfare by the Capitalist class, but that's a different conversation, I think.

People don't really learn about what happened in Nazi Germany, or Fascist Italy, or Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union, or Communist China, or British India, or probably dozens of other examples I can't think of off the top of my head.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I generally agree with the stance that undercover cops should be allowed to lie, since failing to do so would defeat the purpose of being undercover. However, an officer actively arresting someone using their authority as a police officer should be required to be as truthful as possible with the person detained.

I'll stop saying "defund the police" when "protect and serve" is actually what they do.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

I've seen this claim made multiple times but the articles in question make no mention of it - including this one, unless I'm blind. Do you have a source for this claim?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Considering both include convulsions and cardiac arrest can be accompanied by agonal breathing, I don't think you can definitively state this.

Smith also resisted breathing for as long as he could at the beginning of the procedure and I think that needs to be taken into account. I won't say they absolutely didn't botch his execution, but I've yet to see any compelling evidence to that effect.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago (6 children)

A pure nitrogen environment does not prevent the exhalation of carbon dioxide (source).

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (3 children)

From the Wikipedia article on Inert Gas Asphyxiation:

When humans breathe in an asphyxiant gas, such as pure nitrogen, helium, neon, argon, methane, or any other physiologically inert gas, they exhale carbon dioxide without re-supplying oxygen.

This leads to asphyxiation (death from lack of oxygen) without the painful and traumatic feeling of suffocation (the hypercapnic alarm response, which in humans arises mostly from carbon dioxide levels rising)

Unconsciousness in cases of accidental asphyxia can occur within one minute.

Loss of consciousness may be accompanied by convulsions[9] and is followed by cyanosis and cardiac arrest.

tl;dr - literally everything that happened in the execution was precisely as expected. Smith did not suffer and was not conscious after the first few minutes of the procedure.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

I'm totally okay with those people thinking abortion is wrong and not getting then. I'm not okay with it when those people try to force their ideals on my niece or my sister.

I'd be just as not okay with it if the situation was reversed and we were somehow requiring women to get abortions for whatever reason. Just stay the fuck out of people's medical decisions.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

Speaking of sea urchins, I learned a while ago they like to wear shells and such like little hats to protect them from the sun. It's adorable.

Also, an aquarium 3D printed some hats for their urchins. It's pretty great.

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