I read the interview as a 380 page paper on a subject I don’t really understand seemed a bit ambitious. I linked it, as I didnt know who did the report, and I wanted to hear her summary in her own words.

The comments here are full of people defending one side or the other, but no one seems to be providing any sources. This seems to be a difficult subject to approach if one isn’t seeking to affirm an existing stance. Both sides just seem to say “show me the proof” back and forth because neither will acknowledge the other.

You seem to be at least leaning in favor of the report. If you have any noob appropriate links to supporting info, I’d look at them.

Wait…does that mean he…does intend to fix prices then?

Is this Opposite Day?

I mean…is this not Opposite Day?

I’m so confused!

Reading this BS from McConnell made me ask if a face eating leopard could eat its own face, and if so, would it even realize it.

Then I pictured an oroboro with his face instead. I’d do a mock up, but I don’t want to look at his face that long. I feel McConnel has been playing this game with “not supporting” Trump for far too long now.

I don’t think Mitch has surpassed Kissinger for biggest bastard overall, but he’s tried damn hard. He’s always gloated about what an ass he is, and nothing he says now is ever going to redeem him.

She makes it hard to feel out what her actual position is, which in a way is probably what she should do, but is also very frustrating because being on neither side feels disingenuous as a default these days. I don’t know enough about her to really feel I know for sure.

We had decades (centuries?) of people not getting this care. There were definitely negatives to that. We’ve had maybe now a couple decades of increasing HRT/puberty blocker stuff. I’ve heard positive stories. Everything makes it sound reversible should the need arise. Everything against it seems to not be evenly distributed across the political spectrum so walking it back feels political based on what I’ve heard cumulatively.

Keeping it as research seems it would greatly reduce its availability, and if it causes people to suffer or die, that’s not something that can be taken back, unlike stopping hormone treatment or puberty blockers seems to be. That’s the part that concerns me.

I don’t know much about the issues, but I try to stay informed, so I don’t want to go trashing this lady’s report. From all I’ve read though, a lot of doctors already have to sign off on patients before it comes to these treatments, so canceling that now seems to overrule a wide range of medical and mental doctors for a dubious position.

I don’t know about the issue enough for me to comment on if she is biased or not, but I found this NYT interview (archive.org link) and she really seems to try to be playing both sides to me. Her main arguement seems to be don’t treat this as an issue to resolve gender, that makes you ignore mental health/depression/other things, but with there not being the best care of that nature available for trans individuals, what avenue is left for them?

It sounds like she wants to go on about a lack of enough proof for her to stop treatment, but it also doesn’t sound like she has enough proof to say it’s harmful, but that doesn’t seem to discourage her helping eliminate it.

Spent a year working at a dry cleaners. The first time I opened that machine and got blasted in the face with perc vapors I imagined it must be like being exposed on a planet with a methane atmosphere. That is some harsh stuff. After that job I inventoried hazardous chemicals at a pharma research site, and nothing they had hit my lungs and eyes like perc. The labs at least had good ventilation. Dry cleaning is a harsh business. It was disgusting and dangerous in all kinds of ways no other job I’ve had has been.

I forgot the emergency updates. My gf will send me links of that stuff well before it ever hits the news, if it even makes the actual news.

Like I mentioned in my comment, I think that it still has a huge user base and it’s free makes it still be the default tool for casting a quick message to the most people for free.

I have the Messenger app since some of my best friends still prefer it. It also seems to be useful for occasions where I run into problems sending something to someone via RCS. Not sure if it’s an occasional hiccup since I’m on Android and they’re all iPhone users, but Messenger never has that problem with us.

I don’t use the Facebook app, but I am on there for an extended time every day. I use it to get the bulk of my content for [email protected] since all the animal rescues use it. It’s free and still has a huge audience, so it makes sense for them to share their content there. I take the hit and subscribe to every rescue, rehab, and wildlife photographers I come across, filter through all the fake stuff, scams, and privacy violations, and bring the best of it here to share with you all so you don’t need to do it. No need for us all to suffer.

They share important info, but I get why most people here want nothing to do with it. It’s the only practical way to get info for a large group of charities though, so it’s still a necessary evil for some niche purposes like mine.

A female Air Force officer was targeted because of “multiple woke posts” on her X feed, including a tweet about LGBTQ rights, one about “whiteness” and another about honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on a stamp.

Talk about sensitive snowflakes! Trying to ruin someone’s career because they talked about a stamp with a liberal on it…

The whole list is worth a read for the poor excuses, but the stamp was the weakest of the weak to me.

I won’t argue anything you say too much. You seem to be very firm in your opinions, and overall I feel we’d agree on things more than we’d disagree.

With that said, one of the bigger issues I have is what country is currently doing what you feel would be a better path for the US to follow? Europe has often provided a calmer voice to many issues, but it no longer feels to be the case. I’m no expert on world politics, but I can’t think of any country moving leftward as a whole right now. Europe seems to be in the middle of an anti-immigrant shift of its own, and they are helping with Ukraine in what feels on par with the US but not exceeding that aid, and it feels no one is doing much about Palestine.

If there is someone you feel is doing better, I’d like to learn about how it works, but I feel the US is still in one of the top positions to do something. Perhaps not for a few years now, but we all seem to be on the same sinking ship right now. We may have a bigger slice of the responsibility for that, but I’m not seeing anyone else giving a better example.

Things are going to go to shit, compared to the last 4 years, but I think it’s important we keep our heads and continue to make improvements where we can, even if that is much more local than nationally or globally. More blue states already seem to be preparing to fight some of the incoming changes, and we still have the quagmire of a court system to drag down the speed of what the new government can accomplish. A lot of nominees for cabinet roles are also outsiders and have no idea how to mobilize their workforce, and competent people will leave behind the less capable to accomplish their goals.

It is no more time to give up than it was a month ago. Those of us that want change still have the same things to try and accomplish. We might have to figure out new ways to do it, but we’ll still keep trying.

Most people outside political forums aren’t near as knowledgeable or informed as we tend to be, so we still need to educate people on facts and to undo disinformation when they’re ready to be receptive to it. Unless you want to go revolutionary and start hurting people physically, being engaged with your fellow countrymen is still the way forward.

We’re allowed to be angry right now. It’s good we’re angry to an extent. But I’m not here to promote anger. I’m mostly concerned with the environment and human rights, and hate and violence I don’t think are going to help either of those causes.

It also says they are deplatforming third party sellers from Walmart.com that are selling LGBT merch, which does seem to affect actual people promoting equality. The anti-LGBT activists already pushed the stores to stop carrying merch at physical retail locations, and now they are booting them off the web as well.

Interestingly, the linked CNBC article in OP’s link says this is mainly the work of one anti-gay/trans activist, Robby Starbuck. He seems to single out a company and attack their equality programs publicly to take them out one by one. Never heard of him before. It’s crazy to think one loudmouth can have so much pull over such huge companies.

I second this. I don’t want my government to hurt anyone, even people who are ignorant or hateful.

I certainly didn’t vote for what’s coming, and millions of others didn’t either. Countries that rely on us didn’t vote for it. Our environment didn’t vote for it. And I’m sure most of the people that were duped into voting for it didn’t really want what we’re going to get either. Some dirtbags probably did, but I think they’re still a minority, and I’d still rather those people have a chance to become good people than for them to suffer. I’d still want them to have access to free education and universal healthcare and a full social safety net if I had the power to give it to them.

We won’t be able to walk back a lot of what might happen. We could lose millions of acres of public land to private interest. Untold destruction could destroy our remaining ecosystems irreparably. We’ve got anti-vaxxers that could kill thousands to millions. We’ve got people that want to let Palestinians, Ukrainians, and Kurds die. That stuff can’t be undone, and those people and our planet don’t deserve it because some con artists did a great job on propaganda this last half century.

My pleasure!

I was able to find it!

It is Planet Money - The Trade Fraud Protective 23 AUG 2024

Audio and transcript at that link, or you should be able to find it on your podcast app of choice.

It’s also power steering hoses in Thailand, not fan belts in Vietnam, so I hope that’s still ok. 😉

I heard about this a few months back on a podcast about auto parts. China just shipped the fan belts they were making to a warehouse in Vietnam, rebranded them, and shipped them to the US, tariff free.

They did some sort of chemical analysis on the Made in China and Made in Vietnam belts and the formulation of the rubbers was identical.

Enforcement to counter this would likely eat up too much of the tariff money, so it just won’t be done. China will still get paid the same, and at minimum we’ll eat China’s additional shipping costs.

Yup, my questions in the Maori article have been up for 24 hours now, so time for people in that part of the world with direct knowledge had time to see it. My comments and questions got 7 upvotes, so other people seem interested in some more elaboration, but the thread is probably dead.

Someone’s leaving an audience that wants more hanging, and nobody even gave a yes or no saying if my understanding of the article was right. 😮‍💨

Oh for sure. It’s going to be what ultimately makes or breaks this as a platform. You can’t force a userbase to interact, but as OP states, like many before them, for some people there’s not going to be much going on here. For people that want to at least be mildly active participants though, I haven’t had this much fun since forums were the big thing. I just imagine since that was a decent while ago now that either those of us old enough to have enjoyed them are rusty at it, and the yoots are too young to have seen how it used to work.

not a lot of people even bother opening posts

I’m a bit inclined to agree with this. I try to do the equivalent of the XKCD hover text, where you have to click through to get some of the good stuff. If you aren’t clicking through to the comments, you’re going to miss a lot of good stuff. Photo sets, photography tips, stories, fun facts. I try not to have the pic and title be the whole thing. But I’ll have 100 upvotes on the post pic, and maybe 10 on any bonus pics inside.

With some news posts, they feel like a RSS feed. Just a link to an article and nothing else. I may read it or I may not. There’s no initial comment or question to interact with. I don’t even know if it’s a bot posting or not that way. If all you offer is a Reuters link, I could have just gone to Reuters and gotten the headline myself. I feel these posts have little value until they start collecting comments.

“Yes I agree, nothing to add”

This is a common response I get when I try to get people to comment more. There can still be value to add to something like this though. Why do you agree? Did you agree before you read the post/comment? Do you have any caveats to your agreement? If you haven’t always agreed, what changed your mind? What part of what they said, or the chart/pic/stat they shared really stood out or was unexpected? You may agree, but you’re still a different person with a different background and different adjacent ideas.

Example from today: Pic of flying owl. Comment was basically I like all these recent pics of flying owls. On the surface, not the deepest comment ever. Buuuuuut, someone took the time to respond to a post, so I know they liked it enough to make effort. Makes me feel good knowing I motivated someone enough to respond, keeps me motivated to post again. I also learned that a specific type of content really got them interested. I know to look for more of it. Then I took the time to respond in kind, because their effort deserves recognition. I said I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I also said that even though I see hundreds of owl pics every week, that I was still surprised by something I saw in one of the recent photos, so that gives them or anyone else reading the response something to go back and look at. They might not have noticed the unique thing about the photo the first time.

Example going the other way: Maori rights in New Zealand. You can’t get much further from NZ than where I am. I know basically nothing about it. This topic really caught my attention though. I read the article to see what was going on, and I thought I understood the basics of it. I commented and said, hey, I read this, and this is my understanding. Am I correct in my understanding or am I missing some significant parts of the story not in this article? If so, can someone explain it or point me in the direction of some more reading? So I know nothing, but I showed them the story was making me interested in something they shared. Anyone familiar with NZ can chime in to talk to me. I hopefully get more things to talk about from that, and we have some conversation. I don’t have to know anything, I just show interest in the topic, and in interacting with someone.

Not every interaction is going to result in more upvotes, comments, or conversation, but if nobody is going to be willing to make the first move, it’s gonna be boring. We’re not big enough for the 1% rule (1% creators, 9% commenters, 90% lurkers) to carry us. It kills the creators having to force the momentum all the time, and if you disagree/agree too much with the small pool of comments, you’re going to say this place is boring. We need to participate, we need to show our individual personalities, and we need to interact. That’s the “social” part of social media. Have fun with it!

For me, the upvotes are ok. I use them more to gauge overall traffic. I have an idea the typical number of votes things will get, and I can see what deviates to see what is a hit, what’s typical, and what isn’t resonating. But without comments, there’s no “why” anything is good or bad. I’m not really any better off than before to give you what you want. I can take a guess, but you could have also taken a moment to tell me. It doesn’t tell me everyone’s opinion, but it gives another things for the people that do vote to either add upvotes to that comment or ignore it.

Also, as someone providing the content, it’s nice to have an interaction, even if it’s minimal. Creating posts can eat up a lot of time, and I’m doing it to talk to you all. If nobody stops by to even say, yo, nice work, or whatever, even if I have a lot of upvotes, it still feels like I’m not talking to anyone. It feels like a chore. But if I get one person that says, hey, seeing this really made my morning, now I feel awesome and I want to post more.

A lot of focus is put onto posting, but I like to encourage commenters. I’ll post and respond all day, but if nobody is interacting, it’s going to stay quiet. Put the quiet to your advantage by doing things like:

If you like an image, say what you like about it. Lately, I’ve been having people talk about how they really have been enjoying dawn/dusk pictures, so I’ve been collecting more of that so I can post what people are in the mood for. It gives me good feedback, it gives people a chance to agree or disagree with you, and you got to participate.

Do you ask anyone any question? Take advantage of the relative quiet. With not having a million comments on every post, I have plenty of time to give you really detailed answers. I got asked how to differentiate between 2 animals yesterday, and I had time to make a nice visual guide, highlighting key differences and giving multiple visual examples of potential variations while still simplifying the process of identification. If there’s a million people talking like on Reddit, it’s hard to give people that much attention, but here it’s easy. I pretty much take time to respond to every comment.

Don’t be afraid to go off topic. Rules seem to be looser in many communities because of the low post count. This week, I posted something from a country with a different language, and I ended up having 3 days of conversation with a native speaker who filled me in on tons of subtleties of the language pertaining to our niche topic. I got to learn so much, and they got to learn a few things about English.

I feel you have to do something to have a good time here, but it needn’t be to post multiple things every day, but it’s more than just up or downvoting something like you can get away with on Reddit. We’re too small for you to have a free ride. But make someone laugh. Let them know that you liked their post with a short comment. If you don’t like it, say hey, do you have any content on such and such instead. Make a post saying, hey, what’s your thoughts on this? It doesn’t need to be something groundbreaking or insightful, you just need to give a sign of life so we know you’re here, and one of us will probably talk back to you.

Interact enough like that, and you may find what you enjoy doing, if that turns out to be posting, or you become the resident expert on a topic even if you’re not an expert, being a serial commenter, or whatever it may be. It’s a great opportunity if you make it one because it is so easy to get attention here if you try.

I’m not typically a social person, but being here has let me talk about what I want, when I want, and somebody will listen to it, and I can ask about things I want to know and get answers. There’s much less shouting into the void like at Reddit. Play Lemmy to its strengths and you will find enjoyment. And if you don’t like it, go to where you’re happy. Nobody’s going to hate you if you split time between here and Reddit.