There’s not really much actual solid research which demonstrates that calorie-counting is an effective method of weight loss.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting-calories

Moreover, there’s not really much solid research which demonstrates that weight loss should even be the focus of improving our health. People who are considered “overweight” based on their BMI score (which is another completely arbitrary and unhelpful metric) should not be focusing on weight loss.

The thing that people should be focusing on is simply any type of regular physical activity. It doesn’t particularly matter much what that activity is, it’s far more effective to choose an activity you enjoy.

calories are an arbitrary metric anyways, wood has a ton of calories but you can’t digest it, so they’re a very vague guideline at the very best, and misleading at worst

I guess it’s a bit of a lazy summary, because it sort of implies that the region has been fighting among itself just for reasons, rather than the region being conflict prone because of colonialist foreign policy. I wouldn’t say it’s racist though.

No way he read the book, but he’s immersed enough in that far-right shit scape that it’s not really much of a stretch to believe he picked it up somewhere. I’m sure people on Truth Social love talking about it.

Some are decent human beings that choose to use their money for the betterment of humankind.

Uhm, I don’t think this is a reference to the Purge, I think this is a reference to the Day of the Rope from the Turner Diaries

The world is not flat, stop spreading misinformation.

Imagine thinking this is a salient point, lmfao. “oh, you criticise people writing text prompts on large learning model tools to generate art based on an amalgamation of everyone else’s stolen art, for claiming to be artists, AND YET, here you are writing text.”

it’s so fucking stupid. a work has to be actually creative and novel to be protected by copyright, most AI prompts would not meet the threshold of creativity and originality to benefit from protection.

You’re so totally wrong. Storing passwords in plaintext is such a dangerous, obviously wrong mistake that it can only be considered wanton disregard for the safety and the security of your users, and it should carry the equivalent of a life-in-prison sentence for the corporation which breaks that rule. Not only should the company be completely fucking destroyed over this but the CEO should be criminally liable.

The legal system does not take corporate crimes seriously at all. Perhaps it’s time to take justice into our own hands.

“Oh right, it’s money!!” — Hbomberguy

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Thanks for the well-considered and thoughtful response - I appreciate it.

Just to clarify, I’m not trying to make some typical liberal argument that China is evil or anything like that - I’m very far left and I’m not here just criticising China just because that’s what the mainstream media has told me to do. I just think it does leftists like myself no favours to pretend that China is perfect and that we shouldn’t criticise it - and the essay linked above, in my opinion, seems to be a bit of a reflexive defense of China, rather than actually considering the criticism - to me it seems they are choosing arguments to support their position rather than letting the facts and their beliefs lead them to a conclusion.

I don’t think we have to accept that any amount of imbalanced transactions of value necessarily guarantee that billionaires are inevitable - plenty of systems exist where there are “winners and losers” but the system itself reaches an equilibrium state. There are so many solutions which could be implemented to prevent billionaires from existing, and I would say that billionaires can only ever exist when there is a fundamental flaw in the society which produces them. It should be impossible to so thoroughly capture and centralise wealth and power to a point where an individual can have that much.

I’ve re-read this comment and your previous comment multiple times and I’m not really clear on what you mean.

My point is that the essay’s argument is weak because it completely ignores scale and proportionality. It uses the language of marxism to justify capitalism.

I don’t personally agree with it, but I was willing to consider the notion on its own merits rather than in contrast with ideology - but even when I do, I find it a wholly unsatisfactory justification

This is pretty typical self-justifying bullshit. They’re justifying pre-held beliefs (china is good; china has billionaires; therefore billionaires must be good) rather than actually considering the claim based on the merits. (is it actually a good thing that china has billionaires, and what does that say about socialism/marxism as practiced in china)

You can believe that people have different needs and that we don’t all need to be absolutely 1:1 equal in terms of our material possessions etc. and that having some goal to work towards is beneficial to society (ambition) without having billionaires.

This essay is like trying to justify genocide by pointing out that sometimes, for the benefit of society, the death of an individual is preferable to the suffering of many. The issue with billionaires isn’t one of inequality in the micro - it’s the magnitude of that inequality, and the power it brings, which is the issue.

This is how fascism is successful, because liberals will lie for a lie, but they won’t lie for the truth.

All ages are acceptable for running away from the police. Or fighting back against the police. Or destroying police property. Actually, come to think of it, just any kind of action against the police.

You aren’t acting in good faith, and you admitted as such:

You didn’t let me down, because I knew you didn’t have an answer

I have a proposal for what I would suggest our next step should be once we get to that position, and I’d be happy to share it with someone who is genuinely interested. But you have to realise and accept that it goes against my ideology for me to act as if I have all of the answers. My entire belief system is that we can work together to find a solution, collectively, for what we should do next. If I assume I know everything and that we should all just do what I say, I would be no better than those I oppose.

I’m not going to defend Jan 6 for obvious reasons. There are plenty of left-wing solidarity movements we could talk about instead - Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, Defund the Police, the CHAZ. I would agree that none of those projects really achieved their ultimate goals, but they did somewhat progress them.

Things fail until they succeed. I’m sure you wouldn’t have scolded the Wright brothers for continuing to try to build a flying machine despite prior failures.

I haven’t really criticised anyone for voting for Harris, I absolutely agree that given the situation that you’re in, it’s the right thing to do, no doubt.

My point is that there are so many people who don’t accept that Kamala Harris is a fucking terrible person and in a real democracy she wouldn’t have a chance of getting elected.

You’re in this horrible position where in order to do the right thing you’re forced into supporting a genocide. You have to accept that is what you’re doing, do it anyways, and then do everything you can to bring the system down to stop it from ever happening again.