And it’s also only banned on work devices. There’s no ban on government employees having TikTok on their personal phones, although I personally don’t.

As someone who lives in a jurisdiction where every single vote I can engage in is RCV (Australia; NSW) I can honestly say that it’s so much better than FPTP. I don’t know what the perfect voting system is (frankly a subjective topic as it currently stands; please feel free to correct me with statistically valid alternatives) but RCV at the very least means that I can (and personally have) never vote for a major party as #1 and I can know for sure that my vote has never been exhausted, because I’ve never left a blank box. We also have mandatory voting, which helps to keep things sane.

In Australia, government election funding is only ever allocated to the parties based on #1 votes, so I can also confidently say I’ve never contributed to a major party’s election coffers as I’ve also never donated to any major party. I obviously support one major party over the others, as based on my preferences, but I’ll always give the election funding to a smaller party or Independent.

RCV is a wonderful step to take from FPTP. I understand that it may not be democratically perfect, and frankly no representative voting system may ever be, but it’s a far cry better than FPTP. It’s a known concept that here in Australia politicians vie to represent the ‘middle’ rather than the extremes, because the vast majority of voters aren’t overly-enthused political lunatics. We still have our issues to be sure, but I’d rather that the political class fight over the centrist majority rather than court the political extremes in order to convince people to actually vote thanks to mandatory voting.

Labor is the largest single party in the Lower House. The Liberal Party has (almost) never gained a true majority. The National Party, with whom the Liberal Party coalesces (known in Australia as The Coalition or the LNP) is our current major opposition, and they only hold that position as a coalition. The Greens regularly poll between 9-12%, which causes our Federal Senate to end up giving them a significant amount of power. We also (thanks to changes a recent government made) have a significant crossbench made up of The Greens, minor parties and independents. Our current senate (and most previous Senates) has many potential ‘kingmakers’ (including previous AFL legend David Pocock, Jacqui Lambie and others) which mean that governments can’t pass legislation without courting those outside their party.

To the outsider it may seem that we only have two parties, but in our context we understand it to be more complex than that. Many Australian jurisdictions have known minority-government, government-by-coalition and Lower House government tempered by Upper House diversity which tempers the passage of legislation.

Like I said, it’s not a perfect system (and pretty far from direct democracy) but we sit in this interesting position between the absolute Two-Party System of FPTP jurisdictions and other systems that produce 5+ parties that need to form government together. Our system is far from perfect, but it’s not terrible.

We have four Major Parties - Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals, and the Greens. If you understand their relative power based on our system of government, you’ll see that we’re somewhere in between the US and the EU with regards to representational democracy. It’s not great, but in the Anglospheric context we do pretty well because the others don’t have our combination of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), Proportional Representative Voting (PRV) and Mandatory Voting.

As a child protection caseworker, I’m right here with you. The amount of children and young people I’m working with who are self-harming and experiencing suicidal ideation over this stuff is quite prevalent. Sadly, it’s almost all girls who are targeted by this and it’s just another way to push misogyny into the next generation. Desensitisation isn’t the way; it will absolutely cause too much harm before it equalises.

This is just disgusting behaviour. No one should ever be calling for genocide, regardless of any circumstances. Also, why are all Jewish people being conflated with the Israeli government? Jews outside Israel have no power over its government, and even Israelis had to go through some five hung elections to get Netanyahu back in power, indicating that he clearly has less than 50% of the country’s support.

Now if they had been shouting “fuck Bibi” or “end the occupation” or “no more genocide against Palestine” I’d be right there with them. These idiots have no fucking clue how to garner support, so all they’re doing is giving Israel more moral high-ground. Goddamn Nazis need to learn some physical consequences.

It’s often advantageous to prevent catastrophe before it occurs rather than clean up the mess once it happens.

It’s easy to have sympathy for Palestine; it’s very difficult to have sympathy for Hamas.

Anyone cheering on Hamas is promoting crimes against humanity which is objectively abhorrent. Anyone who cares for the Palestinian people caught up in the conflict just has functioning empathy.

Bisexual with an autoimmune disorder here.

I think the simplest explanation is that LGBT acceptance doesn’t cost anyone anything - in fact it’s the opposite as they no longer have to expend energy on hatred and exclusion. Nothing had to be built or spent to give equal rights to a marginalised group, just a signature on some paper. No government funds needed to be allocated to rolling out this change.

It’s much easier to stop doing something current than to start doing something new. Disability/chronic illness accommodations are extremely varied, costly, take time and money to implement, which creates a natural barrier. From an individual perspective, it costs time and energy to help support someone with a disability or chronic condition. It costs no time or energy to agree that everyone should be treated equitably.

That there is a genuine cohort of young, intelligent, technically literate people who identify as social conservatives. I have never met one in real life (at least not one that comfortably speaks about their political leanings) and if you had told me these people existed twelve years ago, I’d have called you a liar. Just goes to show how non-representative the bubbles we live in truly are.

There are two ways to think about rights: there are legal rights and then there are human rights. Legal rights are conferred by some piece of legal document (legislation, constitution or common law) that a person is able to seek legal redress if their right has been revoked or diminished. Then there are human rights - what we as individual humans believe that each humans should expect as a basic right. The two are not always aligned, predominately because human rights vary greatly from one person’s interpretation to the next.

I think what the company is probably (accurately) arguing is that there is no legal right to swim in the UK, as no specific document states this with any specificity, so the complainant isn’t due compensation or redress of behaviour under the law. This is what the courts will examine as they are the interpreters of law but not the creators of law.

Now, does she have a human right to swim there free of sewage? I damn well think so, and I don’t think that would be a controversial opinion either. The problem is that what we think the law should be and what it is are often different, because legislation can’t represent every view simultaneously. There’s no law that could be drafted that makes forced birthers and pro choice people agree - someone will always lose out.

All of this is to say that while fighting this in court is a shitty thing to do (pun very much intended), it makes sense based upon the way our legal system is set up. There is no incentive for private business to respect rights that are not legally conferred, but there is a financial incentive to do the ‘cheaper and technically legal’ thing. Until we overhaul our legal systems to be inherently protective rather than inherently exploitative, this behaviour will continue.

Oh it’s definitely an echo chamber in every sense; there’s no doubt that opinions that tend to be popular on Lemmy are not really representative of true public opinion. The important thing is that we maintain awareness of that and never let ourselves think that what we agree upon, society at large will also agree upon. That awareness helps inoculate against some of the worst effects of an echo chamber.

It’s because adherence to religious dress codes is not a clear indicator of fundamentalism or evangelism. Women who choose to wear burkas, niqabs headscarves etc are not immediately downtrodden and subservient women who agree with religious sexism. A Sikh man choosing to wear a turban and not shave his body hair is not a clear indicator that he’s a fundamentalist in any way.

Judge politicians by their words and actions, not by how they look. There are many religious zealots who wear simple suits and dresses.

I’m really looking forward to cultured meats for similar reasons. I take no issue with one animal (human) hunting another wild animal to eat its meat for sustenance - that’s just biology bro - but our farming practices have just become insanely abhorrent with regards to animal ethics. I can’t wait until some bioengineer makes my minced meat in a lab with no animal cruelty involved because while I hate torturing animals, I love me some meat.

There is definitely a link between having experienced sexual abuse as a child without any therapy or counselling to help them make sense of it and then later on sexually abusing other children, but it’s not super clear-cut and definitely not predictable.

I’d call it Gross Misconduct in Execution of Government Duties - minimum sentence is a permanent dismissal from all government roles (at all levels) along with a major fine that can be taken from a government pension fund and goes directly to victims. Aggravating circumstances (lying about the death of a civilian, multiple lies compounded upon one another etc.) should come within minimum jail time. Cops should always be afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing. Only then do we get them on their best behaviour.

Well, yes and no. Paying that fine once would just be a cost of doing business, but now that the precedent has been set if they continue to do it they’ll continue to get fined in that order. Those fines won’t need court cases, so they’ll need to be paid quickly and in full. Sure, the fine they received didn’t really hurt them but it will change their behaviour. It will also prevent others from engaging in the same behaviour.

I don’t think the EU wants to bankrupt companies like Apple - it’s not in the collective best interest. They need to guide behaviour by setting up punishments that are deterring but not destructive. I think €500m fits that pretty well - it’s akin to giving a child a timeout while their friends play or a smack on the back of the hand. It’s doing what it’s intended to do.

I keep seeing it used for media articles because it's fucking perfect and accurately displays his disdain for the poors. The fact that anyone with less than a billion dollars in net value thinks he cares about them is both baffling and hilarious.

Yeah, he obviously dealt with a lot of cognitive dissonance between his experience and the culture he was raised in. He wasn’t some hypocrite who was preaching ‘family values’ or some other nonsense, just a tortured soul driven over the edge.

The world just lost another potential ally. He could have helped shape the discourse in his town for the better, but instead he’s being buried. This is a sad day.

But he'll gladly suck some Saudi dick if it marginally increases his net value.

Side note; I'm so glad that one of his daughters is trans because it helped expose him for the absolute fucking bigot he is. I stopped being a fanboy after the whole 'pedo guy' incident, and it's been nice to have people finally come to the same realisation I've had and apologise for trying to defend him back then.

Is it? Or does the threat of being surrounded give Netanyahu free rein to do whatever the fuck he wants and demand massive support from the West? Seems to me like Netanyahu knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s canny and savvy, that’s the only reason he’s been PM for so long, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s riling up the tensions in an effort to get Western ground troops to enter the war and help with the genocide.

Ehh, that’s a self-selecting feature there mate. You don’t want to be with someone who communicates through inscrutable clues and then becomes upset if you don’t pick up on them or read them wrong. That’s a recipe for an emotional bad time.

BOOK GOOD

There is The Church and then there’s the church - once Christianity becomes large, structured, and hierarchical it strays from the actual words that Jesus spoke. If you ever have the chance, have a read through the Gospels without any of the other bullshit. Just read the stuff that Jesus himself supposedly said. Those words are full of love, care, kindness, sacrifice, giving, sharing, and fully giving up oneself in service of others. The example he set was a great one. I no longer identify as Christian, but Jesus is a damn good role model and actually taught us how to love one another exactly how we are.

I wouldn’t recommend my fellow comrades join some random church, but don’t discount Jesus’ teachings as a philosophical text. I honestly believe that if all Christians were actually Christ-like it would truly be a religion of peace, love and acceptance.

J O N K E R

And readers/scribes! I’ve read and scribed for a friend who had dyslexia in one of her exams and it worked really well. She finished the exam with time to spare and got a distinction in the subject!

From the article:

Her ex-husband – and Tyler’s father – Jayson Boebert was famously arrested in 2004 for exposing his genitals in a bowling alley where minors were present. Rep. Boebert, who was 17 and not married to him at the time, was one of the witnesses in that case. He got four days in jail and two years probation for lewd exposure and public indecency.

Voice alone? It might be very difficult to claim you have a unique voice unless you’re Gilbert Gottfried or Bobcat Goldthwait. The issue in this ad was that it showed a real clip of Johansson saying ‘follow me’ before the images cut to something else and the AI-copy Johansson voice continued. The fake voice was heavily insinuated to be Johansson because it picked up where a real clip of Johansson left off.

It would be very hard to prove a person intended to mimic a specific person when creating an AI voice unless it’s accompanied by corroborating imagery.

If the news about LK-99 has any element of truth to it, then superconductor-based technologies and maglev transport will become much more affordable in the future.

Yeah, Israel are straight-up taking plays from the Soviet handbook here. Indiscriminate murder of civilians is okay if you get one bad dude. They’ve already dehumanised Palestinians beyond belief, it’s no wonder that they view murder of innocent Palestinians as being completely different to murder of innocent Israelis.

Posts from communities such as 195 or 196 have one rule - you must post before you leave. As a result, they have a lot of low-quality shitposts with just ‘rule’ as the title - as in, ‘I’m only posting this to follow the rule’.

Click through to the community the post comes from and have a read of its sidebar if the content is confusing you; this might help illuminate why you’re seeing what you’re seeing.

Then put the games onto high-storage solid-state cartridges like Nintendo does. There’s no reason to be limited by existing technology like Blu-Ray except for laziness. Hell, they could even just put an SD card reader in as the physical game tray and put games onto SD cards if they’re that lazy and don’t want to spend on R&D.

Removing the capacity to have physical copies of games at all is always a bad move that is disingenuously masked with a “but the world is going all digital!” all the while knowing that this gives them greater control over things we’re supposed to own.

Holy fucking shit mate, I’m a social worker who works with people experiencing violence and fuck you highlighted the issue far better than I ever could. Thank you for giving me the tools to better explain myself when I need to.

That’s totally fair, but I generally don’t like to ascribe to the idea that we as individuals need to take on responsibility for solving issues that are systemic in nature. I think anyone doing anything they can to make an impact is great and should absolutely be lauded, but we should never be placing or accepting responsibility for solving these issues onto individuals.

I have coeliac disease, which makes most plant-based meat alternatives off-the-menu because of the use of wheat or barley, so I don’t tend to feel so bad for consuming meat a few nights a week. My body struggles to maintain healthy vitamin levels at the best of times, so I have to compensate how I can and balance the ethics of the matter. I’m also not rich, which means I can’t afford a high-quality vegetarian or vegan diet right now. For someone like me, waiting for cultured meats is the best I can do right now unless a cure for autoimmune diseases is found.

Hamas were voted into power 17 years ago with no subsequent elections, and won with only ~44% of the vote. The current median age in Palestine is 19.6 years old. Therefore, at most ~44% of Palestinians aged over 35 voted for Hamas, which would make up far less than a quarter of the total population - probably less than 20% of all Palestinians.

To be clear; semaglutide is a legitimate treatment for diabetes and related conditions that has had an amazing impact on people living with those conditions. One effect of the drug is significantly decreased appetite which usually leads to weight loss as well.

But yeah, celebrities started using it to lose weight and suddenly everyone else wants it too.

Yeah, if “toxic + toxic = toxic” made sense then table salt would be extremely dangerous.

Sodium = extremely volatile and usually explosive metal when interacting with water (more than half of what makes us)

Chlorine = gas at room temperature that can kill you in minutes at concentrations of 1000ppm or more

Sodium + Chlorine = Sodium Chloride = delicious table salt that makes food yummy and helps power our neurons

This here is the real answer; Elon doesn’t want X now and he never wanted Twitter. Much like Trump falling arse-backwards into the US Presidency he never actually wanted, he’s now just manipulating the thing he didn’t actually want, but now has, to follow his ego and whims. Trump’s presidency and Elon’s ownership of Twitter share a lot of similarities. Far, far too many similarities.

Utterly insane that elections are held on weekdays. I’m so thankful we have mandatory voting, easy early voting, voting by mail, elections on weekends, and protections for employees who need to vote on the day they if they’re working in Australia. We also already have ranked choice voting by single transferable vote as well as proportional representative voting in most jurisdictions (all bicameral parliaments).

It’s designed for omnipresent surveillance of all of the cells, in such a manner that the people in the cells can’t tell if or when they’re being directly surveilled, such that a single guard can provide surveillance to an entire prison. It’s supposed to be a method of self/surveillance, as those in the cells never know when they’re being surveilled they act as though they always are. It’s a chilling metaphor for modern surveillance and capitalism and the irony becomes even more ironic given that this is Amazon who’s decided that they need to observe all their employees all the time.