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> Considering they arrest people for saying "there are only two genders"

Citation please.

(EDIT: Citation of an arrest just for saying that, not an arrest for incitement.)


He's clearly quoting the Graham Linehan case where a group of police officers arrested him for his tweets that did include the only-two-gender thing. However, as you suspected, that's not all he said. Linehan suggested in another tweet that people should punch transwomen in the face if they refuse to leave the female bathroom.

It was the balls:

    If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, 
    he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, 
    call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the 
    balls.
By inference he thinks that if someone makes you feel uncomfortable, by doing nothing illegal nor immoral (in the mind of a right-thinking person), punching their genitalia is acceptable. If I ever meet him I think I might feel quite uncomfortable, which would be unfortunate.

It was a joke. The humour being in this purported woman having a pair of balls to punch.

I'm not actually. How did you get "arrested for tweets" from my post where I said it was a video of a 20-something year old having a debate with someone at a pub?

I'll take that as confirmation that it happens all the time though - since this was evidently not an isolated case, as you have pointed out.


Unpopular opinion: your right to free speech includes the right to advocate for violence, so long as it's not imminent (as in inciting a riot).

That includes your right to support Hamas or Israel, your right to support abortion, your right to support defensive gun use, your right... well actually your right to support a lot of things given how readily innocuous things are described by opponents as "violence" or "assault".

Fortunately in the U.S. this is recognized under Brandenburg v. Ohio.


> "please confirm your age" screen is now mandatory during the iPhone setup in all countries

Not quite.

The request to confirm age is there, but actually completing it isn't mandatory (though granted, it does leave an 'alert' thingy on your phone settings saying you haven't finished setting it up).


It locks down devices like ransomware, permanently restricting functionality of web browsers, messaging apps, and other apps until the user submits to age verification. Its mandatory if you want your device to function normally without restrictions.

There is no "skip" button available.

> Why does a banking app require GPS?

The networks (including physical IP networking) that underpin banking require a very accurate source of time to function. This is frequently farmed out to GPS, rather than use local atomic clocks. This makes GPS (or rather GNSS) a single point of failure.

I'm surprised so few people on HN appear to be aware of this.


> In the uk rail industry we have people stealing copper all the time.

The elephant in the room is naming the group almost exclusively responsible for this crime.


Does it matter? Because if it does, it's advocating for (racial?) profiling and/or singling one demographic out, which is both illegal (maybe not in the UK since it doesn't have a constitution?), amoral, and contrary to one of the core principles of current-day law, i.e. "innocent until proven guilty".

But do tell, what do you think is the group and what do you think should happen?


I'm sure this is exactly the sort of group they meant: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39n19dw1ggo

Or maybe him: https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/cable-thief-ja...

"Almost exclusively" would seem to point in a very home-grown direction.


Thieves. People are afraid to say it but thieves are responsible for almost all theft.

Obviously, because then you can focus your attention to that specific group.IE, if cable theft is exclusively carried out by white people from kensington then whenever something is stolen, you can just go there and catch the criminals.

Criminals should be locked up in jail.


If a certain group of people are the ones constantly causing the majority of the same specific societal issues, why shouldnt they be called out?

You can call out a person. What does it mean to call out a group? That's guilt by association.

OK cool, I look forward to everybody stopping targeting rich white men as the main problem in the world.

Is "everybody" doing that, seems like a stretch? In fact, the current US President explicitly blames immigrants for many of our problems.

The Economy - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/us/politics/trump-somalis...

Affordability - https://www.pbs.org/video/trump-s-message-1765403127/

Crime - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/29/trumps-hate-...

Benefits - https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/10/24/fact-check-tru...


Its interesting that to argue against my point you use an example of somebody from the very specific group I mentioned.

Of course Donald Trump isnt going to blame rich white men for anything, he is one!


If that's the case, you shouldn't use words like everybody, because you don't mean everybody

The rest of your response can be answered in your own words: Oh there are clauses and exceptions to prejudice are there?

EDITED


Lol you literally have no idea what you are arguing against here.

I didnt think any sensible person would take the word everybody to mean literally every single person in existence. If I could go back and edit the post now I would happily change the word 'everybody' into 'lots of people' to satisfy the semantic pedants.

I dont think I have the energy to correct a random on the internet about exactly what my opinion is, other than to say I very much dont blame rich white men for anything and no I dont think there are exceptions to prejudice. But thats it, you can have the last word I'm out.


No, it was perfectly clear that you simply meant "everybody" that disagrees with you. That said, we know a large percentage of the population agrees with the President's immigrant framing because he was elected President based largely on that premise.

So, lots and lots of people are blaming immigrants for all our problems. I'm not sure rich white men need you to defend them to a random on the internet, they are doing just fine.


No I'm pretty sure by "everybody" he meant a loose quantity as in a large number of people. Of course such a quantity could be constrained e.g. to what can be seen on the news or maybe the local neighbourhood.

When someone says "everyone and their dog", they don't mean that the dogs are also participating.

Basically you failed to charitably interpret the person you are responding to and are now insisting on a reinterpretation that makes you look silly.

I mean think about what he wrote before that. "I look forward to", he is talking about the future in a sarcastic tone so the president being a counter example is his point. You're pinning him down onto the present and that is a strategic mistake.


You don't need to correct anything, to me your point came across very clearly.

Targeting rich people for being rich is targeting an attribute, not a group. The equivalent would be targeting black people for having dark skin, as opposed to targeting black people for doing crime.

Right, but targeting rich white men is a very specific group. The equivalent would be poor black women, but I'm not really sure why thats important here.

Most rich people in the USA happen to be white men.

There is a difference between punching up and punching down

Oh there are clauses and exceptions to prejudice are there?

So who gets to decide the definition of 'punching up'? When is it ok for me to be prejudice towards a group of people?

Im looking forward to learning where the line is so I can feel safe in my bigotry /s.


>When is it ok for me to be prejudice towards a group of people?

When a group acts as a coordinated group. A political party for instance. This is not rocket science. You must link the individual(s) directly to the act, or you’re just stereotyping and making assumptions.

You are asking a lot of baiting questions. We know this isn't an attempt at dialogue, so just state your mind and be done with it instead of continuing of this silly bread crumb game man.


Yes, just one, and it's defined in this excerpt:

Don't be a dick.

If you're being a dick, you're at fault, if you're not being a dick, you get a pass.


Excerpt from what?

Its a shame the meaning of language is subjective, or we could all happily live under this banner forevermore.


Some cultures are better than others

Arbitrary classification does not make a functional group. There is a distinct difference between a coordinated group and an abstract group that is the result of external parties adding people into named buckets for their own purposes.

Care to give some examples of what you consider to be coordinated groups, functional groups, and abstract groups?

I am assuming that your point is that prejudice is ok to some type of group but not other, but I am inferring that from your answer. Feel free to correct me.


> I am assuming that your point is that prejudice is ok to some type of group but not other

That's a bad inference. I was explaining the distinction that seems to be confusing the issue.

> Care to give some examples of what you consider to be coordinated groups, functional groups, and abstract groups?

You understand plain English well enough.


That's a word salad.

The first sentence is plain English. The second is clarification through example.

Someone who doesn't know what arbitrary or abstract means, or has trouble with context, I'm sure it can seem confusing.


It's an interesting coincidence that in these situations, the same people always blame %vulnerable group%, often going as far as making up evidence. Why do that? I suspect the reason is the vulnerability.

Why would you throw an accusation out like this without providing any evidence of your own?

Who are these people making up evidence about %vulnerable groups% and what are they saying?


> The elephant in the room

People may or may not find it interesting to research the history of this phrase and what it replaced.


Is "800 pound gorilla" the competing phrase? May I ask what you found noteworthy about this?

The Regan Administration??

men?


> TIL the rover had a tissue-box-sized helicopter (!!) on it

Wait until you find out that the helicopter carried a small piece of fabric from the wing of the 1903 Wright Flyer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers#Wright_Brother...


> I've been wondering about building counter ad technology.

Ah... Old school culture jamming :-)

See also, billboard hacking and Adbusters.


Brit here.

The latter (with its twisted mix of Australian, Cockney and Kings English) carries a calm sarcastic tone which indicates ones displeasure far more than the former, more vulgar statement, could ever hope to achieve.

One is however, reminded that Americans simply don't get our sarcasm, frequently leading to some amusing cultural clashes.


> with its twisted mix of Australian, Cockney and Kings English

This is a great way of summarizing a lot of the TV we’re getting in the US that have British characters, and it’s annoying once you notice it.

See how the accent changes in Lie to Me between season 1 and season 3:

S1: https://youtu.be/bWyhsqh_e9s

S3: https://youtu.be/oPqOET_xCKw


gosh...this twisted indirect way of communication makes me nuts. Just be open and say what you mean and stop being offended so easily...

If you equate sarcasm with ease of offence, you are very much mistaken.

Regardless, in Blighty, such sarcasm is by no means twisted and indirect. It is as plain as the nose on ones face. As I said earlier, many Americans simply don't get such sarcasm, leading to comic clashes of culture.


> a large number of people are required to use those services for their job, so they can get money, so they can put food on the table.

You mean 'influencers'?

Nothing of value has been lost.

> Worse these companies ingrain themselves into a lot of physical locations and data collection from other sources so your not free of them

Please can you provide an example. I can't say I've ever experienced such a thing (and would never GDPR opt-in to such data sharing even if the opportunity was there).


While, yes, influences of course use social media, most companies have realized having a social media presence is important today. I would be interested to see stats on how beneficial social media has been to, say, Wendy's.

Yea, I think among a fair portion of HN there is a misunderstanding of how economically connected social media is to businesses and people. For example Meta is one of the largest advertising agencies on earth.

My wife for example has a $200k+ job that involves a whole lot of interaction with social media. For her that would mean ending her job and moving on to god knows what, but probably not anything that pays near as well.

And then you come to the people that represent her customers. They make 70%+ of their income advertising services either on line or social media platforms.

So you end up in a race conditions. These people can't quit social media in one way or another or they stop eating. The customers have to move somewhere else first to redistribute the power the companies hold over those needing to advertise. Mostly what we see is not people quitting social media, but just moving to another social media platform shifting the problem. But also, because these people are advertising and doing tangentially related things on social media it brings their users to social media to get information.


Sounds like the coal miners in West Virginia whose livelihoods depend on coal production.

I mean it's also the same thing we're starting to see with programmers and AI too, which is highly ironic after tall the "lrn 2 code" stuff that was posted online around that time.

If a programmer says I'm not going to use AI and the company says use AI, the programmer can absolutely walk, but god, I would not want to try to find a new job right now.

This is why things like unions and consumers pushing for consumer protection laws are fought by companies so hard. They are far more effective than individual actions because the incentives are against individual success.


I think that's slightly different though - technology changes. Most of the l2code came from journalists, government officials, and others who were inevitably liberal and felt really nice talking about how they were simply going to have all these coal miners re-skill.

Do you support the coal miner's union and protecting those jobs? What if it's at a loss? What about the environmental impacts? I see parallels with social media. Is your wife's $200,000 job worth the creation of iPad kids or the lives lost due to vaccine misinformation?

I'm not judging you or anything, you guys gotta do what you gotta do just like the guy selling cigarettes, the gal working in the coal mines, or the folks getting kids addicted to sweets.

But going back to the OP here you posted about this as though there's some "privilege". I strongly disagree with that assertion. If anything, I'd argue your point of view is the privileged one. You get to make as a household $200,000 selling using Facebook. What about the barista? What about the mom struggling whose kid learns about Tide Pods and goes and eats one and has a $15,000 medical bill?

Separately I find it quite annoying that somehow accusing me or someone else of privilege when you're bringing in $200,000 just from Facebook lol. Like really? I mean I don't care, I am proud of my privilege (whatever that amounts to) and will use it to my every advantage, but you should take a hard look in the mirror.

I want to mention there's a lot of nuance in these discussions and specific instances and we're painting in broad strokes. There are connecting themes but also meaningful differences.


> It's automated, algorithmic enforcement; and when it's wrong (or someone exploits it to be wrong, like this), you're powerless to do anything.

Ahem...

In the UK/EU Let me introduce you to article 22 of the GDPR

The data subject shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.

i.e. If subjected to an algorithm making decisions, you have an automatic right of appeal to a _human_.

https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/

You need to adopt a sensible data protection law if you don't want to be exploited.


If you look into it more carefully, you'll find this doesn't apply to social media moderation, but only more consequential AI-biased decisions.

(In the excerpt you quoted: "legal effects" / or "significantly affects").


Oh no! It's against the law. That'll definitely stop companies from doing it with impunity.

Yes. It will.

Though presumably you would prefer the alternative; that such companies are unrestrained in what they may do and the population at large must simply bend over and grab their ankles with both hands?


Nope, I don't want that at all. What I want is a law with actual enforcement behind it and penalties that actually deter bad actors. You don't just write a law and then stop there declaring job done.

GDPR penalties DO deter bad actors. It's so effective that many American companies without a European presence at all take actions

> It's about the nukes

Is the right answer.

For all the jingoism being spouted, it would be nice if somebody had a whisper in Mango Mussolinis ear as to why NATO and the post 1945 order was formed, and who benefits from it (hint: all our democracies).


NATO was formed to counter the threat of the Soviet Union which no longer exists. Russia is nothing like the same threat to the US that the Soviet Union was. The US is now more concerned about China.

Europe was economically and militarily important globally than it now is. Therefore defending it is less important to the US than it used to be, while Asia has become more important to the US.

Russia is not even anything like the same threat to Europe that the Soviet Union was. It has been further weakened by the Ukraine war and it will take many years to recover.

As for nukes, there are two acknowledged nuclear powers in western Europe.


>The US is now more concerned about China.

Ah, that's why "U.S. pulls last aircraft carrier in Asia" :)

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-pulls-last-aircraft-c...


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