It's a very ugly thing about political polarization. It's easier to destroy than to build, and both sides seem gleeful about tearing down whatever is (rightfully or not) perceived to be aligned with the 'other'.
The reaction to Charlie Kirk's murder (not even the murder itself, but the celebration of it) made it the most shocking political event for me personally, in my lifetime. And it seems like it might be like this from now on - ripping things apart, destroying lives, and then cheering about it.
When Pinochet died, people threw parties in Chile. It's always been like this when things are taken to the extreme (and these days everything is extreme)
Did anyone aside from terminally online edgelords cheer for that though? I don't know that I saw anyone serious celebrating his death, certainly no members of congress. I do find it odd that the reaction from twitter and reddit bottom feeders (and the likes) stirred you so much. For me politicians actual vile comments and complete indifference to the assassination (or attempts) of state representatives and their families is much more disturbing than what people on some Sopranos meme subreddit had to say about Kirk - but perhaps the Hortman's were those 'others' you mentioned?
It's the volume that I found disturbing. There were Twitter posts celebrating or mocking Kirk's death, using images of his murder, with nearly 1MM likes, hours after he was killed. At the time, it was being reported his wife and toddler daughter had been in the audience (thankfully later revealed to not be true).
I haven't seen anything comparable for Hortman but if I had, I agree I would find those incredibly disturbing too.
This is the bullshit I find infuriating. Some conservative bloviating about Charlie Kirk and the reaction to his death from internet randos but they completely fucking ignore the vile shit actually elected representatives in their preferred party say.
"Robert Mueller just died. Good, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP"
I think with the kirk issue it was because most of the time when someone is killed for political reasons, they were the right kind of divisive. Kennedy killed over civil rights for example. Kirk though might be one of the few cases where someone who was inflammatory and the wrong kind of divisive was killed. For that, you can expect some dancing in the streets. Expect fireworks and a week of partying whenever Trump kicks the bucket.
it was more shocking than when multiple state legislators were gunned down and the shooting was blamed by Trump on Marxists? Or when Rob Reiner was shot by his son and Trump implied he had it coming?
nobody is trying to tear down AI companies. but there is a general reaction to companies and their leaders who imply that 'risk to civilization is non zero', or they need unemployment is likely, while pushing for the state to backstop them.
Political riots and Trump being a scumbag are well integrated into my worldview.
My coworkers making gleeful cracks about a podcaster bleeding out in front of his toddler was new information for me. I didn't realize we were so far gone.
I get that we have laws on the books making this illegal, but I still 100% disagree that the laws are constitutional.
People can say whatever they want without hurting anyone. In the case of incitement of violence, the issue is the person(s) who actually committed the violence, not a tweet online.
That is a very American perspective, which I like to think many people in the civilized world find irresponsible. (In the literal sense. You don't want to take responsibility for the consequences of your actions.)
The line must be drawn somewhere, we don't hold everyone responsible for every action they take.
I'd compare "inciting violence" to a woman dressing in provocative clothing in a bad area of town late at night. Very few people would blame the woman and say she's legally responsible if she's attacked, I hold the same line on speech.
Say what you want, dress how you want, it doesn't matter. If another person actually causes harm they can't shirk the blame off on you, they made the choice to commit violence.
Nobody is talking about shirking any blame off. Maybe this is our disconnect. You think there must be one singular person to blame entirely. That if someone is held accountable for a consequence of their action, then no one else can. That is not how the real world works.
No you are describing a scenario where one is shirking blame. One person commits a violent crime against another and you aren't holding them entirely accountable for their actions, your looking to who they may have listened to and what they may have heard such that some blame belongs there.
Notably you didn't engage with my analogy at all. Would you tell a victim of sexual assault that they were partly to blame based on their clothing choices or decision to be in a particular part of town a particular time of day? If not, how would you legally distinguish the two scenarios?
> One person commits a violent crime against another and you aren't holding them entirely accountable for their actions
Incorrect. Nowhere did I say or imply that.
> your looking to who they may have listened to and what they may have heard such that some blame belongs there.
That is correct.
You seem to think there's a fixed amount of total blame X and if we assign even the tiniest amount of blame to one person, then the main perpetrator must get less blame than they otherwise would. Nothing I said implies that.
> Notably you didn't engage with my analogy at all.
That's because it's not an analogy, it's a strawman.
> Would how would you legally distinguish the two scenarios?
One of them is wearing certain clothes, the other is intentionally inciting hatred and violence. If you can't make that distinction, I don't know what to tell you.
The "cushiness" of jobs such as fewer work hours, more benefits, etc. preceded the formation of unions and then slowed down (overall) once unions became popular.
It has little to do with union pressure and a LOT to do with economics, in particular the demand for labor. Jobs get nice when employers are competing over the same pool of employees.
Unions are nice for those in them and bad for everyone else. They are (quite literally) cartels, in an economic sense.
I don't know enough about the US, but for Europe this is 100% false! The first unions date back to the 18th century and they were an important part of the worker's movement in the 19th century. They absolutely played a crucial part in improving worker conditions during the industrial revolution and beyond.
> Jobs get nice when employers are competing over the same pool of employees.
Maybe in high-paying jobs that require high qualifications. For most jobs, especially the low-wage sector, this is absolutely not the case. There is no competition between employees if applicants are desperate and need to take any job they can.
I don't have time to read these papers. What I can say for sure is that your first sentence
> The "cushiness" of jobs such as fewer work hours, more benefits, etc. preceded the formation of unions and then slowed down (overall) once unions became popular.
is demonstrably false.
Sure, unions are not the only reason for better working conditions, but they certainly played a very important role.
The legal restrictions on the max. number of hours people are allowed to work per day or week are only in place because of the worker's movement and the power of unions. Companies certainly didn't lobby for these laws. In fact, certain industries are constantly trying to soften or undermine it.
BTW, in my country, unions are part of the annual negotations between employers and employees ("Kollektivvertrag"), which most notably includes the minimum wages and annual pay raises.
If you don't have time to read the papers, you could at least hand them to your favorite LLM and ask them to summarize the strength of evidence for broader macroeconomic factors vs. unions as the primary drivers of work hours, benefits, pay, unemployment etc.
No, thanks. You should have done more research before making your initial ridiculous claim. Don't throw economy papers at me when it's very clear you don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah not sure you’re right on this one. I’m talking strictly USA here, as that is where I live and my anecdotal experience.
The first official Union was formed in 1794, for journeyman cordwainers, I believe in New York.
The national labor union was formed in 1866 and is the first official call to congress to regulate to an 8-hour workday.
The first example I know of on a national scale that voluntarily promoted an 8 hour day, 40 hour work week was Ford in 1914 and realistically, that is exactly what you stated, an attempt to undercut other automakers / factories of the time for labor. Not because he was being altruistic.
I’m sorry you’ve had bad experiences with unions. I am certainly biased, because I grew up in a Union household and have been apart of them myself, but I’ve only had good experiences. Yeah, there are some bad eggs, admittedly, but I think collectively they have benefited the working person.
> I'm sorry you've had bad experiences with unions
I've actually had personally great experiences with unions! But I try to not let my anecdotal data color my views too much.
I think this is part of the reasons unions are insidious - their benefits are quite visible and concentrated to those who are in them, and their costs are spread out and invisible (until you put an empirical lens on them at scale).
> Jobs get nice when employers are competing over the same pool of employees.
During an all hands where quarterly earnings were presented for a very large American company, the live audience were obviously employees.
The CFO came on stage and was very enthusiastic about the labor market "loosening". Employees were clapping. Unsure if because they didn't understand the meaning of that statement or because just to appear supportive of leadership.
I was thinking: they're talking about us, turkeys.
Society has settled on certain norms that shame certain behavior (6 or 7 day work weeks for example) but I’m sure unions are more agile in demanding certain things for groups that need more than those norms.
I am with you on the competitive workforce groups though. Large corporations don’t need to feed you three meals a day and bus you in from hours away but they do to entice workers. There are some economics at play that probably are more effective for certain groups of workers. The less skilled and more replaceable the job though, the more a business can take advantage because it’s a race to the bottom.
Without laws and unions, I fully believe some industries would still have slaves, horrible unsafe conditions, etc. Laws are probably more vital than unions IMHO
How do Employees advocate for themselves if not Unions? I've never heard any anti-union person give a good answers other than 'just trust the employer to be a good human' or 'wait until it gets bad enough that the market sorts it out' which is just laughable.
> How do Employees advocate for themselves if not Unions?
The same way you advocate for getting good bananas, good streaming services, or good laptops.
You only make voluntary transactions you want to make. If you don't like what a job is offering, take another job or start your own business.
If you don't like ANY of the bananas being produced by ANYONE, this probably isn't because all banana producers are moustache twirling villains. It probably has something to do with the underlying realities of banana production, supply, and demand.
I come from the world of live action VR and not 3D generated, so my mind instantly went to what it would take to make a VR live action experience of finding the actual birds in an actual location possible. The image collection required to allow for a zoomed in through binocs view enough detail would be something "fun" to assemble. Everything was designed around wide angle lenses a la GoPros because of form factor which means zooming would be atrocious. Designing something with long lenses would result in a camera rig that would be insanely impractical. Now, using a set of sensors like the Rubin Observatory might might make this feasible. Hmmm...
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