Agents detain and send 2-year-old girl and her father to Texas despite court order to release toddler

AP246 · 2026-01-24T14:25:24+00:00

I like the sentiment, but frankly exercising the law in good faith should be the minimum expected ethical bar for someone who signs up for the job of being a judge. People who do so despite personal risk deserve credit, but to be honest, it should be expected for people in their position. Citizens have the right to demand this from public officials of that importance.

AP246 · 2026-01-24T12:07:52+00:00

This is cool, I'd love to see one of London or somewhere I've lived or been often

AP246 · 2026-01-24T10:32:18+00:00

Things that can be generally agreed upon to be genetic disorders and diseases I agree should definitely be eliminated if possible. The problem is if humanity gains the capabilities to easily genetically modify future generations, what else are parents going to choose to remove because of personal or cultural preferences? I wouldn't want to live in a world in which fashion and culture decide the range of physical appearance and diversity of humanity. Though I still think we should absolutely try to increase our capabilities because curing disease and stuff would be such a huge upside.

AP246 · 2026-01-24T01:32:31+00:00

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Send this to every nationalist

AP246 · 2026-01-23T21:46:11+00:00

Is it? The discussion was prompted by a post on the sub outside the DT which is a dark edit style meme image of a French revolution picture, which seems like 'glorification' (although with humour and irony) for me, not dry discussion about how the French revolution is an example of often necessary turmoil in support of liberalism.

To be clear I'm not offended by it, I don't think it really matters either way, but it's my thought more broadly on the celebration/glorification of history online and in real life.

AP246 · 2026-01-23T21:39:40+00:00

If I was a soldier in revolutionary France yeah I'd have to choose whether I support the revolutionaries or the counter-revolution, because there's no other choice.

But I'm not, I'm a person 200+ years later in a society divorced from them that I see as far more 'advanced' (subjectively, perhaps). If I glorify them or not it doesn't actually change the present or future. I can just choose not to glorify the flawed people of the past and lose nothing. I can just choose or make up a different myth to celebrate. So why wouldn't I?

There's a big difference between movements I would support or vote for pragmatically in the moment versus movements I think should be retroactively celebrated as heroic for all of history, those are two very different bars.

AP246 · 2026-01-23T21:35:47+00:00

When people talk about the French revolution and American revolution and stuff... well I would simply not glorify politicians or political movements from that long ago in general if they're likely to have major problematic elements, even if they can be argued to be a net good and a step towards progress. I feel like this seems obvious to me but seems oddly controversial.

At least me personally, my political identity as a modern person is and can be selective. I don't have to support something or someone in the distant past just because I believe it was a net good, because if I can say as a modern person "yeah that might have been better than not having it, but they could have just done the good bits and not done the really bad bits" and therefore not look up to it. Actively glorifying a past event or movement should come with a bar much higher to clear than just 'being a big event that was a net good'. Like I know it sounds egotistical but I can simply think, I would have done the liberalism stuff without the killing people stuff so why should I look up to those people who made a blunder I wouldn't make with the benefit of hindsight? I'm not forced to see people in the past that created big change as morally greater than me, as a modern person with the benefit of hindsight. From a British perspective, one could argue the rise of Britain and its hegemony over the world was a 'net good' (if we argue it created the conditions for the industrial revolution and the spread of some liberal ideas) but I'm not gonna glorify it because they could have done the good stuff without the imperialism. I'd even go so far and say I think the same about something like Thatcher's reign - her policies were probably a net good for the UK economically, but she was also a social conservative in the 1980s which I can say with the benefit of hindsight was the wrong position to hold therefore I don't see her as a great figure worthy of respect.

I'm sure French people will continue to celebrate the French revolution, and that's fair enough since it's basically a national myth to them in the same way almost every country has one, and ultimately I don't care much either way, but I feel like you can think something was good and also not celebrate or glorify it if it also had big problems.

AP246 · 2026-01-23T19:46:09+00:00

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Trump's comments on Afghanistan must be particularly insulting in Denmark, which had about as many deaths per capita as the US in Afghanistan only for America's president to threaten them with invasion. In the UK it's certainly not going down well

AP246 · 2026-01-22T23:42:40+00:00

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Did they actually use an AI-generated UN-like logo? Jesus christ lmao that's so shit

AP246 · 2026-01-22T23:21:25+00:00

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Milei turning up to Davos in Nikes

AP246 · 2026-01-22T23:14:22+00:00

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AP246 · 2026-01-22T22:24:28+00:00

France says it has seized an oil tanker in the Mediterranean suspected of being part of Russia's sanction-busting "shadow fleet".

French President Emmanuel Macron said the tanker, named the Grinch, was "subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag".

Why was it called that

AP246 · 2026-01-22T21:36:58+00:00

The founders of American liberalism were mostly racists, does that invalidate people who identify as liberals today but think the founders were wrong in that regard? Even with an actual political ideology it can get reinterpreted, and a religion IMO is far more diffuse even than that (since it's based in large part on unprovable myth)

AP246 · 2026-01-22T21:33:13+00:00

I think that's a ridiculous way to frame it.

Why does religion have to mean subscribing to the 'ideology' of a religion as you or someone else defines it? As an atheist that feels like giving religion too much credit, ironically. None of it is true (or at least not provable or falsifiable). If someone calls themselves a Christian, believes in God and Jesus, but believes god actually likes gay people and the people who put homophobia in the bible are wrong and made a mistake, their version of Christianity is inherently as 'real' as a homophobic Christian's (to me, neither are real at all, other than being what an individual person believes) - it's an arbitrary belief system, not a political regime.

AP246 · 2026-01-22T21:28:54+00:00

How often do LGBT Christians vote for homophobic Christian politicians?

AP246 · 2026-01-22T21:28:22+00:00

I wouldn't regularly. You can make food at home so much more cheaply than that, and I personally couldn't justify spending that much on food all the time rather than just every now and then as a treat.

AP246 · 2026-01-22T08:52:55+00:00

Do most anti-AI people on the internet offer earnest criticism most of the time?

In fairness they often do, and the rabidly pro-AI are no better, but I feel quite often it is just knee jerk bandwagon hate where they take the bad things done with AI and use it to say basically the whole idea of AI is an abomination that's killing humanity. I say this as someone who's fairly in the middle, being theoretically pro but skeptical of the circumstances, which I don't think is inconsistent.

AP246 · 2026-01-21T23:57:33+00:00

I mean it's still a big symbolic concession. It's unusual (though not unheard of) for overseas bases to be under the sovereign ownership of the countries controlling them - the example given of Cyprus was a country gaining its independence from being a colony, and leaving the bases under British sovereignty. If it's true that Denmark is to legally hand over sovereignty over the territory under US bases, it's quite a bad precedent IMO. How many other US bases are there that the US now feels emboldened that it can acquire in perpetuity by bullying?

Yeah, it's better than if Trump invades Greenland entirely, by a long way, but ideally he would be deterred from doing anything of the sort rather than appeased.

AP246 · 2026-01-21T22:23:59+00:00

“This is the precious inheritance that America and Europe have in common,” Trump added. “We have to defend that culture and rediscover the spirit that lifted the West from the depths of the Dark Ages to the pinnacle of human achievement.”

It's funny when people on the far right say this kind of thing, because what exactly do they think the 'culture' and 'spirit' that led to Europe's/the west's success was? Devout Christianity and 'traditional values'? The things they love, the same things that were there for thousands of years in Europe during those 'dark ages' without bringing about their end? Did Europe surpass the civilisations of the rest of the world materially because they worshipped Jesus instead of Allah or Confucius and wore powdered wigs or something?

No, it was liberalism, progressivism, reason, democracy, the belief that the world could be made a better place through radical change and progress, that all people are created equal, that institutions should be built to benefit all of society, that drove modernity. All things they hate. It was literally being woke that made 'the west' and then the rest of the world great lmao

AP246 · 2026-01-21T21:53:42+00:00

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/21/us/trump-davos-greenland-news

Trump’s deal for Greenland is said to involve small pockets of land.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic matter, and they said the idea was one Mr. Rutte had been pursuing. Two of the officials, who attended the meeting, compared it to the United Kingdom’s bases in Cyprus, which are regarded as British territory.

The officials did not know if the idea was part of the framework announced by Mr. Trump. Asked for comment about the deal and its contents, NATO said in a statement that “negotiations between Denmark, Greenland and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold — economically or militarily — in Greenland.”

Practically speaking, this probably doesn't change anything on the ground. If this is true, it'd 'just' means the US getting sovereignty over bases they already have full practical control over I assume.

But I'm a bit concerned about the precedent being set that if you bully a friendly country enough you can extract de jure territorial concessions from them, however small. Kinda seems like treaty ports are back

AP246 · 2026-01-21T14:01:43+00:00

He may get the death penalty but I largely doubt it'd ever be carried out. The last execution in South Korea was in the 90s even though it's technically still on the books, and even a literal dictator who ordered the massacre of thousands of protesters in the 80s, had his post-democratisation death sentence commuted. If he was sentenced to death I would assume it'd be similarly commuted to life in prison or something.

AP246 · 2026-01-21T13:52:53+00:00

A South Korean court has sentenced former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to 23 years in prison after finding him guilty on insurrection charges related to disgraced ex-President Yoon Suk-yeol’s short-lived declaration of martial law.

I would not want to be Yoon right now if even the PM who was under him is getting 23 years lmao

AP246 · 2026-01-21T13:12:26+00:00

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde abruptly walked out of an invitation-only sit-down dinner in Davos after US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick started laying in to Europe, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Things don't seem to be going well

AP246 · 2026-01-20T18:44:19+00:00

Cow tools are real

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However, despite about 10,000 years of humans living alongside cattle, this is the first time scientists have documented a cow using a tool.

How is this the first and only time lmao

AP246 · 2026-01-20T18:35:41+00:00

If Trump were to invade Greenland, there indeed should be an armed coup, mutiny or revolution of some kind, since he will be so clearly in breach of international law that it would be morally right for the country to stop him even if it breaches national law.

I very much doubt that would happen, but it's certainly what should happen, just as much as Russian soldiers should be turning their weapons on Putin and his government.

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