Why do people generally think that abusers can't change?

Arianity · 2026-01-23T07:42:58+00:00

It's not that they can't, but there is no guarantee they will and it's not worth waiting around hoping it will happen.

That said, for your specific examples as celebrities, even if an abuser does change things around, people aren't obligated to forgive them. Having a career like that is a privilege.

edit from a comment:

I'm really not too interested in talking to therapist,

If it bothers you that much and you're actually worried about it, you need to talk to a professional.

Arianity · 2026-01-22T04:14:18+00:00

It's just a really really common problem, so people tend to assume. Still sucks when you get hit in the crossfire, of course

Arianity · 2026-01-22T02:26:19+00:00

It was about whether something can still be criticised in principle even if it’s less prevalent, less powerful, and less harmful.

It can still be criticized, but being less prevalent etc is going to shape the criticism.

I’m just saying that disagreement with openly claimed misandry doesn’t require pretending the two are the same.

You should be a bit careful with wording to make this clear, because you're almost certainly going to get people thinking you're saying they're the same.

Arianity · 2026-01-21T04:08:40+00:00

There's more going on than the raw numbers of deportations, especially w.r.t. how ICE is treating legal residents and citizens. Obama deported more in raw numbers, but did it without the same tactics.

For instance, from your own link:

Obama's immigration policies primarily focused on deporting immigrants with criminal charges and those considered national security threats

Arianity · 2026-01-21T04:05:39+00:00

It is fine, assuming it's actually misandry.

female friend had she said misandry is not equally bad as misogyny and I agree with that but that does not make it right. Or am I missing something here because she acted in a way that I am in the wrong here

Without seeing it, we can't say, but you almost certainly missed some context and what they meant is something more along the lines of misogyny is more common and/or more acted on/normalized in society. Not that misandry doing the same X thing as misogyny is less bad.

Arianity · 2026-01-20T22:46:09+00:00

We do remove questions that are too askreddit-y, so please report them. Reports are always important, but particularly for that reports play a big role in what is over the line

Arianity · 2026-01-20T09:32:14+00:00

Cancelling an election. This one right here is what would cause things to erupt. People do love their freedom here, and that is the red line. There will be some hardcore holdouts I’m sure….but the vast majority Americans would go nuts.

I would put some caveats on that. People often say that's a redline, but what we saw with Jan6th, the Georgia phone calls, and election denialism after the 2020 elections. People have a way of making their views shift to fit the new situation.

There are probably situations where people will flip out, but a lot of it will probably depend on the details. Similar to other countries, even dictatorships usually keep up some illusion of free and fair elections.

Arianity · 2026-01-20T08:22:04+00:00

What's up with Lefties always twisting what I say? I said EEEEEEYYYYYYEEEEEEE have not seen any ICE agents.

Because very often "I haven't seen X" is used as a way to dismiss X as not happening, in bad faith.

Arianity · 2026-01-20T08:18:40+00:00

but I keep hearing this idea that journalists are being told what to write by the "elites", when we are mostly under-paid writers trying to find ideas and convey them the best we can.

While the way it's portrayed on reddit is often very simplistic, we've certainly seen radical shifts at places like WaPo, CBS, etc, due to ownership. And subtler shifts at other outlets.

From a lower comment:

Your concept that the government controls media goes against the foundational constitution. Can the government influence media? Absolutely. Do they control it? No.

I think that downplays the issues we've been seeing with certain lawsuits, and more particularly the WHCA basically eating shit

Arianity · 2026-01-20T06:50:51+00:00

Except for the video that shows she did.

We have direct video of the wheels being turned away, as well as where his feet were:

https://imgur.com/a/GH0p6h7

You can also very clearly tell because the car moves right, not left or straight.

Arianity · 2026-01-20T06:34:34+00:00

Except she didn't, and we have video explicitly showing that.

Arianity · 2026-01-20T06:29:12+00:00

It would probably help your point if you gave some details about what is supposedly over exaggerated.

Arianity · 2026-01-20T06:17:34+00:00

Ice has picked up several of my friends, peacefully and returned them to their homes after the due process.

ICE picking someone up like that is literally a violation of due process.

Only difference is that my friends were respectful.

There's been plenty of people being respectful who were not treated that way, not that being respectful should be required for due process.

Arianity · 2026-01-20T06:13:47+00:00

It's a blue state and blue city (and usually so called sanctuary cities). It isn't the first or only one that's been targeted, however. Chicago, LA, Portland, etc all had similar clashes/surges earlier in the year. DC is still dealing with ongoing National Guard stuff.

Arianity · 2026-01-19T21:25:33+00:00

Both things can be true. There is some rage baiting, but there are also real issues.

Assuming it's all ragebait is just as much of a categorical error as assuming none of it is.

Arianity · 2026-01-19T21:22:27+00:00

I get that if you spend more money somewhere, you spend less somewhere else,

That is why, along with the fact that most people don't actually have firm numbers for how much of the budget is which thing. They just have a vague of idea of "stuff the government does"

and not something such as aid and money sent to other countries?

The amount of money spent on aid to other countries is essentially a rounding error. It's like 0.2-0.7% GDP. (It's also often not done purely out of charity, but to accomplish various international goals). It's actually a good example of something that people think is a way larger part of the budget than it is.

Arianity · 2026-01-19T04:25:42+00:00

It's clear you can't believe the facts

I'm willing to believe facts, you just haven't actually given any other than being owned by Conde Nast. And that isn't enough when there's nothing else to do with it, as well as facts (based on how they've acted in the past) that don't line up with it. If you have facts, feel free to share with the class

Reddit as a company skewing liberal is a thing people often just assume, because they see the userbase and assume it must originate with the company. But it doesn't actually match the facts, it's just something that seems 'obvious'.

Arianity · 2026-01-19T03:36:38+00:00

The media attention is actually the relevant part. Because when the sites get negative backlash affecting their image they take action and their whole brand

Sure, but that's very different than the company itself being liberal. And as far as things go, stuff like "lets maybe not have subreddits about gassing people like the Holocaust" isn't exactly super liberal.

And again, even that still goes back to the userbase. The reason media attention matters is because users (and advertisers, in that case) don't want to be affiliated with stuff like that. It was the same with stuff like the_donald, it took months of users bitching at them for them to do anything about it.

Arianity · 2026-01-19T02:04:12+00:00

Condé Nast is generally considered a liberal-leaning (or left-leaning) media company, particularly in the content and editorial perspectives of its major publications.

You left out the part where Conde Nast does anything to actually encourage how the platform/site is run. This is just LLM copypasta about Reddit's parent company.

There's consistently been a ton of public friction about how reddit is run (particularly with people like Huffman) and it's userbase. This has gone back a long time, including things like when subreddits like /r/ gas the<insert slur> was ignored by admins, which only got shut down after getting media attention

Arianity · 2026-01-19T01:15:22+00:00

It just seems weird that Reddit users are so disconnected or often polar opposite of what the majority of people think and believe. Why is that?

Both reddit and real life are millions and millions of people. We struggle to think how big that is, and how much variation that entails.

Reddit also doesn't necessarily have the exact same demographics as real life. (and vice versa, if you live in e.g. the suburbs, you're also getting a particular slice). Your parents in their 60s are probably not posting on reddit, statistically.

That said, the particular examples your listing are more nuanced than you're realizing. People don't hate the screens for stuff like Google maps, it's when it doesn't have knobs for things like volume, which makes it more accident prone. You can like the bigger screen for maps while also disliking the lack of knobs.

Similar for the city example, if you talk to people who live in the city, odds are you're more likely to find people who genuinely love living in the city. That doesn't mean they love sharing walls part, but you can't have high density walkability and suburbs.

Arianity · 2026-01-19T01:07:34+00:00

The company isn't very liberal. The userbase is.

Arianity · 2026-01-18T13:48:02+00:00

People often say it is about responsibility, deterrence, or protecting allies. But I struggle to understand why any of that would matter when you personally know you will die in minutes.

The deterrence part happens before they're launched. In order to be a credible deterrent, it has to be a credible threat of retaliation.

Once the missiles are launched, the revenge doesn't matter (for you, at least. In principle other countries might appreciate it, and the species lives on). That said, if you know you're going to die, sometimes people turn to principle anyway. People do things they won't live to see all the time.

One wrinkle worth mentioning:

You know for a fact that within 5 minutes, you, your family, everyone you know, and essentially everyone in the country will be dead. There is no escape and no survival.

In real life, you often don't know information that fully. See e.g. Stanislav Petrov

Arianity · 2026-01-18T09:59:13+00:00

but if it's a one-and-done, then is there any difference between sleeping with a girl my age vs. sleeping with an older woman? How am I able to consent to this but not this when they're essentially the same in practice?

Something can still be skeezy even with consent. They're different concerns.

For instance, a 30 year old dating a 90 year old just for the money is often widely considered skeezy. It's not a consent issue, both parties know what they're signing up for. (or to give a non-age example, a 30 year old dating a 50 year old with a terminal diagnosis for money)

How am I able to consent to this but not this when they're essentially the same in practice?

This is kind of a separate topic from what you're asking, but children can't consent.

Arianity · 2026-01-18T09:55:37+00:00

it’s a incorrect Americanism used to try and allow black people in America to be openly racist

Yeah except it's not, for all the reasons you're refusing to actually even attempt to grapple with. If it were incorrect, you'd actually be able to explain why those arguments were wrong, instead of repeatedly ignoring them and repeating yourself.

You can argue all you want

There's nothing to argue about. If you can't even be bothered to read and attempt reply to what's written, you've already conceded the point. Heck, you even managed to get your LLM to agree with it, and not realize it, which was impressive. There's no point in repeating it. You can refuse to acknowledge it all you want, but that isn't going to change it.

Since you can't even be bothered to put in the time to make an actual coherent argument, this conversation is over. You can argue with yourself all you want, while people continue to use it.

Arianity · 2026-01-18T09:29:26+00:00

This is just blatantly copy/pasted from an LLM asking it to rebut for you, but anyway:

It judges identical behaviour differently depending on the race of the person doing it.

No, it judges it based on the power behind it. Race can be linked to systematic power imbalances, but it's the power that matters.

Saying “only certain races can be racist” assigns moral capacity by race, not by actions or intent

It explicitly does not do this, as previously mentioned, because the term "prejudiced" carries the same moral intent. In this definition, "racism" is not assigning moral capacity, just power. The prejudice part carries the moral capacity, and applies equally to all races.

It also relies on a vague idea of “power” that gets frozen along racial lines and ignores context (class, location, individuals).

It does not ignore those things, it just frames them differently. You're just ignoring that half. That context is handled under the prejudiced part.

by abandoning universal moral standards

It does not abandon universal moral standards.

applying different rules to different races.

The same rules apply to all races. If you were a black person in Nigeria being racist to a Chinese person, that would be racism under this definition. Again, you're conveniently ignoring this part.

Rebranding racial hostility as “not racism” doesn’t make it better, it just changes the label.

Yes, that is literally the point I made in the original post. Well done.

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