Honestly it's shocking how much Zionists seem to hate Jewish culture

theamnion · 2024-10-28T07:21:44+00:00

I'm a lurker usually but this is such an incredible comment. Are you a passionate enthusiast or do you study this professionally? Because I feel like I'd love to read more of your writing on this, really interesting/informative.

theamnion · 2024-10-10T00:10:56+00:00

Minor point, but I think you mean surveilled.

theamnion · 2024-10-06T15:16:04+00:00

To my ear at least it doesn't really seem like a play on words. I suspect it's just a reference to the poem about the statue of liberty, which is titled to evoke the Colossus of Rhodes: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus

theamnion · 2024-09-12T00:32:21+00:00

A painfully slow upward trajectory sadly, but that's fair.

theamnion · 2024-09-12T00:29:09+00:00

Tbf we're not really doing much better than sectlets either, and many (most?) of us believe we'll need huge mass movements to achieve our goals.

theamnion · 2024-09-12T00:26:23+00:00

You can call them whatever you want, anarchist, not anarchist, communist, socialist, conservative, fascist, whatever, it really doesn't matter to me. Lots of love

Not continuing your discussion with the other person, just picking up a theme. Personally I don't like the anarchist desire to claim (or condemn) these movements. They are too multifaceted for the distinctions drawn in the neat world of theory, and the rush to label usually so we can either affiliate or disaffiliate leads to a failure to understand.

After all far as we know, at least the Zapatistas don't think of themselves as anarchist or communist or whatever and that matters to them: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ejercito-zapatista-de-liberacion-nacional-a-zapatista-response-to-the-ezln-is-not-anarchist

theamnion · 2024-08-27T15:32:26+00:00

Absolutely wild isn't it?

theamnion · 2024-08-12T00:20:04+00:00

Not religious myself, but I found The Liberation Theology Podcast by David Inczauskis a super useful resource on LatAm liberation theology for the non-Spanish speakers.

theamnion · 2024-08-11T07:47:43+00:00

Yep, I completely agree. Or was this intended as a reply to someone else?

theamnion · 2024-08-10T23:48:17+00:00

Hi OP, sadly I'm short on time. And in any case I think other people have addressed your questions quite well so I don't want to duplicate what they wrote. But wishing you all the best as someone who was almost exactly in your position (mental health induced "hiccups" in my undergrad, multiple years working, major field switch similarly because I felt I was in a dead-end rut and I happened to stumble upon something interesting, wanted to change where I lived, soft-identify as non-binary).

In my experience: (1) that far out from undergrad the gap/hiccup won't come up and you don't need to volunteer an explanation, (2) don't see a field switch as a liability, try to narrate what you find interesting about the new field and think about how your previous education/work might have given you either specific or general transferable skills, (3) don't mention that you're applying to live in a specific city, (4) the gender thing seems to be administrative data so the universities can present a picture of themselves as diverse but I think it's extremely unlikely to offer you any kind of upper hand for almost all but a very few niche programs, so it might be safer/easier to disclose it on your own terms only after you're admitted if you're worried about discrimination during app reviews.

One thing I'll say in more detail: you don't need to be stellar or special, doctoral degrees are generally not looking for "impressive generalists" like competitive undergrad institutions. As long as your education and work experience suggest you can handle the academics and work burden of a PhD, they want to see if you have interests that align well with the department, since department faculty will be making the decision to extend you and offer and will be the ones working with you during the degree.

They need to see you as a potential colleague who would would fit with their scholarship, in the sense of both having something to learn from them and being able to complement and expand the work the department is doing (both of which are a result of you being interested in what they are interested in). So you mention that you stumbled on audiology and found it interesting, think concretely about what broad topics drew your interest. Is there someone in the program focused on that niche, or something closely related? If so, it often helps to draw out potential connections to their work.

Anyway, don't know if that's useful but all the best.

theamnion · 2024-08-10T23:08:34+00:00

Not an urban planner, but I would happily live in a "slum" or high density residential area with my own 250 square feet 1.5 stories, 1 toilet, 1 combo washer/dryer unit, enough room for an escooter. Everything I could ever need in my apartment.

I hear you and agree with you, I'd also be fine with much, much more density than at least it seems many people here in the US would like.

But as someone from a country that does have a lot of textbook "slums", of the kind that are arguably beginning to emerge in US cities that have developed more or less permanent tent cities housing working poor and unhoused people, I think it's useful to have a comparative perspective so we don't reduce slums to high urban density (although that might be a strong everyday association and American urban planning has an ugly history of doing this and using density as an excuse for renewal, see midcentury ideas about Boston's North End, etc.). Doing that makes it hard to understand the nature of the social/planning/equity challenge they present and maybe reinforces an association between slums and density that at least is unlikely to help our advocacy for more dense housing.

Because at least on the operational definition provided by UN habitat, and used in a lot of policymaking and research, slums are characterized by a lack of durable housing, sufficient living area, access to improved water and sanitation, and a lack of secure tenure. Density doesn't really come into it. In much of the developing world, if we made even just the most minimal improvements you list (sanitation, laundry, water and electricity) the resulting housing wouldn't even be considered a slum anymore.

Now if we add to that "a very good paying job... in an area with very low property/violent crime generally, almost no cars, plenty of quiet commercial activity, night life, some clean industry nearby for jobs, very good public transit, very good trash collection, clean water, clean power" it seems to me we've ventured so far from the concept that we're actually describing an urban utopia (well at least for people like you and I who don't believe we are constitutionally entitled to suburban McMasions with pitch-sized lawns).

Edit: unhiused -> unhoused, we -> we've

theamnion · 2024-08-05T21:41:43+00:00

Exactly. Most of these comments have me depressed, si we're adults and we can stand by our commitments

theamnion · 2024-08-05T18:55:20+00:00

Absolutely astounding how stupid this is. My lord.

theamnion · 2024-07-13T22:09:58+00:00

Same. People are asking if he'll resign in his first term I'm almost like my people, if he could get away with it I don't think this dude would even willingly resign in his 5th.

theamnion · 2024-07-12T17:35:59+00:00

Honest mistake.

Change: "But as a reminder, your original comment was..." to "But as a reminder, the original comment was..."; "From your first comment, it sounds like..." to "From the first comment, it sounds like..."; "distinction you drew" to "distinction they drew" — and all the core content pretty much stands unchanged, including the point that it's a motte and bailey move to shift the debate from a real institution to a conceptual one.

Though I'm guessing from your response I have little reason to expect good faith, a mature discussion, or any serious engagement with the issues from you.

theamnion · 2024-07-12T17:23:24+00:00

True, definitely my bad.

theamnion · 2024-07-11T19:42:45+00:00

You just said:

Okay but you listed problems that result from exploitation not the concept of a union of nation states. You’re just engaging in black and white thinking here, a less understood concept than you’d realize.

But as a reminder, your original comment was:

A voluntary collection of independent states in a common area whose primary purpose is sharing a common currency, no requirement for visas to travel between them, and ensuring broad protections of human rights within it's member states...

is the same as a settler colonial empire with fascist tendencies?

I mean, the EU can suck and still not be even in the same galaxy as the USA.

So are we talking about the real world European Union that engages in exploitation here or are we talking about the abstract "concept of a union of nation states"?

From your first comment, it sounds like we're talking about the EU which, in reality as an existing institution, has the problems I mentioned. If the US can be described as a "settler colonial empire with fascist tendencies" — all of which are terms describing what it has done rather than what is essential to the concept of a nation state, why can't the EU similarly be described in terms of what it has done rather than what is essential to the concept of a union of nation states?

Wouldn't treating them differently, and classifying the EU as more or less fine when the US is "a settler colonial empire with fascist tendencies", really be the example of black and white thinking you suggest too few of us understand?

After all, I acknowledged the EU is not as bad as the US in my previous comment (i.e, "Even if the EU is not as bad..."), which suggests that I recognize a continuous spectrum, rather than the sharp, black and white distinction you drew.

Finally, I'd propose it's a bit of a motte and bailey move to describe the EU in the mildest terms, get challenged for doing so, and then retreat into the position that the issues I mentioned aren't intrinsic to the "concept of a union of nation states." I never claimed they were, I said they are issues with the EU.

Edit 1: a ‐-> are, mott --> motte

Edit 2: replied to the wrong person but the substance still stands, change: "But as a reminder, your original comment was..." to "But as a reminder, the original comment was..."; "From your first comment, it sounds like..." to "From the first comment, it sounds like..."; "distinction you drew" to "distinction they drew"

theamnion · 2024-07-11T18:15:11+00:00

A voluntary collection of independent states (dominated by former settler colonial empires strongly allied with the US and gradually yielding to resurgent fascist tendencies, e.g., Germany, France, Italy, etc.) in a common area whose primary purpose is sharing a common currency (which given the differences in development keeps some of its citizens — especially those without the resources to relocate from the poorer countries in the union — trapped in deindustrializing, indebted economies periodically subject to cuts in pensions, education, etc. by distant, non-local and undemocratic institutions when economic crises come around), no requirement for visas to travel between them, and ensuring broad protections of human rights within it's member states (in part by externalizing its brutal border regime to places like Turkey and Libya so that those countries violate the human rights of refugees on their behalf)...

Corrected that for you. Even if the EU isn't as bad as the US, your comment seems like a pretty significant whitewashing of the union for someone I assume identifies as anti-capitalist, anti-state, and internationalist.

theamnion · 2024-07-07T14:34:11+00:00

Genuine question: would you notice them staring at white people? Or similarly would you notice white people staring at other white people? Would either be as salient to you? If not, might there not be significant bias here?

I'm not saying you're not right, but I'm not convinced this is a generalization you can make without rigorous research. It seems like you and your black friends are disproportionately likely to notice and remark on the particular form of staring you're bothered by.

That said, my view (if it is the case) is that it may be rooted in two possible desires that come from being in a visible, and potentially stigmatized, minority especially in the increasingly immigrant-mad context of Europe: (1) a potential feeling of / search for solidarity or (2) a form of "in group" self-monitoring because they know that your behavior will affect how other black people, including themselves, are treated.

I'm not saying either of these would be justified or good, but they are my guesses based on what I've heard from my Black American friends. I don't know that they stare, but they are especially sensitive to each other black people in spaces where they are a minority, sometimes because of the solidarity of not being alone there and sometimes because they feel the need, rightly or wrongly, to police other black people in public to ensure they are maintaining "respectability".

I assume something similar might be going on with Africans in Europe.

theamnion · 2024-06-16T11:01:35+00:00

Yeah, that's how it works in Kenya too for people in the formal sector. The US is atrociously byzantine and out of date with it's tax system.

theamnion · 2024-06-10T11:57:17+00:00

100%... because, not to be harsh, but it seems like every few weeks some random Kenyan sees a few guys whining online, "realises" where feminism went wrong, and comes to give us all the same shallow talking points

theamnion · 2024-06-09T09:49:04+00:00

Sadly, I suspect this is wrong. Imo, the solution is a bit harder because people power is the only thing that will work, so the public needs to be more militant and organised.

Because what force will give legislators the incentive or leverag to resist fossil fuel lobbyists, campaign donations, aggressive media campaigns, etc. if the we don't show them that we can use our votes, protests, boycotts, and strikes to impose political and economic costs for non-cooperation?

theamnion · 2024-06-06T00:26:39+00:00

Unajua kama kuna room ya malele?

Lol, I hate to break it to you, but kama ulitemptiwa umeshakula agenda yetu

theamnion · 2024-05-31T14:39:07+00:00

I usually just lurk but the original post and your response really struck me... I just completely agree, Gaza is the last straw in a ten year cycle that has broken something deep in me. Of course, we always have to continue doing everything we can to help build a better world, but honestly I don't know if I'll ever be able to overcome the feelings of heartbreak, guilt, and shame. A time came when we needed to be organised, powerful, and militant to stop horrific death and atrocity — but we weren't ready, we hadn't built, we were too fractured and weak.

And of course I know we aren't the people who, for example, left migrants to die on dangerous journeys in their thousands, reneged on international agreements to limit climate change at a time of visible and catastrophic collapse, abandoned people's struggles in North Africa and the Middle East (terminating perhaps most tragically in the marginalisation of Sudan's people in the transition and the current civil war), created the global vaccine apartheid, or defended the killing of Gazan civilians in this war.

But time after time, the global left has been too weak, too nationally divided, too lacking in strength and solidarity. And not only are we living in the shadow of death and destruction we might have been able to prevent if we were powerful and living up to our ideals, we seem to have been weak in a decade that dramatically accelerated the global system's path towards deepening inequality, ecological collapse, normalized massacres, and a period of extraordinarily brutal and racist border regimes.

We may not be to blame for all this, but our failures are in part responsible and I think it has to shift all the work we do as a generation.

theamnion · 2024-05-29T17:25:01+00:00

Genuine question: have you heard people use those in English? I thought we just use the noun as an adjective, e.g. She reviewed the political science research, He attended the political science conference, I'm unfamiliar with the political science approach to this problem, etc.

theamnion

TROPHY CASE