It’s okay not to know. English is spoken in a lot of different places in different ways. I doubt that in your 40 years you’ve explored this.

Google Trends shows that it’s most popular in Malaysia and the Philippines, relative to its use in other countries.

Autumn’s beautiful though. It’s just that shorter days and the reason can make it a bit depressing.

Taiwan is a full democracy, not a flawed one. At least according to the widely respected Economist Democracy Index.

Taiwan is more democratic than Canada and Germany. And a lot more than the US, but that’s not surprising.

I feel the same way. She is also way too well known for any expert to be fooled into thinking it’s going to be a serious interview

European here.

Have never shot anyone. Not owning a gun means that I’ll probably continue not shooting people. It’s a very effective method.

people without any guns

A mob stormed and airports in Russia. Americans may see Europe as an exotic place, but mobs storming airports is pretty rare here.

So are mass shootings. While they happen, they’re very rare.

I wrote this on Reddit to argue against someone who suggested that Israel’s response is justified, given that Hamas won an election. Here’s what I responded:

There are several significant issues with your reasoning:

1. Voting has never implied being responsible for the crimes of your government.
2. There have not been elections since 2006. The Gaza Strip does not have a democratic system. This further challenges the argument that the population should pay some kind of price.
3. Hamas won the elections by taking 74 of the 132 seats in parliament. This means that 60 seats were for non-hamas participants of these elections. Consequently, many people who are trapped in Gaza and want nothing to do with Hamas are being punished/killed.
4. About 50% of the Gaza population is under 15 years of age. Attacking Gaza in this way should never have been on the table given these demographics.

In other words, the average voting age isn’t too relevant.

Shared first 🥇 with real meat products.

Still rocking a higher life expectancy though, vegans got that going for them.

The Gaza civilians voted Hamas into power.

Still civilians though. And, not all of them did. All in all it’s madness to equate the entire Gaza population with the perpetrators the way that Israel is currently doing.

To be fair, extremism flourishes when conditions are bad. Hamas is potentially a product of these conditions, or at least partially. If both peoples would be afforded better conditions, they might seem less incompatible than the two groups seem at the moment.

About time the Palestian issue is put back on the agenda. Strangely enough, Israel is doing everything they can it seems to make that happen.

It’s not that far fetched. It works the other way around as well.

Israel has much more freedom to do what it pleases in terms of its illegal settlements if the other side appears violent and unreasonable. Occupying Gaza creates a breeding ground for extremists, but could be considered an acceptable status quo for Israel as it’s impossible to find broad support for Palestine if it’s associated with extremists.

I just can’t fathom how it wouldn’t also have helped Hamas’ cause by forbidding any form of sexual violence.

It would have helped their cause if it had been possible to draw comparisons between them and Israel: both kill lots of civilians. But the reports of rape and other sexual violence just makes it impossible to feel anything but disgust.

I think there are few things on the other side of the spectrum that you might have missed.

*Mumbles sometimes about books in the US*

Let’s be clear that this is Hamas though, it’s not correct to say that it’s Palestine, regardless if the actions of Hamas are supported more broadly.

This is the point of the fediverse.

But users expressing their opinion about the policies of the Lemmy servers they use is part of that

Yea, screw this kind of stuff.

Most people on here will know vegetarians or in some cases be one. It’s a respectable choice that takes a lot of willpower and energy. People who make fun of that aren’t my crowd. Mostly because it’s a dick thing to do.