@ArbitraryValue - eviltoast
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • A house can’t literally be branded, so the use of “brand” in that context must be metaphorical. People, however, can and historically often have been branded quite literally.

    As for othering: it is irrelevant to the point I was making, so your reference to it here is a good example of how people make a false and inflammatory statement, and then when challenged about it, those people retreat to a much weaker, uncontroversial claim. Meanwhile the public has seen the original, false, and inflammatory statement but not the challenge or the retreat.

    No one would care if the headline said “Israelis see Palestinians as fundamentally different from themselves” or even “Israelis sometimes don’t treat Palestinian prisoners with respect.” However, what the headline does say is that Israelis physically mutilate Palestinian prisoners. Here in the comments you make a pitiful argument that the claim of physical mutilation is in fact just a metaphor, although even then you try to sneak in a comparison between Jews and Nazis. Jews aren’t tattooing anything on anyone, but apparently they still have less decency than Nazis according to you.








  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.workstoComic Strips@lemmy.worldConrroversial
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    That’s true in a trivial sense: there’s no law of nature that enforces verisimilitude in any work of fiction. However, most authors aim for verisimilitude, and the good ones achieve it. I’m not talking about the top speeds of balrogs because I think there’s some objective answer, but rather because I think that Tolkein does achieve verisimilitude (at least in some regards) and therefore there is a foundation for discussing the traits of his fictional beings. He easily could have given balrogs rocket skates, but he didn’t.


  • societies have utilized shame in order to shun unwanted or undesirable opinions forever

    Using shame isn’t new. Using shame in this particular way at this particular time appears to be a poor strategy. It’s deliberately divisive and conservative reactionaries aren’t the only ones who are motivated to vote against it. By now many people who call themselves liberal and have a history of reliably voting for Democrats oppose it too. I think Nate Silver does a good job of expressing why in the context of Israel, although he’s looking at a much bigger picture. Most of these people are still voting for Democrats, because Harris is a centrist and Trump is, well, Trump. It’s still not helping.

    Lemmy is a place where it often seems like leftist views are almost universal among Democrats, but Lemmy is not representative of the large majority of Democratic voters. I don’t think most Harris voters (as opposed to just the vocal Democrats online) despise Republicans.


  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.workstoComic Strips@lemmy.worldConrroversial
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    The balrog in Moria was chasing the fellowship. If it could move at 400 mph (by any means) then it would have caught them immediately. We know that some balrogs are weaker than others since it is said that Gothmog was the mightiest. My conclusion is that if the balrogs literally flew by mundane means to Melkor’s aid, then the balrog in Moria was particularly weak (and cowardly) and did not participate in rescuing Melkor. I presume that’s also why it hid deep underground for so long rather than fighting and being banished along with the other balrogs.

    With that said, I think Melkor summoned the balrogs to himself by magical means (but they can’t teleport on their own). None of them could go 400 mph. That’s just silly. They’re not Sonic the Hedgehog. I also think that balrogs can’t fly. The word “wings” is a metaphor for the way flames spread from them.

    (I don’t claim that the text rules out the possibility of wings and flight. The balrog might have fallen with Gandalf because they fought a metaphysical battle, dragged down by the “weight of its sin”.)

    Edit: I think we actually agree. I’m just elaborating.

    Edit 2: I found a picture that shows what I think a balrog’s “wings” look like.






  • This law was already not being enforced. Only 463 people actually got in trouble for breaking it in 2023, so the odds of being punished for jaywalking that year were about the same as the odds of being murdered.

    I do wonder what effect repealing the law will have on civil suits. If a driver hits a pedestrian, are there now new situations in which the driver is liable? The article says

    People may also still be liable in civil actions for accidents caused by jaywalking

    but that’s quite vague.