Agreed - all opinions, popular or not, should be well-argued, especially in the context of a debate. Not only does it help others to understand your perspective, it helps you to better understand yourself and your place in society.

For example, I used to be of the opinion that using “they/them” as personal pronouns was absurd and offensive, but then I tried to explain my position to a friend and realized that my own personal hang-ups about the grammatical ambiguity were far outweighed by the validation it can provide for nonbinary folks. Then I realized that I was, in fact, nonbinary, but that’s a story for another time.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but what they’re saying is true. Unpopular opinions (especially about political matters) always get downvoted.

or to keep if they homeschool (to indoctrinate

I think you’ve got it mixed up. Public school is indoctrination. Homeschooling allows teachers/parents to teach kids how to think, not just regurgitate facts (and opinions masquerading as facts).

And I find it ironic that you blame Republicans for the poor public education in the country when California, one of the bluest states, has some of the worst public education in the country.

It’s not a left vs right thing; it’s a rich vs poor thing.

Edit: My humblest apologies, oh downvoters, for acknowledging reality. Just because you don’t like a fact doesn’t make it any less true.

I don’t like it myself; I wish I could just blame it on Republicans and fight back by voting against them, but it isn’t that simple. Rich people can afford private schools, so they don’t care about public education, or they don’t have kids, so they don’t care about public education, and they have the money/power, so they decide the rules.

Them’s the breaks, I’m afraid.

I don’t think the claim is that it’s deadly; I believe the concern it’s that there’s little to no proven benefits when used topically and at least a few proven detriments when ingested. I haven’t done much reading on the subject, so I’m not sure.

Regardless of the veracity of the aforementioned claims, I believe it’s immoral for a government to add unnecessary chemicals to public water supply.

We truly are in the end times.

I occasionally pre-order games, but only ever through Steam, where I know I can get my money back, no questions asked, if it’s within 2 weeks of release and < 2 hours of play time.

Otherwise, I stay far away from pre-orders.

So true. The only physical media I have for PC is the micro-SD card I have in my Steam Deck.

you usually don’t own your games, you just own a license; they can’t take away a console disk, but they can revoke a digital license

This is partially offset by the fact that most PC games are purchased through Steam, which stands above all other digital storefronts as the most trustworthy and customer-focused. Playstation is certainly no longer trustworthy after the whole Discovery debacle, Xbox is owned by Microsoft, so you know you can’t trust them, and Nintendo has infamously outdated online practices and subpar customer support.

Remember: on the internet, nobody can hear your tone of voice. If you want your dry jokes to land, you’ll likely need to use “/s” to show that you were being sarcastic, otherwise people might think you’re being serious about such an obviously absurd, irrational stance, because there really are people who would believe the things you joked about.

You really can’t deal with being wrong, can you? I feel bad for you. Life must be hard, being unable to admit your own faults and constantly projecting onto others. I bet all your friends secretly hate you, assuming you have any at all.

You know those are intentionality inaccurate summaries, but you just can’t help yourself. Your little obsession with trying to make me look bad is, as you love to condescending say, cute, but I’m over it.

Just please don’t follow me around Lemmy. You were wrong. You made a mistake. Accept it and move on.

Yeah, I started to edit then got distracted. I have a life.

Do you get some satisfaction out of constantly lying? Or are you truly that dense? Either way, I suppose there’s no point in continuing this.

You got more upvotes than me, so I guess that means you win. Your mother must be so proud.

Still not preemptive, though. Do you seriously not understand what the word means? I even gave you an armchair definition in my last comment.

Here, this might help: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/preemptive

EDIT: I think I finally understand. You must’ve forgotten what your original reply said. Here it is:

Its kinda funny to criticize someone for supposed preemptive action by yourself making a preemptive action.

That doesn’t jive with this in your most recent comment:

Because you mislabeled what they did while doing the same thing they did.

I hate to argue semantics - that’s a lie; I actually love it, but I know most people hate it - but while the latter quote is correct in the context of my misguided li’l protest (I mislabeled a simple reaction as preemptive, then I made a simple reaction), it’s an incorrect explanation of the “humorous observation” - that I mislabeled a simple reaction as preemptive, then I made a preemptive action.

I understand that appearing intelligent is probably very important to you, so you really should make more of an effort to reread your posts when somebody calls out a mistake you’ve made, rather than dig your heels in.

Learning from our mistakes is how we grow.

You keep putting words in my mouth. Is it a fetish thing? I don’t wanna kink shame, but I did ask you to stop a few comments ago.

Since you seem to have a need to paint someone as the “bad guy” in this conversation, why don’t I help? It’s you. You’re the bad guy. You repeatedly, blatantly attribute false quotes to me, then use those false premises to try to win an argument that you started. There are only so many “putting words in my mouth” and “extra straw” jokes I can make, so I’m done.

Congratulations! You win by default. Go tell all your friends and neighbors that you beat back the evil forces of nuance and mutual understanding with nothing but a battalion of straw men.

Yeah, and if you look further down, you’ll see I was ignorant of that until another commenter informed me, then I changed my tune accordingly.

Regardless, there was nothing preemptive on my end. “Preemptive” means taking preventive action in anticipation of something possible in the future. I was reactive; I saw the content removal as morally wrong, and reacted with a small personal protest (which, granted, I didn’t edit out of my original comment, but have since rescinded). Nothing preemptive about it.

Semantics are fun!

I never said anything about rights. Again you’re putting words in my mouth. Gross. Stay out of my mouth.

Of course people have the right to choose not to work with him. What I’m saying is that it’s morally wrong to force him out of his own show because he used to be a horny, creepy jerk. He’s (probably) learned his lesson and nobody else will be “victimized” by him, so all forcing him out does is harm the show and him. Nobody benefits.

And I don’t think I’ll ever understand you people who live in this weird dimension where everything is an extreme and nuance doesn’t exist.

But hey, in the spirit of cooperation, I’ll gladly share the extra straw I have out back, 'cause it seems you enjoy building strawmen.

Doesn’t apply to this situation, but I guess I get how that could be mildly humorous.

Roiland isn’t a great person, but great artists rarely are. All charges were dropped, so all he’s guilty of is being a horny creep, like most men of his generation.

I personally wouldn’t do anything like that now, but I definitely would have in my cringey youth. People learn and grow. I’m not him, so I can’t say with certainty, but I’m pretty sure he won’t do or say anything like that again. How does canceling him now benefit anyone?

So he’s an asshole. That’s pretty on-brand for him. Doesn’t make him guilty or deserving of getting hit with the cancel stick.

Okay, yeah, that’s pretty bad. Thanks for expanding my understanding. I’d never actually heard any of these names other than Sea of Stars before this post, so I came in pretty blind.

Honestly, I was more airing my frustration with what seemed at first glance like a very similar situation to the whole Justin Roiland thing from earlier this year. He got kicked off his own shows based on what turned out to be false allegations, and never got so much as a public apology.

I’ll still wait to pass judgement until more is known, but I at least see that the content removal wasn’t purely done out of fear of public response.