I guess because people still use it. It might be obvious, but it isn’t common knowledge. All people are ignorant about most things. There’s just too much to know and not enough time to learn it unless you’re forced.

I don’t think it’s just Americans that put the year at the end.

Obesity itself is probably too vague and non specific to be usefully called a disease. The basic measurement for obesity, BMI, would classify bodybuilders or strengthen based athletes as obese. Bodybuilders and strong people can often be unhealthy, but it’s not quite the same as someone with high body fat.

Even then, people who are obese because of high body fat might have their lives shortened through multiple mechanisms. It could be heart disease that kills them, skeletal problems due to weight, immune issues, digestive issues, practically every organ can be affected. Any or all of these things could occur in a chronically obese person, so even if pathologized, obesity is less useful as a diagnosis.

Excess weight is bad, but you can calculate weight/height without a doctor. Focusing on better nutrition, eating habits, and exercise is the solution, even if you’re young and have a high metabolism. That sugar in our food needs to be taxed or regulated, as economic incentives drive obesity rather than people being uniquely stupid or culturally degenerate.

That’s honestly kind of insulting to say that, and it shows a lack of awareness on your own part. You’re making one hell of an assumption that people aren’t informed and that they’re making a diagnosis without putting any thought behind it.

I’m not out of line in thinking that people can’t diagnose Joe Biden of being mentally unfit. People couldn’t definitively diagnose Trump with narcissistic personality disorder, and he didn’t have a known disorder that could interfere in a diagnosis. Biden has a well documented stutter, making it hard for any observer to parse his communication disorder from cognitive impairment.

People who are informed would recognize this, and even those willing to diagnose politicians from TV appearances would need solid examples of abnormal behavior that could only be explained by cognitive impairment. I don’t take armchair diagnosis seriously because I have some expertise in psychology. People want a reason to have someone other than Biden, so they assume mental disability can be determined by the public. I don’t think we can with the info available. Gut feelings will just reinforce your biases.

I get the physical part of Biden being unfit, but not the mental part. I’ve not seen any evidence of his age making him less intelligent or mentally. He’s not physically well, but whenever someone says he’s senile, I automatically assume they don’t know what they’re talking about. “Senile” is not synonymous with “out of touch.”

With the recall, concern wasn’t just coming from some rando or only Democratic partisans. I heard it from respected political scientists. They thought Newsom was likely to win, but there was still great risk of a Republican governor getting elected without popular support. It’s how Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican, managed to get elected. The Governator never could have won a Republican primary, and didn’t even win the popular vote. If it weren’t for serious campaigning in the last few months, the recall could have been close.

Newsom always had majority approval, but the concern about the recall came because people were only lukewarm on him. He isn’t an exciting candidate, which is what the left claims to want. Like I said before, Biden seems more genuine about his morals and principles than Newsom. Newsom is more of what the left hates than Biden.

Newsom hate isn’t new. There was genuine worry he was going to lose his recall election, replaced by a radical Republican with a plurality of support from only those that voted for his removal. Left wing Democrats who were critical of Newsom united and organized to prevent a fascist rising to power. We put aside our gripes with corpocrats to prevent someone even worse from winning.

California is guaranteed for the Democrats in the modern era, so we usually sit on the sidelines of the fight for the presidency and hope other states make the right call. However, the recall race showed that we were also willing to hold our nose and vote for the lesser of two evils.

That’s part of why I get so frustrated by the anti voting shit. Biden is more of a genuine human being than Newsom, yet people fall for accelerationist propaganda. They delude themselves into thinking that not voting will strengthen the left when the opposite is true. The unreliability of young, left wing voters reinforces the establishment bias of not appealing to them. If they won’t even turn out for Bernie in the 2020 primary, why rely on them?

As a Cali native, Newsom would be worse than Biden. If he ran in a Democratic primary, he might lose California because Democrats here don’t like him that much. If the primary was between him and Biden, I would vote for Biden because he’s less elitist and has a better moral compass. Newsom honestly doesn’t seem to have serious principles beyond political success. He’s a distilled version of what people hate about Democrats.

America isn’t that free of a country. Democrats were always going to run their incumbent. The time to choose a left wing candidate was the 2020 primary, which is why I was devastated when Biden won. I knew we would be stuck with him for 8 fucking years. The left didn’t turn out enough in that primary, and the establishment went with one of the worst choices.

The fact that there isn’t some popular Democratic alternative at this point means it will not happen. Biden has been the most left wing president in over half a century, and none of his shitty decisions have been due to his age. Organize with the DSA or promote left wing Democrats if you’re fed up with the establishment. Recognize that becoming cynically apathetic makes you a pathetic asshole, not a person who’s better than those that try.

Zionism has always had multiple different meanings, so this isn’t a new phenomenon. Humans made up every word in existence. There is no single definition for any word and there is no universal dictionary handed down by some higher power. We make up everything and write the rules ourselves. Pretending that isn’t how language works on a fundamental level is simply wrong.

If they did care and tried to improve it, they’d ruin it.

Linux users are the homeowners who build and fix everything they can, but look down on people that don’t find craftsmanship fun, claiming that they’re saving money by doing the work themselves. Good on you for having that hobby, but if you don’t enjoy it, spending time to learn those skills costs time that could be spent earning more money than you’d save. Paying an expert to do things you don’t enjoy is usually the cheaper option. They can be found almost anywhere, similar to how Linux users use Apple or windows products from time to time.

Mac users are suburb dwellers who view their way of life as what everyone should aspire to, ignorant to the downsides of sprawl and reliance on cars to go anywhere. Commute times suck, while walkable neighborhoods with public transit make most people healthier and happier. There’s an important classist component, often bundled with racism, that underscores this ideal.

Windows users are people that live in urban areas for work, trying to find reasonable rent or home prices as unchecked capitalism makes everything worse, but unaware why things suck. They get annoyed when people share their passion for handiwork, and dislike suburban folks for thinking they’re superior rather than the downsides to suburban life. However, because most people live this way, and live this way for work, they usually don’t have strong identities like suburbanites or handy homeowners.

Homeless people are those who can’t afford computers, overlapping with actual homeless people, and rural people are those that don’t use computers more than they need to, socializing face to face and literally touching grass.

No. It’d be very difficult to actually have humans go extinct. Bad things will happen, but extinction would require a Children of Men level situation.

I don’t care what God will do to him; I just want to get these awful people out of power so they’ll stop killing children. God making things right in the afterlife isn’t a universally agreed upon truth, so we must do the right thing regardless of its existence. If God is good, surely he’d want us to make our mortal existence less miserable and more meaningful, right?

Hundreds of micro votes a year? I think people should be ABLE to directly vote for things, but most legislation is better handled by representatives. I’m interested in politics and even I wouldn’t be happy voting directly on every policy. That’s way too much stuff to be informed on.

As a person Republicans literally plan to persecute for existing, fuck you. You’re either a person who’s safe from the consequences of fascism, or an idiot who thinks they can avoid them. I can only hope you’re in a solid blue state.

The public also doesn’t understand the nature of op-eds apparently.

Like I said elsewhere, the 2020 Democratic Primary was the time to pick that person, but none of the candidates back then fit the bill. Bernie was old and not the most dynamic (for arguably good reasons). Warren was a bit less old, but didn’t excel in the other categories. Buttigieg and Klobuchar were the younger picks, but were lame in the other categories. Yang turned out to be the grifter many feared he was, and Bloomberg was comically terrible in every respect. Buttigieg would be the best pick out of the right wing Democrats over Biden, but the left wing democrats didn’t come out with enough force to overrule the right wingers who would go with the short term, “safe,” pick. If they were smarter, they wouldn’t be conservative Democrats.

The incumbent almost always runs for a second term in America. As long as Biden is breathing, he was always going to be the Democratic candidate in 2024. Even if a perfect candidate existed, they wouldn’t have as good a chance as Biden as an incumbent. The shit about him being senile is what’s actually old. Biden’s shittynesss had very little to do with his age. He’s lame on his own terms, which honestly makes it worse in my view. If Biden was somehow 40 years younger, he wouldn’t be better as president.

I mean, they did sign the Oslo accords and recognized the PLO as the official representatives of Palestinians.

and people told MLK Jr. similar things when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. Activists fundamentally fight for justice, and as King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” It might make sense in the short term to look the other way and conform, but when something so terrible happens due to actions from a western ally, it’s good in the long term to have principles.

Not really. Israel has attacked and undermined the PLO for decades, almost more than Hamas. It’s the situation of Israel stepping on the throats of all Palestinians, even those who want to work towards peace. The two state solution requires Israel’s support, and when they don’t give it, those attempting to make it happen on the Palestinian side look like fools. Israel has the power to allow for peace, but they make it near impossible.

Palestinians can’t make a two state solution happen without the cooperation of the other state. That’s what two state means.