Makes me think how PS2 had export restrictions because “its graphics chip is sufficiently powerful to control missiles equipped with terrain reading navigation systems”

Your friend wants to spoom you

democracy-like privileges

I mean it’s not like we haven’t fought for those. Can’t expect someone to just give you these privileges. But more to the point, when I think of democracy it’s all those things that make up the whole. Citizen participation, citizen ability to affect things, free and fair elections, freedom of the press and so on. And I don’t mean those as absolute terms yes/no but rather as sliders that you’d use to gauge not if a country was straight up democratic or not but rather how democratic/how not democratic it is. And I’d say Finland is far enough into the democratic side that I’d say we do have democracy here.

But tell me this… how many of the corporations Finnish people work for is democratically run?

I mean a very significant chunk of workforce and economy works through cooperatives. And those have elections. Our biggest chain of shops is a cooperative, one of the biggest banks is also, there’s energy and forestry and so on. Out of 5,5 million people over 4 million are members of a cooperative. So not sure how many that’s numerically out of all corporations but when you consider the size and impact of them, it’s a big portion. Of course there’s the factor that we’re also heavily unionized and unions have both a very strong foothold and legal status. And those have elections ofc. But it’s different from cooperatives where you vote for stuff, if that’s what you were asking about.

It’s all just the sort of stuff I’d say made up democracy. Saying there’s nothing democratic about Finland just feels weird and wrong. If we have nothing democratic, who does??

Yes, the actual news is the opposite of what the title made me think

I wasn’t really commenting on why they are “at odds”, just that since they are, some go USA bad -> Iran good.

No shit but this particular bigotry is happening in name of and (according to them) in accordance of Islam, in an Islamic theocracy.

It’d be like claiming some antiabortion Christian sentiments had nothing to do with Christianity. Especially hard to claim such when those sentiments are mainstream or aren’t that far off.

I’ve seen some play defense for Iran but I think it comes solely from the fact that Iran is at odds with the US. Some are very black and white like that.

With Iran (and Afghanistan) being specifically an Islamic theocracy it can be a bit hard to separate the religion from this equation. Though why the other person decided to bring up Palestine, that’s more of mystery to me.

It’s a really weird situation they have with that

Since the 1979 Revolution, the legal code has been based on Islamic law. Despite allowing sex reassignment surgery, homosexuality in Iran remains a crime punishable by death.[2][3][4][14][15] In Iran, this framework is occasionally viewed as a means to “correct” individuals who may otherwise express same-sex desires, offering an option to conform to heteronormative standards

So being gay is punishable by death, but it’s fine if you go through gender reassignment surgery since that makes you a woman. With their attitude against gays you’d think they’d have similar attitude against sex change but I guess not.

I mean I’ve voted for a candidates in municipal, health care area, parliamentary and European Parliament elections. Hell, even in church elections. I’ve had friends as candidates, seen stuff get through from a single person’s suggestion through to reality through what I’d call democratic means and action, I’ve worked with different campaigns and parties and have seen change happen through that.

If that doesn’t count as democratic then not sure what you consider democratic tbh because that’s the stuff I think of when I think of democracy.

Is the new information clashing with your programming?

It just seems to clash with the common definition of the word, is all. If democracy isn’t that sort of stuff then I wonder what it is and where you might find it, if anywhere.

Not sure if congratulating women or insulting them. Yikes either way for gender based insults. Do better.

“Boomer” seems to hardly refer to anything anymore tbh.

“Those gosh darn kids boomers!”

The studies don’t actually show what you hoping that they show, that is that your run-of-the-mill person was better at knowing what issues they have. If doctor after doctor keeps telling you your issue isn’t what you think it is, you might want to consider their words. That’s all.

Tell me again about how this hurt your feelings and what a mean lady I am for doing it.

I’ve just been taught that assuming someone’s gender, skin colour and stuff like that is pretty yikes. I don’t mind rude though.

Your whole argument relies on that a medical professionals, plurar, would be more likely to be incorrect about a medical situation than a random hypothetical person based on how the person feels.

If based on that I guessed you would be a woman of course most of the time I’d be right. But voicing such assumptions and going off on that seems like it’d be rude and detrimental to the conversation.

It’s not great to assume stuff just because someone holds a different view. It’d be like me assuming you are a woman for being emotional and illogical. Not great and can be viewed as insulting, even when you feel it’s an informed and fair guess.

It’s just better to keep to the facts known and not argue with your assumptions.

So-called “liberal democracy” works pretty much the exact same way it does in Europe (or anywhere else) as it does in the US.

Lol no. Much of Europe ranks much higher in all sort of democracy, press freedom etc indexes. Not all liberal democracies are created equal.

You think it’s hard to access healthcare where I live? Why…?

You’re making awfully lot of assumptions about other people ngl. Assuming their country is less weird but gender, sexuality, all that gets pretty weird.

Well obviously the comic has that as the point, even though very similar situations have people who have tried to help but have been brushed off

In the real life discussions I never have or heard about the prior times as trying to give advice either