Skiluros

My frame of reference is russia. With all due to respect, US has ways to go before they get to that level.

A relatively minor incident in the bigger scale of things, but it really does give the impression that the US is well on its way to becoming a proto-fascist state.

Agreed. Although I am not even going this far.

I don't understand Huffman's use of the English language (I learned it when I was 4 and I use it for work and media consumption).

Idealism? What idealism? I've worked in several American startups and corps, I have friends who've work in multiple US tech corps and smaller startups. I have no clue how he brought idealism into the picture. And how is idealism related to working hard or not working hard? It's an unrelated concept. If anything, idealism implies you work too hard, instead of going with the flow and putting in effort only when it benefits you. And what's entitlement got to do with any of this?

It honestly sounds like Huffman bringing up random keywords in a borderline word salad "Entitlement! Entitlement is bad, right (it's neither good or bad)? Idealism is impractical! We must work hard!"

"In the Bay Area, broadly, is this — it's almost an entitlement of, 'I work at these companies, but I don't have to work very hard and I'm here for myself,'" he said.

I always found it amusing how the term "entitlement" has been butchered by Americans. It's the only language they know and they keep butchering it with low level polemical theatrics.

How is "I'm here for myself" an entitlement? This is not your family. The goal in any job is to maximize returns, i.e. least amount of work for high financial return (like ... wait for it ... running a business). Sure there are other factors at play too (career growth, not wanting others to have to work more because of you, being genuinely interested in what you are doing and not seeing it as work, not wanting to treat customers like shit), but that's an individual thing. A business isn't automatically entitled to any of that.

For sure, every small bit counts. Power in numbers.

A single person dropping all American spend does nothing. 100 million people cutting down US directed spend by 25% is going to hurt.

The We refers to the rest of the world.

What Trump is saying is irrelevant. Best to not pay for American media. Subscribe to your local streaming companies that offer content in your local language, watch movies and series from other countries. A dollar to America is a dollar to supporting fascism.

And not all of it works on a tax incentive basis. Here in Ukraine the cost differential alone was enough to attract film productions (pre-full scale russian invasion of course).

If sane Americans get their house in order (not Biden or Harris style bullshit, but real anti-corruption programs that decapitate the US oligarchy), then that's another discussion. But that is a big if.

I would argue a more accurate description for the US far right would be proto-fascists. Primarily because they haven't fully rejected open elections and they are still somewhat constrained by US judicial institutions.

Although I expect this will change in the next 24 months.

On some level this is a good thing. Many American movies are low level oligarch propaganda (e.g. The "Tony Stark" character in Iron Man).

We shouldn't be funding what is essentially a proto-fascist state. While there are many sane Americans, they have yet to prove that they have the risk tolerance to fight back effectively. From my experience living in the US, American culture isn't really suited for that kind of thing.

It is clear that Americans (not only Trump, but also Biden, and locals too) fundamentally do not understand how to deal with russians.

I was having a chat with a taxi driver last winter when the electricity blackouts were really bad (I live in Ukraine). I said, we should bomb the heating/electricity generation in Norilsk in the middle of winter.

The driver tells, that's not going to work, if you do bomb russia, it has to be Moscow or at least Saint Petersburg.

To which I answer, "yes, you are right, they don't care what happens outside of Moscow or Saint Petersburg. I am stressed out and not thinking straight."

The vast majority of russians only understand believable threats and violence. You have to show them that you are able and willing to make them feel pain, otherwise they are not going to respect you or behave seriously.

And when you do show them that you are able and willing to make them feel pain, it has to be targeted primarily at their elite (i.e. Moscow and Saint Petersburg).

But since 2014, I've learned that Western elites (and not only elites) reflexively refuse to address reality. Not only Trump/Biden, the Germans with Angela Merkel too. Right after the annexation of Crimea she launched NS2. Hope she gets severe Alzheimer's.

The so far hits so hard because it is true.

I strongly disagree (btw I am not downvoting you). Let me try and explain; I am going to go on a bit of a tangent, but it's all relevant to our discussion.

I am from Ukraine. I have exposure to the local LGBT community and generally I try to stay informed on social and governmental attitudes to LGBT rights in Ukraine.

I interact with queer Ukrainians (not trans Ukrainians though) who don't speak English and aren't exposed to the arguments and polemics inherent to English-language debates on the topic at hand (they have their own interests and priorities that reflect local realities).

My argument is that the discussion around the nature of sex is irrelevant to promoting transphobia. The far right (English-language or otherwise) will find something else to latch on to. I would even go as far as saying that the polemics of transphobia, in say the US, are largely defined by the propaganda strategies used by local oligarchs to maintain their economic power and enable corruption. On a certain level, the only reason why the American far right is even involved in transphobia, is because they are exposed to transphobic propaganda polemics pushed by local criminal/oligarch groupings. This is not unique to the US.

I would also argue that many in the Ukrainian LGBT community are more likely to agree with my interpretation than what you are arguing for (keep in mind that discussions around the extent to which sex is binary is not something that Ukrainian homophobes/transphobes engage in). Economic issues, the role of corruption, russian imperialism are far more important for the local LGBT community in shaping their worldview.

Now while I have exposure to the Ukrainian LGBT community, I don't have any trans friends, so I am less confident about making statements regarding the attitudes of the Ukrainian trans community.

That being said, how do you know that Ukrainian trans folks (e.g. people who don't speak English) completely agree with your interpretation on the interplay of "sex discussions" and transphobia?

Forget Ukraine, what about say Pakistan or India or Uzbekistan?

You claim that I want "purity of ideas" and an easy and neat framework. I could argue the same for you!

You are welcome to disagree with me and say I am wrong in my understanding of the binary nature of sex. It is what is. I am just trying to show you that my worldview has a level of nuance and it's not a mere matter of wanting "neat solutions" while ignoring the weaponization of this discussion by the English-speaking far right.