1. not all of us live in countries that have any political influence over Israel, only the US holds their leash, and protesting anywhere else can't really affect that clusterfuck

2. plenty of awful shit is still going on around the world that needs to be fought, and that doesn't change just because a worse thing is going on in a very specific part of the world. Climate change, for example, is still happening, still an existential threat to all of humanity, and still needs public protesting to do something about.

Which, living in a country that can't help Palestine in any diplomatic way, gets a bit annoying when people are regularly protesting about that (and before that, the invasion of Ukraine), while a huge percentage of our country's electricity still comes from burning fucking coal, we still export large amount of it to the global market, our CO2 emissions per capita manage to be some of the highest in the world, and protests about that could actually do some tangible good, but are a blip in the ocean compared to foreign wars of late. I get the anger at the injustices going on right now, but it's not anger that can get anything done here

I’m not religious in the slightest and I barely see myself as part of the Jewish nation - but I do, just barely. It is unfortunately true that anti-semitism is alive and well, and will be for the foreseeable future. Even if I don’t view myself as Jewish, some anti-semites will, and we all know where that could lead. So Israel is the only country in the world where we can know for a fact that the government (police) will protect us from anti-semitism, not to mention won’t take part in it.

Which is the chicken-and-egg problem of ethno/theostates, isn't it? If most/all of a group are isolated to one geographical location, and largely absent from the rest of the world, it becomes easier for hate to spread in that rest of the world, because nobody there has lived experience, can have that moment of "but I know Elsa/Ahmed/Luna/whoever, and they're decent person" to challenge propaganda when they hear it (and anyone who's a minority where they live has at least one story of being the cause of such a realisation). But if you're a group that lives in those little geographical pockets, it becomes that much harder to move out, because you give up your support network and move into an area of potentially hostile people.

And of course, bigots know about this and weaponise it. Speaking as a trans person and noticing the current wave of vile legislation against us in the shit parts of the US, it sure as hell feels like the objective there is to force anyone who can leave to do so, and punish those who can't, specifically to prevent a sufficient mass of trans people building up that those same deradicalising experiences can happen (hence why the use of a stereotypical trans name in above example). But in a way it's both better and worse for us, because we aren't just born into certain bloodlines or cultures, we emerge almost everywhere, so and have to fight to make the whole world queer-friendly, rather than just being able to set up somewhere in a small pocket and let the whole world slowly become most hostile to us in response.

Okay, but why should it be acceptable to induct a child into a religion from the moment of birth, spend their formative years being taught a belief system that they have no ability to think critically about, while isolating them from alternative systems of belief? Why shouldn't it be the norm to raise your children on the idea of all religious beliefs or lack thereof being equally valid and plausible, that we can't prove one or another definitively true so it becomes a matter of "what do you chose to have blind faith in?", and let them decide as an adult?

Your inner dog tells you that you have contracted the PathOwOgen and will soon be a furry

I mean, even assuming that business degrees aren't a waste of money and time, learning things you would pick up working in the corporate world anyway, while not learning any creative or practical skills...

Humanities still make better general-purpose degrees because they actually teach you things like critical thinking, questioning your sources and their biases, self-examination, etc. Things that society needs now more than ever. From my experience of friends with philosophy degrees, the world would be a vastly better place if even 1 in 20 people had one.

brb, going to grab a minor in philosophy so I can make fun of them for being ultimately useless to greater humanity and incapable of morality, ethics or self-reflection

(every business major I know easily fulfills both criteria)

Speaking as an Australian:

I also feel like you need mandatory voting (with enforcement), like what we have. That reframes elections from "riling up your power base so they go out and vote" to "hey average voter, here's why you should vote for me and how things will improve if you do so".

Every time you repost this meme, a philosopher weeps

Until the fetus can survive outside the womb, it's not a person, it's a part of the person carrying it. And nobody should be allowed to dictate what a person can and can't do to themself, but themselves.

Total Bodily Autonomy, motherfucker.

Even if you miss, the shockwaves the bullet makes will kill every fish in the barrel anyway. The Mythbusters tested it.

Once again we see the abled throwing tantrums over the idea of having to suffer a mild discomfort so as to protect the lives of the disabled, especially the immunocompromised.

I have an aunt whose immune system has to be medicated into nonexistence at all times so it doesn't wreck her body, and she is still fucked up from covid, months after "getting over" it and with multiple vaccine shots beforehand. How many people have you killed or left permanently ill, and never realised, in your selfish ignorance?

If there were any divine justice in this world, idiots like you would be smote with horrible autoimmune diseases or total organ failure, forced to go on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your lives, and live with the same fear you force on others, the fear that any "harmless" disease could be the death of you.

Trans? Tick

Programmer? Tick

Furry? That depends on your definition, does wanting to be a giant snake from the waist down but basically human with some cosmetic additions above the waist make me a furry? (or more specifically a scaly?)