A lot of these culture wars are just the same age-old generation-gap “Ah, kids these days...” conflicts. The difference is, everyone has a Twitter platform to vent their recreational outrage.
There are bigger battles to fight than getting triggered over “individuals with a cervix.” Who cares? Trans men have cervices, and millions of women who’ve had hysterectomies don’t. What difference does it really make to your life if...
...your children are destined for a future that makes a distinction between biological sex (natal male, natal female) and gender identity (man, woman, boy, girl)?
Of course biological sex is real. You wouldn’t need terms like cis or trans if it wasn’t. You wouldn’t have...
...hormonal treatments or transition surgery if it wasn’t. It’s crazy to deny this.
But it’s also overblown to obsess over “individuals with a cervix,” which is MORE scientifically accurate re: Pap tests than “women” (millions of whom don’t have cervices) or even “females.”
It’s an anatomical feature you are acknowledging, not a lived experience you are “erasing.”
Also, please stop getting triggered by collective pronouns like “they” for individuals. It’s already common to use "they" as an alternative to “he/she” — and THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE:
Back in the day, “thou” was for the individual and “you” for the collective. When people started using “you” for the collective and phasing “thou” out, guess who got triggered by it?
Yes, the stuffy, curmudgeonly religious folk, with their age-old “You are altering the language of God!” bullshit. Don’t be like them. “Thou” is long gone, and no one really gives a shit.
I’m an old man, so I’ll probably keep saying “women” for cervix-possessing individuals most of the time out of habit. But I’m not going to get my old granny panties all up in a bunch because of scientifically accurate language that is...
...inclusive of trans men and millions of post-hysterectomy natal females.
Choose your battles, Karens and Kens.
/end
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What does Hamas want, aside from its long-stated goal of eradicating Israel as a Jewish state from the map?
Let’s break it down:
(THREAD) ➡️
> Conduct an attack so heinous that it will embed tribal hate in its victims for generations. Check.
> Provoke a tremendous overreaction from Israel that kills tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, advancing Hamas's aims of eclipsing any sympathy Israel temporarily gained for the worst terrorist attack in its history. Check.
> Knowing it doesn't have the military strength to achieve its goals, leveraging Israel's military strength against Palestinians to make the Palestinian cause the world's focus, painting Israel as a pariah, and weaponizing the world's empathy against its enemy. Check.
> Ensuring an endless supply of future recruits, devastated, angered, and rendered hopeless by the bombing and killing of their children and parents. Check.
When forming your opinion about the Israel-Palestine issue, ask yourself:
Do I want justice, or do I want peace?
If you seek full justice, you will never achieve peace.
But if you are seeking peace, you can get at least some justice.
[THREAD]
For tribal conflicts dating back decades, if not centuries, justice is impossible. Every new tragedy and every atrocity is the effect of / response to / result of a prior cause—and each of these causes is the effect of another cause preceding 𝘪𝘵.
The never-ending series of “They started it!” spans so much time into the past, there is really no way to make any actionable sense of it today. All the lives lost, hearts broken, souls destroyed—they aren’t coming back. What price could you put on them to make it feel like true justice?
➡️ Hamas is more loyal to the Iran’s mullah leadership than it is to its own Palestinian people. It is a despicable group that fires rockets from its own hospitals and schools to get Israel to bomb them so it can exploit dead Palestinian children to get the world’s sympathy. Hamas is no more loyal to the Palestinian people than the Islamic Republic of Iran is to the Iranian people.
➡️ Egypt controls the southern border of Gaza. There are two million people trapped in Gaza, and they’re partly trapped there because of Egypt, the largest Arab country in the world. The blockade of the Gaza Strip is cooperatively maintained both by Israel and Egypt. Whenever Gazans have been bombed by Netanyahu’s Israel and wanted to escape across their southern border, Egypt has said no. If all the “pro-Palestinian” activists celebrating Hamas truly cared about the Palestinian people, they would also have an accountability campaign for Egypt.
The question isn't 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 Andrew Tate @Cobratate is exploiting Islam to grow his Muslim fanbase, but 𝘸𝘩𝘺 he finds Islam so compelling in the first place.
Let’s dive in.
Thread ⬇️
Look at verse 4:24 in the Quran. It starts as follows, and the consensus on translation is pretty much universal:
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"And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you." [Pickthall]
2
Two more translations:
"And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess." [Sahih International]
"Also (forbidden are) women already married, except those (captives and slaves) whom your right hands possess.” [Mohsin Khan]
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In a break from most of my friends, I’m a big admirer of Elon Musk. I think he is the Edison (Tesla?) of our times.
Unlike billionaires like Warren Buffett, who made their fortunes by investing in other people’s ideas, Elon has made his by pursuing innovative,
/1
difficult challenges that required lots of risk and very few people thought were realistic pursuits. If it were just about the money, he could easily have gone the Buffett route after selling PayPal, or any of the other easy routes. So I don’t think it’s as easy as the
/2
“all billionaires are evil” meme.
Elon Musk is turning a long-dreamed-of progressive agenda into actual reality.
Electric vehicles. Exploring space and other worlds humanity could possibly live on. Building tunnels to solve traffic problems. A renewable energy project that
/3
Ah, Woody Allen again. It's tragic all around if you want to believe the victims. Dylan Farrow claiming abuse by Allen. Moses Farrow and Soon-Yi claiming years of abuse by Mia Farrow.
This isn't about believing victims—it's about choosing *which* victims to believe.
Are some /1
alleged victims more credible than others? I don't think any are lying—I think they're all sincere about what they believe.
When you watch the HBO doc, you believe Woody's guilty—for all his artistic genius, the guy's creepy. But when you read Moses Farrow's and Soon-Yi's /2
articles and interviews, you believe Mia Farrow was the abuser. All of the people in this tragic saga have been interviewed only by advocates of their side. There has never been any "cross examination" of either Woody Allen or Mia Farrow.