schnurrito

My first language is German and this was one of the first lessons we ever got in English: how to form questions and that you need to use the verb "do" to do that.

And then we later had to learn the exceptions like "be" and "can" because "do you be stupid?" and "do you can swim?" are definitely not valid English.

The technical term you're looking for is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-support

English is somewhat weird in how to form questions and negations, most other languages don't do this kind of thing.

not as a full sentence, certainly as a subclause: "can you tell me what it means?"

I agree with you substantially.

But just very recently there was a story in Germany where a male elementary school teacher revealed that he was gay. Many of his students were Muslims who were taught to hate gay people and now refused to respect him in various ways (including refusing to go to his classes).

Who is the "oppressed group" here?

It can be argued that it's racist because "civilized" means "western" or "western-influenced", i.e. contrasts countries in Europe + North America + Australia + maybe some of Eastern Asia with countries in Africa or Southern Asia.

You are very close to figuring out some of the problems with "social justice" ideology.

Standing up for all "oppressed groups" is contradictory. For example, in western countries, LGBT people are an oppressed group, and so are Muslims, yet when the latter are in power, they treat the former very badly, so which side do you stand up for? Or try these: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/erbe/2008/11/07/blacks-are-more-socially-conservative-than-barack-obama https://news.gallup.com/poll/112807/blacks-conservative-republicans-some-moral-issues.aspx

It also doesn't help in conflicts such as Israel/Palestine (are Palestinians oppressed by Israel, so we stand up for them? are Israelis oppressed by the Muslim world, so we stand up for Israel?) or trans activists vs. trans-exclusionary feminists (are trans people an oppressed group whose rights we support? are women an oppressed group whose identity is being appropriated by trans women?). You can see it's possible to argue nearly everything from the premise that we stand up for "oppressed groups".

So I suggest people stop thinking in these terms at all and instead pick some other way of thinking, such as supporting a society in which anyone is allowed to live their life as long as they aren't harming anyone else. Not saying this helps in the specific (somewhat silly) argument you are quoting.

What you describe isn't software getting acquired, it's a website getting acquired.

Polyjuice potion is certainly scary but also kinda cool because it allows people to know what it feels like to have the other kinds of genitals (maybe sex drive too).

there is also !demicrosoft@programming.dev

at least actually post it to !unexpectedfactorial@sopuli.xyz if you leave a comment like that...

A great game of telephone inflated the number until, in 1984, the New York Times published an editorial claiming the Inuit have “100 synonyms” for the frozen white stuff we lump under a single term.

I (native speaker of German) have heard jokes that among the Inuit they claim that in German there are 100 words to complain about snow.

works for me

the main thing I want my instance to defederate from is spambot farms, defederating because of political moderation policies is censorship and not moderation