thedarkfly

Sure! Here's a nice article by Mireille Elchacar, lexicologist and professor at TELUQ university.

The relevant portion:

Le 8 mai 1673, l’Académie française tranche en faveur de l’orthographe savante « qui distingue les gens de Lettres d’avec les Ignorants et les simples femmes ».

My translation:

The 8 of May, 1673, the French Academy decides in favor of a scholarly orthography "which distinguishes literary people from the ignorants and simple women".

Yikes! That's the basis of the "etymologic" or rather pseudo-etymologic orthography of French. The French Academy is still the authority for the French language, a remnant of the Ancient Régime. To my knowledge, they haven't retracted this statement since and to my judgement they still adhere to it by their actions and decisions today.

My views on spelling changed dramatically over time. I am able to spell very well (in French) so I used it for moral superiority.

Then I learned and realized that the French opaque, obtuse spelling system has been openly and admittedly designed for social elitism and discrimination. It's less about intellect and more about education, i.e., privileges and social class. Mastery of a dumb, nonsensical spelling system is no intellectual feat, it's a circus act.

English orthography is also dumb and nonsensical, but I guess this is due to the hybrid nature of the language and the lack of an Academy. But it's also used by elitists for moral superiority, which I find hilarious.

Ooh, whoosh on me. Thanks!

I do it all the time :'( But if it's an important subject or if someone asks for a serious answer, I'm always frank

E: also, isn't Machiavellianism "the ends justify the means"; aren't you thinking of narcissism?

The argument I have seen is that other animals share some needs with humans, but not all. All animals don't have the same social behavior, and so they don't have the same social needs. We know that humans have a perception of reality different from any other animal, like projecting oneself far into the future etc. I think it's not far-fetch that all beings don't share the same physical, psychological, and social needs.

I'd like to emphasize that humans wouldn't have more needs than other animals, just different ones.

So the question is: if the animals' needs are met, could they be happier if we gave them opportunities that satisfy human needs? Or is that projecting a human perception onto another being that's just different?

But the same argument was probably made by white people towards slaves: "they don't have the same needs than us". We know that slaves did have the same needs. Maybe something similar could happen with our perception of animals' needs?

Maybe a gay couple that adopted? One is celebrated on Mothers' day and the other one on Fathers' day.

I guess most races don't finish this close.

Well, you do need a flat surface below the tram. A lawn will dampen more sound and re-emit less heat than concrete or asphalt.

In Belgian French it's 70, and in French² it's 1000

Oh I am very aware and compassionate towards the dire state of mobility in the US. It's just that you were dismissive of biking as if it had inherent insurmontable problems, whereas alternatives to cars are viable but have been suppressed politically.

Second point, it is not realistic to bike 3h one way to go to a far away park. But the question would be: does it make sense to go that far for a single day getaway? Wouldn't it make more sense to have nice spaces in or around cities that people could go for an afternoon, but not expect to have true natural reserves commodified? People should have the right to accessible natural spaces, but the priority of reserves should be the nature, not the people. A massive presence of humans does damage.

Two common strawmen in favor of car dependency.

There are cheap electric bikes out there (at least much cheaper than a car). No need to be an athlete.

Disabled people are among those who suffer the most under car dependency. There should exist public transportation to go to parks for everyone, including disabled people.

I appreciate that they provide explanations and try to do a little bit of education/debunking. Whether the actual debt they want to recover is justified, ethical, or just capitalisy greed is another subject of course.