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Cake day: May 12th, 2020

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  • Nonviolence is an inherently privileged position in the modern context. Besides the fact that the typical pacifist is quite clearly white and middle class, pacifism as an ideology comes from a privileged context. It ignores that violence is already here; that violence is an unavoidable, structurally integral part of the current social hierarchy; and that it is people of color who are most affected by that violence. Pacifism assumes that white people who grew up in the suburbs with all their basic needs met can counsel oppressed people, many of whom are people of color, to suffer patiently under an inconceivably greater violence, until such time as the Great White Father is swayed by the movement’s demands or the pacifists achieve that legendary “critical mass. – How Nonviolence Serves the State




  • Now who can argue with that? I think we’re all indebted to TheFerrango for clearly stating what needed to be said. I’m particulary glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic Star Trek technobabble, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.











  • This is not a trolley problem in that there is sequence involved:

    1: Tuvok and Neelix alive before transport

    2: Tuvok and Neelix dead and a new rational being in their place. This being had a moral blank slate and are thus blameless for the circumstances of creation.

    3: Janeway decides that the speech she gave to the Vidiians was just hot air and that she will kill Tuvix to get the original two back. (Non lethal ways were explored, but quickly abandoned)

    4: The blameless being makes an articulate case for their life, and even addresses the “needs of the many” argument by stating the truth: the other two are gone and the new being is there. (Raw, unalloyed utilitarianism is problematic at best, just ask the people of Omelas Majalis)

    5: The doctor straight up says that the procedure is unethical and refuses to do it.

    6: Janeway does it anyway.

    Calling it a trolley problem is reductive and inaccurate.

    (Edited for typo.)