absentbird

It's not meaningless, it's about who controls a thing. What makes you think ownership must not have conditions?

I don't think taxes negate ownership.

If you rent you need permission for every modification, every pet, even for something like planting a garden.

Ownership can be conditional; you can own a domain, but if you don't pay the renewal fee it can be taken away; you can own a car, but if you drive it without paying your registration it can be impounded; you can own a business, but if you don't pay your license renewal it can be revoked.

Owning something doesn't mean it can never be taken away or that you don't need to do anything to keep it.

I don't think anyone claimed what Israel is doing was fine. Even Biden was critical.

When Ukraine surrendered their nuclear weapons the US promised to help protect them from Russia. It was our duty to help. To get the Ukraine funding passed it had to be bundled with assistance for Israel, or Republicans would not have voted for it.

Biden gave Ukraine $120 billion for defense against the invasion.

He gave $18 billion to Israel and $2 billion to Gaza.

If it wasn't a sex act, then phone sex workers wouldn't exist, erotica wouldn't exist.

There are a lot of things that aren't always a sex act but can be in the right circumstances, arguably most things.

Again, I assert it isn't TABOO, but PRIVATE/PERSONAL. Just like my medical history isn't taboo, it's private and personal.

Do you think it's important to get consent from people before sharing your medical history?

Regardless, it's possible to discuss sex in ways that aren't as private as medical history; it's a common element in comedy, theater, and art.

What shields abusers, ironically, is not discussing consent and not putting consent first.

Multiple things can shield abusers. Consent and discussion of it is absolutely foremost, but if sex is taboo it makes conversation about sexual consent much rarer and less organic.

Any topic can make people uncomfortable, sex, religion, politics, death; all things to avoid in polite company, but they're also a big part of life and should be discussed freely imo.

Like 10% of all housing sits vacant, the lack of supply in the market is not just a lack of units, it's also a strategy by investors to keep prices high.

This makes sense to me. The idea that discussion of sex is itself a sexual act seems like it muddies the topic.

There's certainly ways of discussing sex that require consent, like erotic roleplaying or something where you're involving the other person directly, but that's not what the original post is about.

If any discussion of sex is taboo in public situations it leads to exactly the sort of issues OP is trying to reduce, where the norms of silence act as a shield for abusers.

Both actually, as depressing as that is. The entire region started as the Oregon Territory just before the civil war, and ever since the beginning has had to grapple with far right nutjobs.

Over time the coastal west of each state became more and more blue and populous, while the east stayed rural and backwards.

Things are slowly changing though, Spokane county has voted blue for the past decade.

The Columbia flows through Eastern Washington, it's on the other side of a mountain range from Seattle. That's like threatening to cause an avalanche at Banff to hurt Vancouver.

In either case it's the environment that would bear the brunt of the conflict. If you want to hurt Seattle you could just raise our electric bill.

Basically every Unix-derived OS comes with vi. Emacs came out in 1976, macs didn't exist until 1984.

The only thing more precious than human life: tires 🙄

Whoa, I hate cybertrucks as much as the next guy, but that's a bit harsh. You shouldn't kill someone just for buying a vehicle.