muddi [he/him]

Absolutely true, social media presence is hardly the material conditions necessary for a revolution. The structures to be replaced run deeper than which website you use

Then the left should continue to build decentralized alternatives. Dual power is the only practical solution for when institutions are captured by reactionaries to suppress the left.

Freedom of speech is about not being censored by the government, not private citizens hosting a platform for a spectrum of opinions.

Compare it to something like freedom of religion: should private citizens engage in a spectrum of religious rituals, including violent rituals of extreme cults?

The issue isn’t how enthusiastic individual private citizens are about the freedoms granted to them from the government. Someone may truly enjoy yelling “fire” in public buildings, but the effect on the public is what causes concern.

Should you censor a person for this? That’s another debate, but I’m just explaining where the concern, assuming you have concern, should be placed.

Yeah I’m not saying those two are the same things. However I read some articles where tribal people and villagers claimed to be shot on sight for wandering into parks, then tortured for protesting this.

My point was just that the sentiment for forest rangers in the US or elsewhere doesn’t necessarily apply to India. The forest department might be more like the Bureau of Indian Affairs in some cases

Corruption? Indian rangers are basically police. They’re uniformed and armed, and apparently have orders to kill. ACAB

I was in a car once when the driver accidentally went into a restricted forest area, and he just gave the guards a bribe to let us out without punishment. They’re presumably better than the actual police generally, but in the tribal areas they can be just as bad.

It was a joke actually, I’m not that invested in this thread lol

Is there a base case or do the layers of irony go on to infinity?

Person: says something

Another person: this other person has no nuance

Yet another person: this other person has no nuance, ironically

Yet another person: this other person has no nuance, ironically

(ad infinitum)

Maybe this is just dialectics, although a little snarky

Is that a big bargaining chip or something? The presence of the Ukrainian Olympic team?

Tolkien was just retelling legends, folktales, fairy tales, children’s bedtime stories etc. He did piece them together to create extended connected lore, but not everything gets cleanly explained away in this kind of worldbuilding technique.

So really imo Tom Bombadil is just some contrivance of Tolkien to make the story feel more like some old fairy tale.