Cool :) thank you

Gotcha. Yes, I didn’t get to see the original comment.

I never, at any point, said that only sex mattered in medicine. I said they were distinct. I doubt it was your intention to do so, but you’re putting words in my mouth. Please don’t represent me.

TBF I did state quite explicitly that that was my own interpretation of your statement, not what you had literally said, because I couldn’t think what else you meant by that expression (possibly because of the missing context.)

I apologise for any hurt I have caused and will edit my previous comment, so as not to misconstrue yours.

showing that ‘male’ and ‘female’ are more akin to general groupings, with a degree of overlap, than any actual dichotomy

I totally agree.

Sex and gender are still entirely distinct when it comes to medical science, psychology, neuroscience, etc.

Not really. Binary trans people’s brains have been shown to more closely mirror the brains of people who were assigned their gender at birth, rather than the gender the trans person was assigned at birth. So trans women’s brains mirror those of cis women more closely than cis men, and vice versa for trans men.

Also, treating sex as the only one that is relevant in medicine is reductive and inaccurate. I appreciate that this might not be what you were trying to say (edit: it most certainly was not), but at the same time I am not sure what else you mean by “sex and gender are distinct in medical science”. Transition alters the body significantly and is medically relevant. As a trans guy, my voice, metabolism, hirsutism, and build/muscularity align with cis men much more closely than cis women for example.

I am not sure what you mean with psychology – why do you think sex and gender are distinct in psychology?

I’m sorry if this is a really stupid question (I am not American/don’t live in the USA), but… aside from the fact that some people might not “pass” particularly well, what evidence does the state have that a prisoner is or is not trans? Is the system so well-coordinated that they can and do easily search every prisoner for past name/gender changes? (Assuming the person in question had already updated their documents.)

Funnily enough, I was going to comment “Four. Middlesex is not a county anymore.”

Edit: saying that, I’m not sure what ‘Wessex’ is meant to be

I honestly don’t know if they’re a bot or not, but that came out of left field so hard that I couldn’t help but laugh. I have no idea what they are talking about. “Blame everyone else for your own actions” ???

Huh? What? I’m not who you were responding to, but this is… not sane.

Everyone knew that one of those two people would be president. It’s not like we get a do-over with new candidates if enough people stay home.

Yeah, that is fair.

So deciding to stay home or vote third party means they are ok with this outcome rather than having Harris in office right now.

That does not follow. If they voted for a third party, it’s because they wanted the outcome in which that party won. Call it unrealistic, but it’s not the voters’ fault that democracy is broken, that elections in the US are effectively a two-party system (even when there are others on the ballot), and that there is no system of proportional representation.

As for the staying home case, it does not at all imply that they are OK with Trump winning – just that they refused to play the game altogether. I understand that your point is that the outcome is the same and therefore that the means do not justify the ends.

As you say, if more people voted Harris rather than stayed home, she could be president right now. What I don’t agree on is that that is where the blame lies; there are a million good reasons to be disgruntled with the institution and not keep playing their game of “who’s less awful?”. Trump is president because of his MAGA cult/voters who put him there. If they didn’t vote for him, he wouldn’t be president. Blaming anyone else is not constructive, although ultimately, this is a philosophical difference, not a political one.

Suppose in the next election, Trump was up against someone who is somehow worse. I could not in good faith vote for either. There comes a point where picking the lesser of 2 evils is just falling for the trap, and you’re not really picking anything. There not being any candidate to win over a significant portion of the population is a sign that democracy is compromised. That is deserving of anger and blame. You’re supposed to vote for who you want, not vote tactically against who you don’t want more. That can get old pretty fast.

Obligatory “I am not American and do not live in the USA”; just an observer from outside. If I were, I think that I would have voted Harris, albeit begrudgingly. I just don’t expect everyone else on the fence to make that same choice.

I do not think it is fair to equate someone who abstained from voting due to dissatisfaction with both candidates to a literal MAGA who voted Trump. The latter are the ones who directly led to this outcome; the former just didn’t help it.

Rioting, instead of voting for one of both agents planted by the oligarchs. The illusion of democracy really isn’t worth defending to the death like this.

Why are you so angry at another leftist? Save some of that for the literal MAGAs.

to suppress the vote among those incapable of making nuanced decisions. And it worked here in the UK just as well as it did in the US.

Except that we currently have a Labour Government? Did you also miss the part where I said I voted anyway?

I don’t have to vote for anyone I don’t agree with. I also don’t have to pick “the lesser of 2/3/4/whatever evils” because, to me, that is falling for the oligarchs’ trap. If you want to get mad at somebody, get mad at those who voted for the Tories here, or the Republicans in the US. They’re to blame, not the left who are divided by the fact that nobody in politics wants to represent their collective interests.

Frankly, if you think that I am morally compelled to vote for Labour, even when I disagree with their fascist rhetoric, then you are licking the boots of a broken institution.

I am not American or in the USA, so no.

But we have had a pretty similar experience with the 2 dominant political parties here in the UK, albeit to a smaller extent. I cancelled my Labour Party membership back in 2019, when I realised they’d rebranded from actually representing working people, to just being the Tories sugarcoated in red. They are not a viable alternative to the Tories, and neither offer the much-needed change our declining society needs.

Thankfully, we do have other parties on our ballots, so I didn’t have to abstain, and voted Lib Dem last year. But if we did have a strict two-party system, and that was the state of it, you can bet that I wouldn’t bother with the ballot and would be out demonstrating on the streets.

Nope. There was no genocide-free option. The Democratic Party failed catastrophically; it’s on them, not those who abstained from voting for garbage vs garbage.

Expecting voters to just pick the lesser of two evils forever is how we allow the rich and those with a big platform to slowly shift both parties’ politics in their favour. Some people see this zero-sum game for what it is and refuse to partake (vote). The only way to fix this at this point is by revolting.

I was living pretty much entirely anger-free until 2 things happened:

• I started working at my job, where I was hired for my expertise and yet I am frequently interrupted mid-sentence, disrespected, or told to do things in ways that defy the foundations of my entire discipline (before anyone tells me to quit, I can’t, because of immigration-related reasons)
• One of my friends has fallen down the alt-right/X/Musk fanboyism pipeline and just about everything he rants is uninformed, reactionary, and rage-inducing. He spends too much of his time being angry about problems that don’t exist and spreads that anger everywhere

Saying that, I am autistic and often struggle to distinguish between anger, frustration, feeling hurt, and even sadness. I can isolate depression as a feeling fairly reliably though, because that is more numb and less passionate.

You already know this, but I’ll reiterate it in case it helps you get over whatever guilt you might be feeling about it: you can’t. If you have already offered them a non-judgemental space to vent and have expressed that you’re there for them, then you have already done more than any friend should be expected to.

You say “it doesn’t rest in [your] hands alone”; it doesn’t rest in your hands at all! Your desire to save your friend is very admirable but it also sounds like it could be self-sabotaging to some extent.

“Rehab doesn’t work” is a blanket and not entirely true statement. There are a million different pathways to recovery; not every programme works for every person. Maybe try to explain this to them.

Beyond that, the best thing you can do for them right now is to disengage and remain distant. You don’t deserve to have their pains inflicted on you too.

P.S. I am speaking as a recovering addict. One of the things my recovery has taught me is how much of a burden being an addict is to other people. The thought of a relapse hurting my friends disturbs me. Your friend might resent you for turning them away, but when they do start recovery, they will not only understand why; they’ll appreciate it too.

I am autistic, and honestly OP, I feel very similar. But based on the comments, I’m starting to think that we’re both narcissists haha

I have this particular issue with a house mate who is self-obsessed and wants to do nothing but brag about his charisma and intelligence to anyone who dares come downstairs for a split second. He’ll go on for hours, and re-tell everything if someone else comes in. He kind of caricature-ises this whole experience for me. He has trapped me in a convo for so long that I’ve had evening plans ruined, even after telling him multiple times that I’ve got to go. No point pretending with him, you literally have to just ignore his existence and leave. Grim.

With friends and family? It depends.

For friends, I care if they’re very close (1 of a handful of people), not because of the topic itself. What I’m really listening out for is how they have been affected by the experience.

For more distant friends, acquaintances, colleagues… generally no.

If I’m completely honest, after reading both your account and theirs, I don’t really understand why you’re this hung up about it.

It’s almost like you care more about credit than a port that actually works. I know you weren’t done/that it was a WIP, and they told you to wait, but at the end of the day it’s open software, and literally anyone could have beaten you to it.

I don’t think you’re wrong to feel that your efforts should have been represented more, but I honestly would have backed off like 10% through that conversation and just started working on something else. It’s not worth it man. I hope you can feel better about this whole situation soon.

Not discounting how awful this incident is, but WTF are you on about? Do you think this is somehow representative of your average journey to a Middle Eastern country? Which one are you even talking about? There are a dozen different countries in the Middle East with different cultures and political climates.

Ex-muslim here. The Quran should not get special treatment in the eyes of the law from any other book.

I oppose hatred towards Muslims, but the religion itself isn’t exempt from criticism, and yes, that does include idiots who want to set the book on fire to make some kind of stupid point.

I don’t like it, but I don’t like the world having to tiptoe around overly sensitive Muslims who think everybody should show the same respect to the book that they do. The outrage would be at nowhere near the same magnitude if it were the Bible. Grow the hell up and stop validating these dumbass book burners.