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1. Jens Finkhäuser 🌻 (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)'s status on Monday, 07-Mar-2022 07:49:56 UTC Jens Finkhäuser 🌻

   It took less than two weeks, but the letter Z is now the swastika of this century.

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   • Jens Finkhäuser 🌻 (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)'s status on Tuesday, 08-Mar-2022 02:17:19 UTC Jens Finkhäuser 🌻

     in reply to

     This post has led to an interesting discussion on symbols.

     Calling @Chartodon fwiw.

     But that discussion about Nazi symbols has led me down the path of re-discovering things about the Azov and Donbas Battalions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion) which also does not make me very comfortable.

     Someone else posted this here a couple of days ago, before I could think my way through it. Paraphrased, the answer to unbounded nationalism can't really be more nationalism.

     This is *not* a "both sides" argument.

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   • Jens Finkhäuser 🌻 (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)'s status on Tuesday, 08-Mar-2022 02:18:04 UTC Jens Finkhäuser 🌻

     in reply to

     To be absolutely and unequivocally clear, my first concern is with the Ukrainian population suffering from an unjustified invasion.

     But fuck me, nationalism is a toxic hellfest.

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   • Jens Finkhäuser 🌻 (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)'s status on Tuesday, 08-Mar-2022 02:18:04 UTC Jens Finkhäuser 🌻

     in reply to

     When the EU opened its borders in 1995, I was just old enough to hop on rides into the Netherlands by myself, and by the time I was driving, I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have checks. Effectively, I grew up as a EU citizen at more or less the exact point in time that mattered.

     I don't really comprehend not wanting more of that.

     My dad is going to be 80 this year, and was visiting last week. We had a bit of a discussion about this; to him, borders feel a lot more natural.

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   • Jens Finkhäuser 🌻 (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)'s status on Tuesday, 08-Mar-2022 14:16:09 UTC Jens Finkhäuser 🌻

     in reply to

     He's exactly the right age to have internalized some pretty toxic views, and he's also kind enough to wish happiness to everyone (who isn't an asshole). Which makes it particularly interesting, in a tragic sort of way, how he struggles to explain some more modern points of view because they violate some of his views whilst simultaneously speaking to his kindness.

     A vision of a borderless world is one such thing, however utopic it may seem right now.

     I don't particularly want to go into how...

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   • Jens Finkhäuser 🌻 (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)'s status on Tuesday, 08-Mar-2022 14:16:16 UTC Jens Finkhäuser 🌻

     in reply to

     ... we discussed this and so forth, but anyone with an older relative is very likely going to relate.

     The main point for me is that borders breed nationalism because they isolate some groups from other groups. Having open borders doesn't solve that issue automatically, and it does introduce new problems.

     But it's very hard to despise, conquer and kill a person you have a beer with on Friday nights.

     I don't like putting things into binary, the dichotomy usually feels false. But for the sake...

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   • Jens Finkhäuser 🌻 (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)'s status on Tuesday, 08-Mar-2022 14:17:16 UTC Jens Finkhäuser 🌻

     in reply to

     ... help the second kind of pattern matching, because it imposes categories from the outside.

     Categorization is not quite the same as classification, but it's a prerequisite. Classification when it comes to people, well, that leads to war.

     I guess that makes me morally and intellectually opposed to barriers and borders, and I just so happened to have been raised like that by kind parents that traveled and open borders.

     Nothing to do with Ukraine right now, but for triggering these thoughts.

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   • Jens Finkhäuser 🌻 (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)'s status on Tuesday, 08-Mar-2022 14:17:17 UTC Jens Finkhäuser 🌻

     in reply to

     ... of illustration, there seem to be two distinct reactions people have to seeing something strange.

     Let's say it's eating. You see someone "looking like you" eating a dish you're well acquainted from your region, and another person who looks distinct eating an exotic dish from a faraway place.

     Some people will zero in on the differences: chopsticks are different from forks, bowls are different from plates, why is the meat pre-cut instead of giving a knife to the diner, etc, etc?

   • Jens Finkhäuser 🌻 (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)'s status on Tuesday, 08-Mar-2022 14:17:17 UTC Jens Finkhäuser 🌻

     in reply to

     Other people immediately focus on the similarities: there are utensils for shoveling food into your mouth, and utensils for holding the food prior to shoveling; both people seem to consume similar enough ingredients and have prepared them by heating them, or whatever.

     Human brains are basically pattern matching machines. Both reactions are a form of pattern matching; the first focuses on categorizing, the second on unification.

     It seems to me that any barrier, such as borders, cannot really...