Category Archives: Society

Posts about society, people, manners, communities, or whatever that concerns humans and humanity.

We should care more about our children’s mental health

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I was reading about Brown v. Board of Education and there’s an interesting paragraph:

To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (USSC+)
Argued December 9, 1952
Reargued December 8, 1953
Decided May 17, 1954

The court ruled in favor of Oliver Brown (or to better put it, racial integration) partly because of the psychological impact on children. This is something we don’t consider much lately. There is physical harm and there is psychological and mental harm. When we treat our children and when we decide what’s good or bad, we mostly consider the physical harm, yet the mental impacts of our decisions may have a way more influence on our kids.

A child living in a household full of mental pressures is in risk of being damaged. A child living in poverty may take physical harm but there is also mental harm. The child would be in constant pressure and may feel less worthy, wronged, and unequal to others.

When we put children in an environment full of pressure to decide their genders or when unnecessarily give too much information about sex and gender, we’re putting harm on our children. I’m not against trans people, I have dear trans friends who have faced real issues in their lives and had to combat many troubles because of their bodies, and I understand their pain and fully support them but I still can’t agree that minors should be able to decide to physically harm their body or mutilate themselves.

Yet, the physical part may be possible to be undone but the mental damage they suffer from may never heal. They may overcome their physical pain but the damage done to their minds is permanent.

It’s wrong to let children decide if they’re a man or woman. If they’re too young to vote or drink alcohol or live by themselves, then they’re too young to decide to change their sex or decide what gender they’re in.

I think there’s only two sexes. You’re either a man or a woman. I also think that there are people who have been born in a wrong body. I think it should be legal to help those people change their identity and help them become what they truly are. It’s a human right and people should be able to enjoy their freedom to decide.

I’m not a doctor and I never studied biology, that being said, I think five thousand years from now if some alien people find our remaining, and they decide to categorize us, they would categorize us not in 10 genders but in two. They would put us either in the male section or female section. That’s my opinion and it may be wrong.

I believe we shouldn’t bring drag queens to schools and we certainly shouldn’t bring children to drag races. The same way we restrict pornography or R-rated movies, or are cautioned when it’s a PG-13 show, we should be cautioned about how we treat our children when it comes to sexuality.

And I don’t mean it’s only trans stuff that are harmful. When we surround our children with what is not suitable for their age, we’re doing harm to them. There’s also opposite of that. If we teach them that their sexual orientation should only align with what we believe, we’re doing harm to them. If we force them to repeat our belief, we’re doing harm to them.

I believe we should consider punishing those who put our children in danger and this danger is not only physical, but also mental. I believe we should take more care of our future generation.

I’m not a conservative, I frequently mock them and I disagree with most of their ideologies but I got to support them on this one. Well not completely, they’ve gone too far. I don’t support banning a book because it mentioned “gay”, or shutting down libraries because some dumb lady thinks her kid is reading Playboy magazines there, but I believe when it comes to sexuality, we should be a lot more careful.

I also don’t mean we should stop every sex education we have in schools, we certainly need them and I think we should even expand them to be more effective, but I also think that people like Kayla Lemieux should not be allowed in schools. I think we should normalize that people may have different sexual orientation and preference but it should be done when the child is in proper age.

In any situation, when we treat our kids in a way that we deprive them of the power of free will and thinking, we’re doing harm to them and it should be stopped immediately. It’s not that we may force children to do something but it’s that when we constantly repeat a certain thought to our children, we automatically induce them to follow that thought.

There’s a proper age for everything. If we don’t cell cigarettes to people unless they’re above a certain age, because it may harm their bodies, then we shouldn’t cell them certain information that may harm their minds. If we don’t let them sign hospital papers for surgeries such as appendectomy, then they certainly shouldn’t be able to decide for changing their sex.

And it’s not just sex. The sex thing was on top of my head. There are a lot of stuff happening. We surround our children with guns. A weapon to kill people should not be something normal in a household. I’m all for people’s rights to “bear Arms” but it shouldn’t be normal. We shouldn’t make it easy for our children to shoot a gun. We should teach them when they grow up, as the United States Constitution mentions it’s “being necessary to the security of a free State”, but that shouldn’t be normal for a child.

Technology can be lot harmful to children. Unsupervised use of internet is a lot harmful to our children. Internet material is not well-regulated, nor it should be, but children’s use of web and internet should be supervised and controlled by parents.

And hey, let me say this too, it’s not that children are in constant danger. They usually can think for themselves and decide correctly. No matter how much we restrict them, they can find a way to access material we forbade. It’s not much we can do. I know some minors who are active members of software communities and they’re really good programmers. They chose to use internet for something amazing and they’re learning a lot. That’s awesome. I bet if we restricted their internet, they wouldn’t learn as much as they have.

My point is that restriction is not the sole solution. Education is equally important. We should not treat our children as they don’t understand anything, we should treat them in a way that they can decide for themselves correctly and wisely. We should care about their mentality, and teach them how to decide and tell right and wrong. We should let them make mistakes yet protect them from the worst consequences.

We should let them take a controlled amount of harm so they can learn. If they don’t ever get punished, or face some consequences, then we have hurt them in another way. It’s like our body’s immune system. If it never contacts any virus or bacteria, then it will remain weak.

We should protect our children both physically and mentally. We should care a lot more about them and it should be done through a combination of controlled access to information, good education, and give them a say in their life, choices, and future.

Oh, am I legally bound to say these are just random opinions and I’m not an expert of psychology or children matters?

AI knows about you!

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I am one of the people who tried to block so-called “AI” programs from training on my published works. I implemented every code or rule I know to block corporations use my material for training their programs.

I’m not against AI, but I don’t want my material be published or used under a proprietary license. One other reason I tried to block them is that data-hungry companies such as Microsoft and Google were using these programs to gather more data on people and violating users’ privacy.

However, my efforts to block them from training on my works seems to be failed. It seems that regardless of my effort and how I asked robots to not research/train on my blog and stop crawling my data, they did it anyway.

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Will feminists work on oil wells? That’s not the right question!

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Would a woman, specially a feminist woman, work on an oil well? I don’t know. The Oxford dictionary defines feminism as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.” Which is very cool. If feminism means that, I’m a feminist.

But, then, you hear so many weird reasons that feminism sucks or feminists are anti-men. Are they though? I mean the definition of feminism is pretty clear. A feminist fights for equal rights for men and women. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Then they come. Those dumb idiots who step further than the general agenda and try to sabotage a movement so they can gain some popularity or satisfy their need to be acknowledged. Some become anti-men or suggest crazy things. I’ve seen those who suggest that a woman should not limit herself to her husband or unborn babies are parasites. Best thing to do with them is to ignore them and worst thing to do is to dismiss the whole feminist movement because some crazy people are speaking their crazy minds.

Then comes the idiot men who want to oppose this craziness with more madness. Like they try to give you idiotic reasons to discredit the feminist movement. They give you foolish reasons such as feminists only want to work in high-paying jobs or they won’t work as a sweeper and if they don’t find a good job, they would rely on their husband.

Well who wouldn’t? Are men different in this matter? Won’t you protest if a high-paying job wasn’t available to you because of your sex? If you could rely on someone in life instead of becoming a sweeper, you would turn that down?

My friend, the whole agenda of feminism is that if a woman wants to become a sweeper, or mine worker, or CEO, she should be able to. If a woman wants to become a construction worker, she shouldn’t be rejected because it’s a man’s work. It’s that simple. It’s that easy.

It’s all about opportunity and availability. It’s not that the feminist movement wants to force you to quit your job and place a woman there, it’s that if a woman has the same abilities as you, and wants to work the same job as you, she should be able to. It doesn’t mean that you’ll get fired, it means that a woman should be able to compete with you on the basis of her abilities, not on the basis of her or your sex.

It’s not fair that a man gets a job because of his sex, while there’s a woman more skilled than that man for the same work. And it’s not fair that a man gets paid more than a woman, or gets treated better than a woman, because of his sex. I’m not saying that men are getting more, I find no evidence of that, I’m just saying that the feminist movement is about that.

It’s about opportunity. No, I don’t think a woman wants to work as a repairer on a telecommunication tower at high altitudes, but if she wants to, she should be able to, if she has the skills. If she doesn’t want to, she’s free not to work that job. Exactly how it should be for men. It’s about equality. Will a woman work on an oil well? I don’t know. But feminism is about whether she should be able to or not. If she doesn’t want to, that doesn’t discredit the movement. It’s really easy to understand.

Men and women are different. Biologically, we’re not the same. That biologic difference has been a reason to treat them differently. Women had a role in society and men’s role were something else. Now that women are behaving differently and are capable of doing a lot of what historically were men’s job, we should remove those behaviors and social rules from our lives and treat everybody with equality and justice.

We should treat everybody based on their skills and abilities and disregard their genders. The feminist movement tries to put this equality and justice in place. It doesn’t want to remove men from power, it just wants to make room for women who are able to do the same job.

Social networks are not always bad

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I avoid using social networks. It’s just that I don’t like them and I find them irritating. But are they always bad? I don’t think so.

I’ve advocated for using ethical social networks such as Fediverse/Mastodon instead of crappy ones like Instagram and Twitter but I have my own reasons. My objections to these networks are that they treat users unfairly, violate their rights, and keep business their first priority.

I don’t like social networks, I don’t use them, but I have less objections to ethical ones than to ones like Facebook. I may not be OK with the feeling I get of an ethical social network but one like Instagram gives me 100 more reasons.

However, I would still object to banning them. You see, I think it’s bad that these corporations are harvesting users’ data but if one, consciously, wants to use them, one has every right to.

I always tell people to avoid these networks but I’m completely against forcing people to leave them. These networks have a massive flow of information passing through them and this flow helps people express themselves and share information they might not get from other sources.

Accessing social networks are essential for freedom today. They are replacing news sources and information channels; and they’ve become a force from people to protect themselves from injustice and tyranny. Banning them only helps corruption.

I don’t praise what they do, I still find them too much unappealing but I can’t deny the amount of good they do for people. I can’t deny how much they’ve helped people survive a world of misinformation and propaganda. They have become a tool for people to actually have a voice.

Everything these proprietary privacy-violating social networks such as Twitter do, can be done using user freedom-respecting privacy-minded social networks such as Mastodon but for now, we’re stuck with these crappy ones.

I cheer for replacing these proprietary networks with free/libre ones but I also will protest banning them. Banning them may do some god but it will do more damage as it will only take away people’s voice.

Banning them will only result in more corruption and more violation of people’s right and freedom. These social networks, free or nonfree, have given people a voice and a power to make actual social change and they have become a powerful tool for people to fight for themselves.

They make dictators unhappy, they make tyrants angry, and they make powerful people weak in front of people. They empower people the way nobody can’t. They bring back freedom of expression to people, the way nobody is able to.

I don’t use social networks but I’m happy they exist as they’ve made the world much better place. Because of them, many tyrants are actually afraid of people and maybe are kept in place. I may not use them but I appreciate them every day.

Ten Commandments in courthouse

Quote

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The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal”, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

Anonymous

The quote is attributed to George Carlin on many web pages, yet it’s nowhere to be found on Carlin’s works.

Saddam Hussein; what a legend!

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1987 June 28, the city of Sardasht, West Azerbaijan was attacked by Iraqi aircraft with mustard gas bombs in two separate bombing runs on four residential areas. 130 people died and eight thousand people were injured.

Of the civilians who died, 39 were under 18 years of age, including 11 under the age of 5, and 34 were women or girls. In 2006, out of 20 thousand population of the city, a quarter were still suffering from the consequences of these bombings. There are people who still are suffering from those bombings today.

Many of the 95% who survived the Sardasht gas attack developed serious long-term complications over the next few years, including serious respiratory problems, eye lesions, skin problems, and immune system problems.

It’s almost 2024 and you would think people are sure of their feelings towards Saddam Hussein, the one who ordered the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Sardasht, far far from the war front. Not!

Just visit YouTube and search for Saddam Hussein, open a video and go to the comment section. Comments are filled with people calling Saddam a legend, a hero, a king. You would think that after bombing multiple cities and killing civilians in cold blood, people would realize what a monster he is, but no, they don’t, evidently.

Sardasht, Marivan, Halabja, Sarpol-e Zahab, Gilan-e-gharb, and Oshnavieh are cities documented to be targeted with chemical gas by Saddam Hussein. Not only the civilian areas alone but also medical centers and hospitals were targeted. What a legend!

The cities I mentioned are not the only ones, but the most famous ones. Near 41 thousand people overall were targeted by chemical weapons during the war. Forty one thousand people, at least. The actual casualties are much higher, as the latency period is as long as 40 years.

Iran asked the UN to engage in preventing Iraq from using chemical weapon agents, but there were no strong actions by the UN or other international organizations. The Security Council ratified reports of use of chemical weapons against Iran and two statements were issued, on 1984 March 13, and 1986 March 21, condemning Iraq for those chemical attacks, but the Iraqi regime did not abide by those condemnations and continued launching chemical attacks.

After the war, Saddam hid himself, then got arrested eventually, tried, and got hanged. There were celebrations all around Iran and Iraq by millions of people who finally were free from this monster. Now it’s almost 2024 and I see people calling him a hero. People seem to be blind.

One of my uncles who was 15 years old at that time was killed in Shalamcheh. His body was lost for almost 16 years. My grandfather tells me that during the 16 years of waiting for him in desperation, every time someone knocked on their door they would jump and rush to the door because deep down they had hope that maybe, maybe, it’s him coming back.

Someone knocked their door, finally, and gave them the news. A piece of his scapula and one boot, along with his dog tag was found. They had to do a DNA test to be sure that the bone was in fact his. This is the result of what this legend did. For 16 years they waited.

Halabja was one of the cities that was bombed by Saddam, with chemical weapons, and many people died there.

Qader Molanpour, who 2020 film Walnut Tree is based on him, lost his three children and his pregnant wife during delivery. All of his family members were exposed severely to chemical gases and died as the result of it. The newborn child, due to the improper condition of the hospital (as a result of attacks on hospitals and medical centers), was transferred to a hospital in the city of Tabriz and Molanpour could never find his last child ever. He died in 2016 December 31 while still searching for his child. His last child was named Zhina, meaning “life.”

It’s not really about Saddam. Saddam, Hitler, radical militia and terrorists around the world, these all have fans and supporters around the world. Taliban, with years of experience of torture, beheading, killing innocent people, and terrorist bombing on civilian areas, is now ruling Afghanistan and has its supporters. Hitler, with record killing of 40 million people (and total of 75 million) is a hero of some people.

Military generals of the confederate army who fought against liberation of slaves have their statues and flags up in states. There are some Italians, and some others, who worship Benito Mussolini, a dictator who killed over a million people.

I don’t know what has happened to us but there’s something we did wrong. We did something wrong. We thought history would speak for itself, we thought maybe history will teach us and our children, but that was wrong. It’s sad but I thought that being a mass-murderer, a dictator, a war criminal, and a homewrecker of millions would buy one some bad reputation but I see it only helped people worshiping them.

I don’t know what should we do, I don’t have any idea how to stop this, i don’t know what am I supposed to do against this. I’m hopeless for the young generation.

Do something about the war!

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While the war between Israel and Palestine is intensifying, I must say that the recent war will only result in more anti-Arab and anti-Semite racism around the world. It had not even been two days since the start of the war that a Egyptian cop shot and killed two Israeli tourists along with their Egyptian guide.

Needless to say the war itself is horrible. As of now more than a thousand people on both sides are dead and thousands more are injured. But perhaps death is not the worst scene we’re watching. Death from war has become something normal in Middle East. We’re used to hearing about war and bombs and military action in the region. The fact that it has become normal is the saddest part.

Nobody around me is shocked by the war. Nobody is terrified about the consequences. Nobody even talks about it. People just casually read the news to each other just like how they talk about the weather. It’s more terrifying than the war itself.

The first day of the war, I’ve seen some disturbing videos. Many people know that I’m not the biggest fan of the Israeli government and I’ve criticized their policies over the years but it doesn’t mean that I support what is happening there. I condemn illegal and inhumane activities of Israeli forces as much I condemn the savagery I see by Hamas.

The first day of the war I’ve seen a video of some Hamas soldiers who killed an Israeli woman soldier, stripped her body naked while carrying her around the city. That’s barbaric. Even in Islam, if we consider them Muslim, respecting the dead is much emphasized. I can’t support any soldier who does that, even if he’s fighting for his freedom.

Some argue that these behaviors are the result of too many years of oppression. But that shouldn’t be the case. A fight for freedom or a war against the oppressor can be justified but some of these actions, such as attacking a music festival and killing two hundred people from many nations, can’t be justified whatsoever.

As someone who is still critical of the Israeli government, I’m deeply concerned that if the current system is overthrown, what and who will replace it. Will we see some new oppressors in the region who will justify their barbaric acts in the name of religion or freedom?

My thoughts and deepest empathy are with Jews and Arabs around the world who most-certainly will be affected by the war whether it’s through the war itself directly or racism coming from angry people. That’s saddening. Many people have lost their lives, probably for nothing, and many more will lose their lives, and it won’t be over soon. Human life has been considered worthless for a long time in Middle East. We have become numbers and statistics. It’s been accepted the way it is inside and outside of the region and the only ones who get hurt are truly innocent people.

Indigenous people of Palestine have been oppressed for many years. Muslims, Jews, Christians, and many other ones are still hurting today, which is coincidentally Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and media and politicians do nothing about it. The importance of Indigenous Peoples’ Day hasn’t been more. While the original holiday is celebrated in United States, it should be considered an opportunity to discuss and act upon the matter we’re facing in Middle East between two groups of indigenous people there, Muslims and Jews.

We must act fast and effective. Humans are not numbers, no matter how much we’re used to losing them.

Ethics

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A while ago I asked a question from some people about where they stand on torture. I asked whether torture can be ethical in any situation but then it wasn’t about whether it can be justified, rather I asked about an specific situation.

At first people told me that it depends on the situation. So I had to ask, can torture be ethical in any way? And if yes, where do we stand on methods? Tickling can be torture, as is punching the teeth out of someone’s mouth.

Most people replied that if it’s a matter of life or death of a lot of people then they believe torture is justified however unsavory the method is. But torture is not ethical, it’s just justified. Now let’s get to the specific situation.

Imagine a mentally ill person threatening that he hid a bomb underneath the city and if that explodes, hundreds of thousands of people will die. Now we won’t be able to find the bomb or even make sure there’s a bomb except with torture. The only way to find out if there’s a real bomb is to torture that person. Now keep in mind that that person is mentally ill and it could all be part of his challenges but it also could be real. What would you do? Will you torture (or let others torture) him?

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We’re afraid of being called names!

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I’ve been training myself to not care about being called names. I don’t care if people try to hurt or insult me with words. I don’t care about their insults, they can’t upset me, and won’t be able to affect me in any way. I simply don’t care about what they say to me and no matter how hard they try to insult me, they’ll be unsuccessful.

I also follow the Crocker’s rules. The Crocker’s rules gives me opportunity to receive most information in least amount of time. It also means that I won’t be offended if someone is not polite to me. I’m not afraid of someone calling me an idiot. If I get offended, it’s my fault.

I believe more people, specially politicians, should adopt this behavior. We’re not too afraid of being called a name and this is affecting us as a society and is causing malfunction. Last night I was watching an episode of “The Problem with Jon Stewart” and he was talking about the economy and mentioned the same problem.

He mentioned that we’re going bankrupt because of all the things we’re paying for out of pocket that other countries pay for with taxes. The basic tax proposition is simple: You pay taxes to the government in the form of the money and the government pools that money and uses it to provide the people with essential goods and services that they need.

That would be efficient but there’s one catch: We can’t do it in that way because getting anything directly from the government or through cost-controlled industries would be considered [THUNDER and DRUM ROLL] socialism.

Isn’t this insane? The government and capitalists made people too afraid of socialism and have been calling anything they don’t like communist that doing something in an efficient way would be impossible because they don’t want to be called a name. Too much afraid of being called a socialist or communist that we rather destroy the economy than adopting a policy that works.

We should stop this madness. People may still get fooled by some politicians but they’re not dumb. We need to man up and start talking sense to them. We should sit with them and explain to them how things work without being afraid of all the name-callings and populism we face.

For the sake of our own future, we should shut the hell up when we hear words. We should stop being triggered by words and start building a behavior and personality both individually and socially to be able to work something out. Words, no matter how offensive, are far more harmless than bad policies.