Eochaid

First of all, 99% of YouTube videos are there to drum up controversy and provide an “uneducated” reaction to get clicks. You have to dig to find an unbiased and educated perspective, especially for ergo stuff, on YouTube.

That said, we have two types of content about ergo keyboards: uneducated inpatient crap like this and reviews targeted towards existing ergo keyboard fans.

What we need is a midde ground. Ergo stuff takes a lot of time and patience to get used to. Plus, most ergo stuff is highly configurable, which can be both a double edged sword anf overwhelming. We need less content convincing existing ergo fans to buy new ergo gearb and more content to help the ergo curious and newbies fully transition into ergo fans.

Lol…really?

You forgot the piece after what you quoted

Because that’s literally what OP is arguing for, no assumptions needed, a position you were defending above?

And the fact that you haven’t made any comments about Islam for me to call racist…

The piece you quoted above is me noting that you appear to be agreeing with OP’s assertion that he should be free to criticize Islam without being called racist. Then you claim you are open to all criticism. But if you agree with OP, then that means you’re open to criticism until someone calls your criticism of islam racist…right?

I never called you racist. If I implied anything its just that your claim about being open to criticism breaks down as soon as you’re called racist. And these recent replies seem to confirm that…

Strange how you have ignored all context of what you were originally arguing for and are now completely focused on what you perceive as a personal attack as if asking for me to apologize for it.

I never called you racist, bud. If you think I did, maybe you need to evaluate that.

Well, as always, context is king and stating that “Islam is not a race, so therefore criticizing Islam is not racist” ignores the content of the criticism as well as a lot of social context…

As to the content, we don’t really know because OP didn’t tell us. He’s asking for blanket acceptance of the premise that nobody should be allowed to call him racist for criticising Islam - and I’m not willing to give him that.

I firmly believe that anyone who wants the freedom to say whatever they want has to give the freedom of criticism to their audience. That means, if one cares enough about being called racist that one posts a meme calling those critics stupid, maybe one should instead endeavor to ask and learn why their comments seem racist, rather than dismissing it outright.

As to the context, I am a white American dude and though I try to educate myself on all perspectives, I don’t pretend to understand what a Muslim goes through. That said, I do know a few pieces of context that shoot holes in the premise:

1. Racists absolutely use “muslim” to refer to a generalized swath of “brown people” from the middle-east, balkans, and part of eastern europe. Racists often use “muslims” instead of ethnicity because they don’t actually know the ethnicity they’re attacking and just want a word other than “those brown people that blow themselves up.”

2. Negative atheism is often used as a straw man for racism. A lot of neo-nazis are actually atheist and will post racist and hateful rhetoric that’s disguised as “atheist criticism against Islam” so that it doesn’t get taken down by mods or so the author can fall back on “its not racist because its a religion.”

3. The vast majority of criticism against Islam ignores a ton of sociopolitical history and attribute acts and practices to the religion that are actually more regime-based than anything. Islam is America is VERY different from Islam in Iraq or Afghanistan. The religion is used as a tool for oppression in some regions, but that is no different than if any other religion were dominant. That is absolutely a problem for religon, but it not just an Islamic problem. Most muslim women in America that wear hijabs do so because they want to. American mosques are generally a more welcoming, generous, and peaceful place than many Christian churches. The majority of Muslims across the world actually describe themselves as passivists and condemn the acts of fundamentalists. Criticizing the sociopolitical practices of a few regions as a specific feature of Islam simultaneously insults muslims, ignores real historical factors, and ignores the true plight of a wide swath of ethnicities that - tbh, western countries absolutely contributed to. It’s hard to know what exactly that is, a racism is at least one of them.

I have no idea if any of these things apply to the comment that got OP called racist. But if they do, I think getting called racist would be justified. That said, it’s not for me to decide. It’s for the responder to decide. OPs job is either to hand wave it and move on, or to find out why his comment was called racist and reevaluate whether his criticism is aimed at the right people.

Um…unless it’s to call your criticism of Islam racist, right? Because that’s literally what OP is arguing for, no assumptions needed, a position you were defending above? Do you even know what you’re arguing with me about?

These “discussions on religion” that everyone is having that “migrate to islam” are still very much theoretical. Nobody here is asking for permission to publish a treatise that criticizes Islam.

No, OP and everyone involved is asking for the right to criticize without being criticized back. Which absolutely is loaded rhetoric that is typically associated with hate and bigotry. Yes, everyone is allowed to say whatever they want on the internet, but everyone else is allowed to interpet and criticize back however they want.

And in this case, bigots absolutely do criticize Islam, often with sweeping and inaccurate generalizations, in order to be racist without sounding racist. Negative atheism is often a shield for racism. So yes, I’m asking probing questions because it’s really hard to tell sometimes whether criticism of Islam is actually just diguised racism or just an atheist who wants to shit talk on religion and picks one he heard about in the news. And 9 times out of 10, the latter is an arguement from a position of ignorance and lacks any awareness of the complex sociopolitical factors that have shaped middle eastern/balkan nations as well as the religion of Islam.

Yes, you are right. She was a former muslim who converted to Sikhism and I apparently confused myself and typed it out wrong.

Uh huh.

Well I have met and talked to several Muslims in my life. Religion only really came up for a couple of them, because you know, they’re just people going through their lives like anyone else and religion doesn’t often come up in polite company unless you’re a part of their religion. But there are a few I’ve gotten to know well enough to feel comfortable about asking.

Anyway, after some expected hesitancy, and some convincing that I’m just curious about their experiences, everyone I’ve talked to explained that their experience of islam is very peaceful and compassionate and gives them a sense of belonging and community. One asked about my own experiences with religion, which made them feel lucky to have found a good community. I said I had found other communities and was fine. And after that day, I felt like we understood eacj other a little better than before.

I knew a Sikh woman once, so wore the whole garb even though she lived in America. I asked her how she felt about the garb, and expected something something sacred religious whatever. But she surprised me by saying she felt the garb was a form of expression for her, an identity, and also made her felt safer - this was before 9/11. She said it was her choice to wear it and wore it proudly. And that really gave me the context I needed to break out of my biases about Islam and accept that we all do wierd shit, religious or otherwise, and that’s not only okay, it makes us unique and interesting.

When I look at the replies on this post, I see a lot of confusion, a lot of anger, a lot of hatred, and a lot of circlejerking. And rightly so, because there’s no context to this post. No, criticizing Islam isn’t always racist but it really depends on the context and the individuals receiving it.

OP is repeating the same dangerous rhetoric that I see across all sides of disagreement - but is always connected to bigotry: “I should be allowed to criticize without being criticized.” I can’t deny the appeal of such a request but it’s unreasonable. OP is absolutely allowed to say whatever he wants. But his audience is also free to respond and interpret.

The thing is, when you send negativity out into the world, you get it back. And if OP isn’t ready for that, maybe he should find more positive messages to send.

Edit: whoops I called someone both a muslim and sikh. She converted so my mind for some reason conflated the two.

I don’t know you at all, just asking probing questions that people sometimes forget to think about while spending their so much of their brief moments of human connection spouting anger and hatred. That’s all.

Cool beans

extremists version of Judaism, Buddhism

Um excuse me?

Covering the big three: Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism generally gets majority of the current worst offenders.

Yes, and I’m sure your point-by-point take downs of each of these are all the rage in college campuses everywhere. I’m sure nobody rolls their eyes at all when you launch into another diatribe about how Hinduism is destroying the world.

I have actually met a Zoroastrian and had some fascinating conversations about their religion. I would never practice their religion, nor do I particularly care for organized religion, but I’m glad I got to meet and talk to them because it helped me understand a personal experience I would never untake.

Judaism is often the target of hatred, these days, because of anti-semites. Not because of debates about the merits of the religion. Those debates are primarily held internally - you know, amongst people who actually know and care about the religion.

Have you ever met a Muslim?

Those debates have mostly focused on the book burners though, and my criticism would be limited to something like “it’s just a book”.

That’s not really a criticism of the religion though. Actually, it’s a criticism of people of that religion being angry about people from another religion slighting their own, which is more an opinion on book burning (which I vehemently disagree with mostly for reasons related to historical preservation) than anything to do with religion.

The reason I ask is that this post seems to imply that you are having conversations with friends when suddenly, " you know what grinds my gears? Christianity! Oh and by the way, fuck those Muslims too!" And negative Atheism is often an excuse for bigotry.

I mean, how often are discussions about Islam “coming up” in your daily life?

Is your only contribution to those “discussions” to criticize the religion?

Do you often find yourself in “discussions about religion” where your primary contribution is to complain about Christianity and Islam?

Do you also criticize Judaism? Zoroastrianism? Buddhism?

Or is it just those two?

I’m all for an individual person deciding to give MS and Adobe the bird and learning to adopt OSS. If that’s what you want to do, feel free friendo and live your fucksubscriptions life.

But OP is posting a situation where a user is asking an IT admin for paid adobe acrobat and…what, the user has no idea why they need it? That doesn’t make any goddamn sense.

If reader gives them everything they need, then you briefly show them what they missed and move on. If there is something they need in paid to do their job, ya fucking pay for it because it’s a goddamn $90 sub for a $60-80k employee. It pays for itself in time.

And everyone suggesting that an IT admin should force his users to use OSS have no idea how enterprise IT works. To do that, the business would need to retrain their employees and then handle all the incessant support requests that come in every day because they don’t understand the software. Let’s not also forget that new job postings would have to ask for familiarity with OSS, which could limit their incoming talent pool.

Plus, lets not forget the main reason businesses prefer to pay for software - support, or what I like to call the “someone to yell at” factor. These companies also tend to have full documentation and training videos that aren’t made by volunteer 1st year students trying to get experience and YouTube influencers. So even if an employee has a training problem, IT can probably point to a support website instead of wasting hours on retraining.

And then the human factor. The employee you scoffed at will NEVER put the effort in to learn thw software becausd they now have a bias since you forced it on them. Which means you get to hear the bitching every time you respond to a support ticket. And every support ticket means lost productivity, which means lost money, which means any savings you earned are eaten away little by little, until your boss comes by and asks “what the fuck is wrong with you?”

I’m all for fucksubscriptions on an individual level. I love and use OSS software personally. But in a business environment, it just doesn’t make as much financial sense as you think.

I know writers that were inspired by Chuck Tingle to right their own romance novels.

This man is having the time of his life and I am all for it.

Sir, this is a Wendy’s

And you normally put your dick in the external hard drive?

She wants the scared and amazed face? I don’t get it.