[COFFEE] Bar fight about woke culture

Equal individual rights, guarded by no discrimination, open, fact-based debate, science, fairness and tolerance. In theory and in practice.

As for the “status-quo”, that has changed massively and is vastly different at different places and for different people @Bojack is mentioning some features of this new status quo. The status quo also includes, for example, woke activists hounding out a professor and terrorizing her wife and children because she’s stating biological facts.

And this “status-quo” is defined by selective racist and sexist criteria and by averages, both of which obscuring vast individual differences. A white man might well face more obstacles than a black woman, if, say, he is born in poverty, short, shy, bald and profusely sweating, while she is tall, confident and born rich. Or not, since both are individuals and their circumstances might differ and might or might not be depend on any of the above criteria.

Not only are the criteria racist and sexist, outcomes based on them are distorted to fit into the woke narrative. Have a guess, which new Swiss pensioners have a higher pension on average, unmarried men or unmarried women? That is today’s over-60s, who have lived and worked in the “oppressive” past for decades.

The correct answer is, as per the Swiss Statistical Office: Unmarried women. That might be the most surprising and thus interesting piece in the corresponding press release, but of course, it was rather hidden away. And of course, as per law, women need (at least until this autumn) to work one year less than men for their pension.

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But I think these left wing values have a lot in common. They are pushed by the most extreme activists (only a bunch of people) and they are slowly moving the frame of what is thinkable, acceptable, and finally the norm. The majority of the society accepts this, because they don’t want to be called racists or bigots or chauvinists.

I was part of this wave, because it appealed to me to ridicule the catholic church or national pride. But now we should also ridicule toxic masculinity, entrepreneurship, being white.

To me these “left wing values” are self-contradictory. In general, they should be about tolerance and fighting negative discrimination. But by introducing positive discrimination, they eventually end up discriminating against the non-privileged. The pendulum has swung from one side to the other, without stopping in the middle.

Honestly, not. I don’t know any lgbtqxyz people, or racial minorities close enough (or at all), to ask such sensitive questions. I feel like it’s a taboo now and a can of worms that I would rather not open.

But if you wonder what it reveals about me that I’m afraid of ideas like “eat the rich”, “safe space for black people only”, “you can’t wear this”, “if your kids wants to change their gender, you can’t stop it”… well, I guess it reveals that I am a terrible person or sth, idk.

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well you can, Italians don’t eat ragú bolognese with spaghetti

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You are doing gods work. :+1:

Not sure where I was supposed to put this rant, but I need to get it off my chest. I’m in Zurich now, examining the aftermath of Street Parade. It’s incredibly full of trash and broken glass everywhere. It stinks of beer and piss. Green and private areas violated.

I don’t understand why the people of Zurich want to invite the decadent youth to devastate their city. I have zero respect for people who litter, piss in public, go wild like there’s no tomorrow. Would prefer if they went elsewhere to party.

Decadent youth or football fans, there are always lots of garbage after big events. There are advantages for all sides

  • city gets a promotion as a cool place worth visiting;
  • hotels, restaurants, bars gets a boost to their turnover and profits, which results in higher taxes paid;
  • inhabitants get to enjoy a show (or not).

Just at the end there are low paid immigrants from communal services who will have to clean the garbage, but this is their job after all.

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To get wasted and do drugs. It’s similar to making a house party when parents are away to appeal to the “cool” kids, a d get your place trashed. Do you want to appeal to these kids in the first place? I think the city should promote positive behavior.

I didn’t want to get involved into this discussion, but this is coffee section, so:

  • Was it dirtier than after other big events? Football UEFA final or any other football event? And how do you measure it? Do you have objective quantitative parameters? This is not a nagging question, the city cleaning services might have quantitative data.

  • How much of your irritation is caused by actual garbage produced in this event and how much by your attitude towards LGBwhatever people? Don’t blame yourself if the latter is significant, think instead. We all are products of our education and culture and it is extremely difficult to get over what you have learned as a child.

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There is Amsterdam for it. No, as not only snob city of bankers and big G.

The patriarchal society in the history of humans appeared as a result of development of agriculture and domestication of animals. So what does nature wants?

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What you are saying is what was always was said by dominant part of the society: the current order that is advantageous for me is fair and just because it was like this before.

This sounds like the downtown Luzern or Basel I see the morning after a Fasnacht night, although it doesn’t stink so much mid-Winter. But of course Fasnacht is holy and no-one would dare question the necessity of it all.

Instead of sending the Street Parade elsewhere, wouldn’t the easier solution be that you mark the Street Parade in your calendar and avoid going downtown the morning after, there’s 51 other Sundays after all?

Fair points. I guess it does matter to me who participates in the event and for what reasons, other than just the fact of the city getting trashed.

A parade is about promoting/celebrating a certain way of life. Among the people who attend it, there is a disproportionally large share of people who have an excessive number of tattoos, piercings, ear tunnels, nose rings, dyed hair, unconventional hairstyles, sexually provocative attire. In theory, such diversity should be a sign of freedom of expression, be who you want to be, do with your body what you want. But paradoxically, I feel very alienated around people like this. I somehow find it decadent and demoralizing. And yes, it’s probably narrow-minded and stereotypical, but I find there is a high probability, people with these characteristics are more likely to sport a rainbow flag, hammer and sickle logo or a Che Guevara likeness.

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Or I can just talk about it to other people no? It’s not like my opinion is cut in stone, and I’ve heard all sides of the story. Are you suggesting I should vote on issues without discussing them first? Thanks for the tip on avoiding Zurich, I already do skip the parade each year. For the rest of the year it’s actually a pleasant place to be.

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wth? “Dominating power”?

We’re in the 21th century, Switzerland was slow but it mostly enshrined gender equality in the late 20th century.

Those coffee discussions are truly veering into territory that makes me regret frequenting this forum.

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Same here. In the past I tended to think that people should be able to talk about anything without restriction on the forum as long as they are behaving. However I have to admit that I’am appalled by the low quality of the discussions on this forum lately, especially all the “Bar fight about…” threads. The vibe on the forum is just unwelcoming.

I still want to think about what is the best course going forward, and I don’t want to take any rash decision. But seeing how this is all curently going, I don’t exclude either to close all coffee threads so that the forum’s discussions stay focused on financial topics.

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I was thinking that maybe the discord channel would alleviate the problem, and the coffee discussions would go there, but people didn’t want it.

I see your point, and I’ll reconsider posting on non-finance related topics in the future. Sorry if I contributed to the problem. I have been less and less active on the forum for a while, and these polarizing topics reinvigorated my engagement. My posts are a form of thinking out loud, but I guess they can be misinterpreted or blown out of proportion by some.

I will try to calmly express my point of view, as a matter of discussion. I still not sure what you call “woke culture”, some were saying here this is term that “rights”/“conservatives” use to describe things that should compromise “lefts” point of view.

What gets quickly forgotten in this heated discussion, is that “equality” should mean equal rights, not that everyone is the same.

For me it is a question of lack of discrimination. I am strongly against gender discrimination, no matter biological (our discussion above) and psychological arguments, and even less historical and religious, have been brought. There is no evidence that women are less intelligent and responsible than men. Therefore there is no reason for gender discrimination. Discrimination by sexual preferences is even more irrational. Noone should care what consenting adults do with each other.

But the lack of discrimination should go in both directions. If someone would tell my daughter, that she is not allowed to get high school study, my reply would be “FU”. And if someone would tell her that she is not allowed to be a happy housewife with 5 children, because it follows traditional model, my reaction would be also “FU”.

As an anecdotal evidence: I heard that there are higher percentage of girls studying engineering in Iran than in Sweden. Who is discriminated here? The explanation was following. In Iran to be respected, women have to show that they can do a typical masculine job. In Sweden it is not necessary: girls can choose whatever they want and not be labeled as stupid and boring based on their occupation.

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… and we will stop here. Advocating that one gender gets less rights than the other (even if just a little bit) is at least as appalling as what was inititially critiqued in this thread. That’s certainly not the mindset I want this forum to have.

I am closing the thread, and you will take one week of vacations to think about it.

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