Simon Paynton

I’ll be honest, I find it hard to understand what he’s talking about.  But there must be something about the general “stand up straight, shine your shoes” tenor that can benefit lost young men.

The internet has been mainly fun for me, except for one face-reddening incident where I didn’t understand how Facebook worked.  I’ve had fun making a website (now gone) and posting my mixtapes and mp3s, and seeing the results.  I’ve fallen in love at least once.  I’m pretty sure that the locals keep a Whatsapp group about me and monitor my Fa…[Read more]

I think it makes sense that if women are charged with the main work of “bringing up the children”, and the Church plays a role in educating children’s characters or whatever – women would be more likely to bring the children to church, than men.

It may be that women enjoy community more than men, who, traditionally, give less of a stuff about…[Read more]

I’ve got nothing to say that I haven’t said 9 times already.  I shake your hand Kristina.

You posted the same answer twice.

Kristina wrote:
On the issues of equity, equality and human rights, the general population. That’s where it starts. I’ve already been over this. Did you think the stuff I was talking about in my first post was from the extreme right? It’s not. It’s prevalent in the general population.

But two wrongs don’t make a…[Read more]

I don’t have to explain to you why I wasn’t “woke” enough.  If an idea doesn’t have credibility, I’m not going to be attracted to it.

Kristina – that’s fine, and I do take a responsibility to educate myself about marginalised groups and their difficulties.  But if someone’s acting like a silly arse, while trying to tell everyone they have problems – people aren’t going to believe they have problems.  That’s the way people are.  It’s not morally wrong.  It just is.  Ther…[Read more]

Kristina wrote:
And if even now you’re characterizing wokeness as witch-burners, well, I’m going to go out on a limb and say surely you have lost your perspective.

You’ve educated me about your perspective as a trans woman, which I appreciate, and given me a glimpse into your “woke world”, which I also appreciate.  But you haven’t entirely conv…[Read more]

Kristina wrote:
Are you now entertaining bullshit to patronize them, or have you come around to the realization that hey, it’s not all bullshit?

That’s a reasonable question.  I was anti-racist, anti-sexist, pro-LBGT+ etc. before, but I wasn’t familiar with some of the newer manifestations of these.  These newer manifestations (some of them) too…[Read more]

Kristina wrote:
Are you now saying you were being bullied?

No, I’m saying I’ve seen it happen as a persistent activism style.

I am asking why you used that as some sort of excuse to write off the portions that weren’t bullshit.

If somebody is screaming into somebody’s face, metaphorically or otherwise, purely because they disagree – nobody is g…[Read more]

I accept that I probably have a skewed view of woke activism, in favour of the unfavourable.

Kristina wrote:
There is something to be said for marketing to conversion, I suppose. Some behaviours are more likely to engage people than others. It all depends on what your end goal is and what resources you have available.

Yes Kristina – this.  I…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
You’re outraged by a few outraged nuts.

Maybe you’re right.  And yet, it seems to indicate a wider culture of self-righteous rudeness and incivility as a response to disagreement.

Kristina wrote:
Why would you dismiss all that because some people put you off?

Because bullshit offends me.  It took me a while to get over my emotional reaction to it.  Now that I have got past the bullshit, I am more receptive to woke ideas.  Whose fault is all that?  Do activists not have a responsibility to model ideal behaviour?

Ivy wrote:
The Hallelujah diet seems like a hall of a diet…same as the raw vegan diet. Why is that considered woo?

It sounds a bit cranky to me.  I used to study yoga, and the yoga teacher was 90+, and he was too old to digest raw food.  We evolved to cook our food, in my opinion.

A plant-based diet – mostly plants – is sensible I have heard.

Kristina wrote:
Most of the ‘cry-bullying’ appears to be a response to the myriad ways conversation was toxic before anyone started speaking.

If someone puts up an Israeli flag, and someone else asks them to take it down because it makes them feel “unsafe” – that’s cry-bullying at its most ridiculous.

People remember stuff like that.  It puts…[Read more]

The real problem as I see it, is that a minority of extremists on both Left and Right (particularly in the US) are ruling the roost, stirring the pot, and generally causing a lot of unnecessary social trouble, among their own people and with the world.  I think extremism attracts toxic people, which is why this minority will never want peace or…[Read more]

@davis – I enjoyed listening to Kristina’s perspective.

The primary function of any civil rights activist is to denounce injustice.  Then, presumably, some kinds of protest, whereby they show the whole world in dignified and respectable ways, which can include strikes and boycotts, the reality of their oppressed situation for everyone to…[Read more]