Things which concern me today

[cupidsbow]

My concerns about eating

It genuinely gives me a sense of creeping horror that so many people are still so invested in denial of climate change.

I see numbers like this, going ever upward for most of my adult life. I see reports of the effects of these increases in reputable journals, not only in terms of abrupt and disastrous localised weather

Comments

[amnisias]

Human Rights restrictions and violations are common in China, an estimated half a million people are currently in prison without charges or trial. Also I am not sure what the Chinese Law position is on publishing pronographic material - in some contries this is still a punishable offense. Unfortunately the TWO article is purly sourced, it only links to a copy of a Chinese Paper, without any direct Translation or further lilnks to non-Chinese papers or AI. If you want to find out what happened to these people your best bet is to contact Amnesty International, with links to your sources.

Fandom 'as we know it' is rather homogene (even if many like to think of fandom as very diverse) - white, first world, female, middle class. There are many 'parallel fandoms' that do not really intersect with ours, for example the fandom community in Russian speaking countries. I am not really surprised that this did not register on the radar of LJ/DW fandom, a lot of things actually don't. In December 2011 when LJ went down for several days most of my flist was effing and jeffing and moaning about how crappy LJ was and that it was time to leave. Only very, very few were aware that this was in the context of an orchestrated DDoS attack to sabottage demonstrations and opposition during the Duma elections, who relied on LJ, and even less cared, I am sad to say...

[cupidsbow]

Thanks for the info. Once the semester break comes around, I'll try to contact Amnesty.

And yes, I'm aware of how little "Western" fandom intersects with fandom practiced by other communities. It saddens me too. I think we'd all be richer for building more connections.

[amnisias]

I guess what upsets me most is if people are utterly ignorant to fact that we/they are only represent a 'slice' of humanity (not just in fandom, in general). As to the actual interaction I'm a bit more ambivalent - I worry that western cultur (for a lack of a better short hand) can be rather domeneering, sudictive and invasive, and having different cultures retaining some independence and developing in different directions might be better. I also cut me/us some slack, because language barrieres are more insurmountable than walls and mountains. Good luck with AI, though.

[cupidsbow]

*nods* I agree with all your reservations. Ambivalent is the perfect word for it really.

On one hand, when we're in a culture which always reflects itself, endlessly, there's no impetus to develop a more complex understanding of different ways of being, and doing so respectfully. But at the same time, other peoples shouldn't have to bear the cost for the West learning those lessons.

I do think we'd live in a better community if we collectively learned them, though.