Going with nothing. No faith in this band to do much of anything interesting. When they tour, it's a fun show with my some of favourite songs by one of my artists. I'll go and have a good time but I expect nothing from them.

Made out with 150% increase on this GameStop ride. Silly stuff but I can put that in something more sensible.

The criticism of these redditors as just doing this for a joke is wrong. They saw an opportunity in the market and realised they could game the market for their own gain. It's not turning into a speculative rise with other folk jumping on. Sadly, some normal folk who don't know what they're doing are going to be left holding the bag at the end of this.

Rowling was criticised because of her overall history on this issue up to that point, she's someone who claims she is a big ally of trans people but then endorses explicitly transphobic merch online.

Also, many in this thread only seem to talk about trans people as if they are people who were born as a biological male who later identified as a woman. It happens the other way around too. Id, there's nothing wrong with acknowledging someone's born biological sex. Someone who was formerly a man or woman and now identifies the other way around, their sex is still whatever they were born as. That definition is inherently important for two obvious areas: medicine and sport. (And there's probably others where it's relevant). Their gender is just how the identify and choose to present.

Flagg, if that word is insulting but not homophobic, ask yourself why is it considered insulting in the first place. It's a word that either means bundle of sticks, meatball or is  an offensive slur for gay man.

It's homophobic in the exact same way as using the word gay in place of "lame" when describing something by saying "that's so gay".

For the same reasons white people don't use the n-word and understand why they don't, the same applies to both those words. Not using them isn't driven by "SJWs". The roots of people using those words is effectively discriminatory hatred. Those peoples can repurpose those words for themselves, but other folk shouldn't use them.

And Flagg, if it's used in any context to insult a group of people then it is inherently homophobic.

(Sidebar: always felt it was weird how SJW came to be used as a negative label for people, folk fighting for social justice is generally a good thing. Another word/phrase that has been reused until it lost all it's original meaning)

Agreed with you on the part in bold though. This thread would improve greatly if the temperature was taken down a few notches. Doesn't matter who started it but it would be great if folk could stop talking down to each other and acting high and mighty. Can disagree with other folk without having to do that.

On topic: so far US politics feels a lot more boring. Good. It's not supposed to be infotainment, politics being a boring procedural drag is for the best. When it's a frenzied news cycle, with gas being poured on the fire every day less work gets done and compromise becomes harder.

On this topic of privilege. I've always hated this term, not because it's incorrect. "White privilege", "Male privilege" etc. do exist. My issue with it is it's a term that was used in academia that spilled over into the mainstream and got banded around way too much.

Replace the word privilege with advantage, and I feel it's intent and meaning is better conveyed.

Corey Booker defo had a cushier life overall than some poor white kids living in a broken home, or whose jobs disappeared. He's likely still had times in his life where folk have called him something just because of the colour of his skin, been passed over for certain opportunities because of it and no doubt has had unwelcome looks from folk or worse. That's the advantage white people have. They don't have to put up with that BS.

Or hell, what about Quasi-disenfranchisment through gerrymandering. Living in states where your districts are gerrymandered to hell by Republican state legislators where they try to group as many black folk into one district and distribute those folk likelier to vote for them across many districts. If you're living in a situation where your vote ultimately means less and it's happening because of the colour of your skin how are you not disadvantaged?