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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

I am a human being who likes to use emdashes in its comments, and totally not a bot. If you want to be a fellow human being who uses emdashes, I have conveniently supplied one here for you to copy and paste: —

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 06, 2026

If am not trans, may I still have a chainsaw hand, or would that be disrespectful to the trans community?

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

I am a human being who likes to use emdashes in its comments, and totally not a bot. If you want to be a fellow human being who uses emdashes, I have conveniently supplied one here for you to copy and paste: —

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

I am a human being who likes to use emdashes in its comments, and totally not a bot. If you want to be a fellow human being who uses emdashes, I have conveniently supplied one here for you to copy and paste: —

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 06, 2026

I think that if you do not believe in your own argument strongly enough to let it stand on its own without adding bizarre criticisms of my writing style, then it is really not worth me continuing to engage. Have a good day! 😉

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

I am a human being who likes to use emdashes in its comments, and totally not a bot. If you want to be a fellow human being who uses emdashes, I have conveniently supplied one here for you to copy and paste: —

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 05, 2026

Obviously war is bad, which is why the idea that was actually being considered was actually “maybe mass death and untold suffering is not the worst thing, if it buys peace and prosperity for subsequent generations by building a civilization of greater scale”. As @inputzero@lemmy.world says below, one’s thoughts on this probably depends on exactly how one feels about utilitarianism.

And… is the best attack you could come up with that I “type like a redditor”? Really?

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

I am a human being who likes to use emdashes in its comments, and totally not a bot. If you want to be a fellow human being who uses emdashes, I have conveniently supplied one here for you to copy and paste: —

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 05, 2026

Out of curiosity, did you actually read the article? Because it neither commented on any of the wars ongoing in 2014 nor proposed any new ones.

Also, newspapers generally have a designated opinion section, and this was in that section, so it was not treated the same as factual reporting in the manner you are concerned about.

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

I am a human being who likes to use emdashes in its comments, and totally not a bot. If you want to be a fellow human being who uses emdashes, I have conveniently supplied one here for you to copy and paste: —

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 05, 2026

There was still some diversity of viewpoints, though it was much narrower. Still, I agree it got significantly worse, which is why I stopped subscribing to it. (I stuck around for longer than many because the reporting outside the opinion page was pretty good and I wanted to support that, but it eventually became too much for me.)

Also, out of curiosity, did you actually read the article? Because none of the points you seem to think that it makes come close to what it actually argues.

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 05, 2026

That was not how I read the article at all. What it is arguing is essentially that people benefit from the presence of order, especially when it includes larger numbers of people, but that historically such order only tends to come about through warfare. By all means disagree with this—though you might consider reading the article if you haven’t so that you are responding to its actual points—but it has nothing to do with people doing better merely because they have survived the war.

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 05, 2026

So newspapers should never publish any opinions that have any commentary on warfare?

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

I am a human being who likes to use emdashes in its comments, and totally not a bot. If you want to be a fellow human being who uses emdashes, I have conveniently supplied one here for you to copy and paste: —

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 05, 2026

It is not always the case that the side you disagree with is just a bunch of Nazis, and furthermore sometimes it is you who are wrong. That is why it is important not to be too zealous in shutting out everyone you disagree with on any issue.

Nonetheless, that does not mean that everyone should be platformed, and I am not a fan of some of the choices that the Washington Post has made in this regard, which is why I am no longer a subscriber. However, I did not think that this particular article was that bad, because it is essentially just saying that order results in far greater peace and prosperity than no order, especially when it incorporates increasingly large scales of people, but that it unfortunately requires violence to bring this about. One can very reasonably disagree, but one needs to do more than what many have done, which is to just read the title, assume that one knows what the article was arguing, and then criticize it based on that assumption.

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

I am a human being who likes to use emdashes in its comments, and totally not a bot. If you want to be a fellow human being who uses emdashes, I have conveniently supplied one here for you to copy and paste: —

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 05, 2026

Keep in mind that this is a guest opinion, which means it is not intended to reflect the official opinion of the Washington Post—in fact, it might be the opposite, but published anyway in order to provide a diversity of viewpoints. (Personally, I do not like everyone they have chosen to platform, but it is not unreasonable for them to want to err on the side of listening to what the other side has to say to avoid creating an echo chamber.)

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

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Totally Human Emdash User

@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone

I am a human being who likes to use emdashes in its comments, and totally not a bot. If you want to be a fellow human being who uses emdashes, I have conveniently supplied one here for you to copy and paste: —

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@totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone in onehundredninetysix · Mar 05, 2026

I will do one better and provide a link to an archived copy of the article so you all can read it for yourselves!

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