The Sense8 creator said: “JK Rowling funds trans genocide, full stop. So, if you support Harry Potter, you’re supporting trans genocide.
“The money that goes into you enjoying these products, a portion of that money goes to JK Rowling and that money goes into her funding anti-trans legislation all over the world.”
Wachowski suggested that trans allies should boycott work that benefitted Rowling financially, including HBO’s upcoming TV adaptation of the Harry Potter series.
“In the same way that if you are against Elon Musk, you boycott or don’t buy Tesla; and if you’re against global warming/climate change, you try not to buy as much gas, you try to mitigate your use of these products,” she said.
trans genocide funder lies about funding trans genocide
I used the word “genocide” in this context without thinking about it recently, but I went back and edited my comment. I’m not certain this is an appropriate usage. It casts being trans as something it is not.
Edit: oops i see someone else raised this point better
Joanne’s agent calls Lily’s statement a defamatory allegation. Okay, file the defamation suit. I would love to see how this shakes out in court.
Me: who the hell is Joanne?
I just realized I’ve never heard her first name before
Because Joanne hates it.
She would say that, but doesn’t change the fact that she absolutely is.
To fascists, fascism is free speech and other free speech is fascism. To everyone else, a spade is a fuckin spade.
Take her wealth, use it to fund gender affirming care for her victims, and put her in prison until she’s willing to teach writing at a free community college
until she’s willing to teach writing at a free community college
Don’t condemn creative writing students to that fate, her writing isn’t any better than theirs was freshman year
Is she going to stop doing it though?
No.
I understand that this is a serious issue, and it’s not my intention to minimize that, but although this might seem unnecessarily pedantic, isn’t part of the definition of genocide that it’s targeted against some sort of cultural heritage or ethnicity? At least the root geno seems to imply as much.
Even if the meaning of the word has evolved to encompass erasure of any culture, including transnational subcultures, I wonder if this is a hang-up for some of the people who refuse to call it a genocide. Maybe calling it something like “gendercide” would get through to more people?
I mean I know there are a lot of people who won’t acknowledge a genocide until after it happens, and in many cases not until decades after (if even then). And there are also unfortunately many who are just plain old malicious and spiteful and won’t call it anything with a negative connotation that would validate people’s concerns about the issue.
But I don’t think those people encompass the entirety of folks who aren’t willing to call it a genocide. Some people might simply think it sounds hyperbolic or imprecise. And to better get through to those people specifically, mightn’t it be beneficial to choose a word that they’re more willing to accept, albeit without lessening the severity of what it refers to?
Calling it “gendercide” still implies that people are dying, potentially en masse, and it still communicates that the hostility is directed at a specific demographic of people. It just clarifies that the demographic being targeted isn’t an ethnic group, but rather a gender group.
Of course, there might be a better word for it than that. It’s just that, unfortunately, people tend to get desensitized to words that they hear a lot, especially if they consider those words hyperbolic (whether they are in truth or not). So I feel like calling it genocide, even if that’s an accurate description, ends up shutting down people’s willingness to engage in the conversation; unless those people are already of the variety who don’t need to be convinced. So in effect it can be kinda like preaching to the choir.
This is just a pragmatic approach. There might be other valid approaches. For instance, “Calling it genocide because that’s what it is” seems sort of deontological. “This is the truth, so it’s what we’ll say” versus “Softening the truth a little might make it more persuasive to people who are on the fence.”
Personally, I think whatever results in the least harm/suffering/death/oppression is the best approach. So call me utilitarian if you must, but I’ll always caution against alienating potential allies even if that means being a little more circumspect at times.
In 2019, the American Medical Association recognized “an epidemic of violence against the transgender community,” who are over 2.5 times more likely than cisgender people.
40% of trans youth reported attempting suicide in their lifetime. That’s nearly nine times the national average.
https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/117016/documents/HMKP-118-JU00-20240321-SD011.pdf
I didn’t deny that there’s “an epidemic of violence against the transgender community,” so I’m having trouble figuring out how you comment relates to what I said.
All I did was call attention to the terminology we use to describe it, and suggested that perhaps using a term that more clearly applies to the situation might help persuade fence-sitters to take the issue more seriously instead of rolling their eyes as soon as they hear “genocide,” which if you haven’t noticed, is what most people seem to do.
Did you provide a standard accepted definition of genocide that rules out limiting its applicability to instances in which the violence is targeted toward an ethnic group or some other sort of inherited identity? Because if you did include that somewhere in your comment, I must have missed it.
Or did you present an argument for why we should consider it a genocide even if the demographic group/trait isn’t based on genetics or heritage, despite the root genos?
Because unless you did either of those things, I think you entirely missed the point of what I was saying and should go back and reread my original comment if you want to continue this conversation.
Preaching to the choir is only good for virtue signaling, not persuasion. And if we want to help trans people by improving society’s outlook towards them, then we need to persuade people to care.
Oh, that was meant to be in support of what you said like an addendum. I apologize if you took it any other way.
I do take offense with you using a garbage term like virtue signaling. Even saying those words gives me the creeps because mainly only creepy people say them. I would personally never use those words because they are a perversion of reality that was started as right wing propaganda to discredit social issues. It is in the same vein as bleeding hearts meant to disparage the person and not the argument.
Oh my bad, I guess I got a little overly defensive. I’m just so used to having to walk on eggshells whenever I discuss anything relevant to this topic without relying on a cookie-cutter script of what’s an acceptable stance to take. Like I get it, people’s nerves are high, but we have to preserve room for nuance and novel thought or else we become ineffective, not to mention a caricature of what we should be.
I also usually have a problem with the term virtue signaling, but in this context I would point out that I was using it to refer to “preaching to the choir” and contrasting it with the pragmatic approach of tailoring language to be more persuasive to outsiders/fence-sitters. So I wasn’t using it as a blanket to try to invalidate taking a principled stance as a whole. Remember that I thought you were scolding me for something that I couldn’t figure out why, which turns out was not the case anyway. So I was mistaken, and I wouldn’t have mentioned virtue signaling had I not been.
But also, in my experience, it’s not just the right-wing that uses the term. I’ve been accused of virtue signaling in leftist spaces where it’s used almost interchangeably with “performativism.”
Or in other words: “someone I don’t like said something that I would otherwise generally agree with, so I have to hide an ad hominem attack under the cover of questioning their sincerity.”
And that looks much worse by percentage. I don’t mean to be shitty about it, but I’m not sure of the statistical significance of these percentages.
In the same breath, it is totally reasonable to be transgender but I would not say it is a “totally normal” position to hold. Is there outside influence that drives suicide numbers up? Absolutely. Are there intrinsic correlations between people who are trans and people who commit suicide? Maybe. Should things be better than they are regardless, you bet your sweet ass.
There is nothing wrong with being trans. Women are women, and everyone deserves space to exist.
All that said, you don’t get to make trans a “normalized” position because statistically it isn’t “normal”! What is the suicide rate among trans people? There is no reason to assume anything that is “for people who are trans” should be an identical or even about the same for people who are cisgendered. It’s a crazy minority position which absolutely has confounding factors. You can’t PC the math to be the same because that’s how you want it.
Posting stuff like this looks really good, but as a hard pill to swallow it’s way off base by the numbers. You can’t just assert that everyone is equal ergo all stats are equal. That’s at best naive and at worst stupid.
You are definitely crossing the line in several ways here in order to downplay and minimize suffering. Your skepticism is likely hiding an uglier truth.
As far as dismissing Trans because of their minority status keep in mind red hair, left-handedness, and Type 1 diabetes are also statistical minority conditions, yet none are disqualified from social accommodation, medical standard-of-care, or basic respect due to low prevalence.
With your questioning of transgender suicide it feels like you are framing that being transgender is inherently unstable or undesirable, while ignoring the established etiology of that distress.
Mainstream clinical consensus (including the American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics) identifies the minority stress model as the primary driver of these disparities. Elevated rates of depression and suicidality among trans individuals correlate strongly with familial rejection, discrimination, violence, lack of healthcare access, and social stigma. The very conditions aggravated by refusing to normalize their existence.
In regards to your statement about identical treatment, advocates for transgender rights generally do not argue that medical or physiological needs are identical to cisgender populations; they argue for equal dignity, civil rights protections, and evidence-based, transition-related healthcare.
Furthermore, by framing the call for equal human rights as an insistence that trans and cis experiences are mathematically or biologically interchangeable, your statement appears to attack an absurd position that nobody is advancing.
In respect to your offhand comment about crazy minority with confounding factors you seem to misapply the concept of confounding variables (such as trauma, social isolation, socioeconomic instability) that explain why disparities exist. They do not invalidate the humanity of the population being studied.
Sound research explicitly controls for confounding factors, and studies consistently demonstrate that social affirmation, supportive environments, and gender-affirming care substantially reduce psychological distress.
Lastly your comment about PC seems to be your coup de grace, so to speak. It dismisses systemic analysis and ethical considerations as mere political correctness. It presents an illusion of hard-nosed, objective realism while using statistically flawed reasoning to justify exclusion and downplay acute suffering.
I think when they said “normalized,” they meant it in the statistical sense. As in normalizing data against a larger set. Whereas you seem to have read it in the sociological sense of “validating.” So that could be a potential source of the disconnect here.
For what it’s worth, I don’t necessarily agree with them. But I think what they were trying to say is that pointing out the difference in attempted suicide rates between trans people and national averages, is a bit like pointing out the higher instances of glycemia-related medical emergencies between type-1 diabetics and the national average. Of course it will be higher.
Again, I think it was a hamfisted attempt and not necessarily helpful, especially without diving into the intricacies of correlation and causation; but I don’t think their point was that we shouldn’t care. It seemed like more of a methodological critique.
Whoa now hold on a second. You are conflating different things here that I did not actually say.
I’m not dismissing trans people here in any way. I belong to at least one of the minority groups you mentioned and it is great to be seen, but I’m not advocating for writing people off for being in the minority. What I SAID is that statistically speaking a minority position has no business being equated with the “norm”. By the numbers, left handers (just for example) are more creative, but statistically don’t live as long. I don’t know WHY that is, but I know that if my position is “everybody is the same” then I would be wrong here. It doesn’t make sense that leftys should live shorter lives, but I surely doubt that it’s because the oppression of right handed scissors.
I don’t know about the prevalence of suicide rates among trans people as a sub-population, but I CAN say that it is indeed a minority and under-studied position and there is no reason to assume it is the same as “general population”, not as a trivialization of a group, but rather because if you care about the characteristics of a minority, you should STUDY that minority. I am not about to paint trans people as undesirables, but I would go so far as to say that, psychologically speaking, being trans is a situation–WHICH IS DIFFERENT FROM THE NORM–in which the best remediation is to transition (and be respected) rather than a lifelong course of therapy or medication or something else.
My position, no less or no more, is that you said “40% of trans yout reported attempting suicide in their lifetime. That’s nearly 9 times the national average” and I cannot say, and I am skeptical to agree, that suicide risk for people who are trans and suicide risk for people who are not trans should be equal. There are 9x as many apples as there are oranges doesn’t make any sense. Both of these numbers should be as small as possible.
My whole point is that, if you are going to subdivide groups, there IS NO STATISTICAL LOGIC TO ASSUMING THEY ARE THE SAME AS THE MAJORITY GROUP. Here when I say “normal” I mean, specifically and mathematically that we are respecting the norm.
You can twist your panties as many times as you want, but being trans and being cis don’t have the same statistics, and being trans is a much smaller group. Moreover, I DON’T KNOW what a good number is for suicide rate, or happiness rate, or marriage rate, or anything else for trans folks. I hope every trans person gets to have all of these things, but comparing them to a majority cis standard does a disservice to everyone. I can understand that confounding factors presented by the mainstream clinical consensus are all in agreement, but there is nothing there that suggests what rates of occurrence ought to be.
Your arguments, while heartfelt, are not addressing the statistics I’m trying to get at. I think you’re more interested in coloring me a transphobe and moving on. Which if that’s the case, just downvote and do it. I don’t need you to like me @Doomsider@lemmy.world but you’re going to acknowledge my position or block me. My minority is I don’t give a shit what you or anyone else thinks but I will comment until we both die rather than just move along.
Edit: To add and clarify, I LITERALLY don’t know if this is resolved statistics. If you say “hey here’s a link that resolves it” I will be happy to read it and accept. In the main, generalizing statistical rates from majority to minority groups doesn’t make any sense, but most people are bad at statistics it turns out.
I don’t need to color you as you did a good job yourself. To be frank, bringing up PC was the red flag that made me realize that you are being a bit disingenuous. The paragraph I focused on was a big WHAT THE FUCK for me. I see that you are sensitive and you should be when you have gone so far out on a limb postulating to the point that you are coming across as wrestling with transphobia. To be clear, I am not saying you are transphobic, but I am suspicious based upon your arguments.
Having said that the vast majority of what you say is helpful and respectful. I do appreciate that.
Statistical analysis already takes into consideration your points so I am not sure where you are going except maybe just treading water before you go completely under. It really doesn’t matter what you say or think as we already have the empirical evidence. You are welcome to refute it with your own statistical analysis, if not we can just accept it.
You may be reluctant to say suicide rates should be equivalent, but based on the research I provided you shouldn’t be. Statistical analysis already accounts for your misgivings, that is the whole point. While transgender people are a sub population they are not particularly unique by any metric and saying a non-trans person is an Apple and a trans person is a orange (or maybe the other way around) is a comically bad example.
Assuming trans people are not similar to the majority group conflates demographic distinctiveness with baseline human biology and statistical methodology. In research and statistical modeling, assuming a shared baseline between a subgroup and the general population is standard practice.
Across the vast majority of biomedical metrics such as cellular respiration, basic pharmacokinetics, cardiovascular hemodynamics, and organ function shows that human beings share identical foundational physiology.
The differences between transgender and cisgender cohorts generally pertain to specific variables such as exogenous hormone levels, surgical history, or distinct social determinants of health like minority stress. Outside these specific physiological or psychosocial pathways, assuming divergence has no biological or statistical basis.
Assuming trans individuals are completely distinct across all parameters creates an unfalsifiable exceptionalism that undermines valid comparative research. Meaningful statistical inquiry examines differences where plausible mechanisms exist, while maintaining standard population baselines for everything else.
The only thing that appears to be twisting is yourself as you have hung yourself (no pun intended) out to dry. I won’t be down voting you or blocking you because it is important to address the issues you have brought up not only for your benefit, but also for everyone else who is here. Besides, like I said, you appear to be helpful and respectful. While I do not agree with your misgivings, they are not completely irrational (just mostly).
Omg sorry but I read that as “Sense8 -creator, JK Rowling.” And I almost had a heart attack. Nice to see the sense8 creator is bashing the pos
I’m with Wachowski on this, up until she starts going after the fans. Let the billionaires fight, but leave people alone who just want to enjoy things in a fucked-up world. If you grew up reading about witches and wizards, you’re not complicit in what the author supports. You just grew up reading magical fantasy, and that’s fine.
That said, I hope JKR takes these words to heart and makes her claim true. I don’t think she will, I think she’s just trying to fend off negative PR while willfully doing the things that generates negative PR and for good reason, but I’m glad she’s not leaning into the hate like some others have done. Maybe she’ll realise she’s hurting people and shift her focus? Probably not, though.
Also, I love that she’s the “Sense8 creator” and not the “Matrix creator”. The first Matrix movie was very good (the others, not so much), but Sense8 was also very good, and also relevant as it featured not only a trans woman playing a trans woman, but it dug deep into the concept of human compassion by empathically linking a set number of people. Interestingly, Japan had a very similar story that came out around the same time, Kiznaiver. I used to think Sense8 was “the Netflix adaptation”, but it came out about a year before. I don’t think either one influenced the other, but they share the same concept. In Sense8, it’s all people who were born at the exact same time as some global event (I don’t recall what exactly). In Kiznaiver, it’s a technology that links 7-9 people who come in contact with it, as an experiment. But the idea of dividing pain/suffering equally between the people, and people leaning into the strengths of others, and ultimately making you wonder what if everyone was connected this way, are key themes of both. So, super relevant here in that JKR is demonising and weaponising her wealth against people who are different from her; rather than trying to bring others up, she is trying to push others down. And more than just trying; she’s very successful at it.
The Wachowskis also made Cloud Atlas, which is an absolute clusterfuck of a film, but I love it. I just wish they retained the format of the book. So, in short, the book told seven stories that were connected by kindness and art (different art) that survived from generation to generation, inspired by the art which came before. All of these segments are at least 100 years apart, I think. One is set in the far future, and another is set in a post-apocalyptic world. One is not set in our time, but in the 1970s. The other four are what you would call “historic” times. In the book, it was the first half of the first six told chronologically, the entire seventh, then the second half of the first six told in reverse chronological order… thus, 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A, 7A-B, 6B, 5B, 4B, 3B, 2B, 1B. The movie just… throws all the scenes in a blender and they come out in what seems like a random order. It still works, but it’s hard to follow, and at 3 hours long, it’s difficult to go back and watch it again, but I’ve done so a few times.
I’m down for whatever they make. I also won’t apologise for liking the Harry Potter stuff. I’m not interested in the new series. I liked the first four books, and Half-Blood Prince. I liked the first four movies, full stop. I watched the Fantastic Beasts movies; none of them were good. I haven’t been too interested in the games, but I did play Hogwarts Legacy. It was made without JKR’s approval, and features a trans character. In fact, you can be trans in the game and literally no one but JKR has an issue with it. There are several things you can do to make your gender appear one way or another. Anyone can use any hair, any body build (basically breasts and hourglass figure or no breasts and parallel figure), so you can totally mix it up, be as non-binary as you want, and then you get the final word on whether you’re a “witch” or a “wizard” and everybody respects your pronouns, full stop. The game is also constantly on sale on consoles and has been frequently given away on PC. They don’t want JKR making money on it. And the broom flying is awesome, shame they didn’t put Quidditch in it. But you can explore the whole castle, and it’s set 100 years before Tom Riddle (or Albus Dumbledore, I forgot) was born.
Enjoy what you like. But don’t go out of your way to support trans genocide.
If you’re still a fan after knowing what your support and money is going to, honestly fuck you. It doesn’t matter if Hogwarts Legacy has a trans character when she makes 50-100 million off of it and other HP media each year. Let Harry Potter die already.
Didn’t she name that character Sir Assaultya Mannington or something?
Yeah the game was every bit as tactless and casually bigoted as the books. They make as prominent Asian character an alcoholic, just stereotypes everywhere. And the trans character was such a token addition to quell the outage from antisemitic tropes and a had designer being a white supremacist.
Sure, if you can replace it with something better. But if you can’t do that, and you can just kill off something from your childhood that you enjoyed, that makes you a rather cold person, and then what’s the point? If we haven’t got compassion and love, what’s left? Just coldness for those we hate? That’s no way to live.
Do I regret that a book series written by a bigot got so big? Well, yeah. But we didn’t know it at the time. I’m not going to apologise for something that caught my imagination 25 years ago.
Also, people aren’t about just one issue. Boy George is gay, and he supports the genocide in Gaza. What does that mean? It just means one rich guy who used to make good music is a POS. Doesn’t mean everyone who likes Karma Chameleon supports genocide. Though, I find myself not choosing to play it as much. Likewise, I don’t read the Harry Potter books constantly. I just won’t apologise for the past. I don’t live there anymore.
if you can replace it with something better
Pratchett.
The Tiffany Aching books specifically if you want a direct replacement (but better), the rest of his work if you want more.
Pratchett
Sounds like a good recommendation, actually, from what I could skim on DDG. Hopefully it catches on.
I actually meant to read Discworld books at one point many years ago, but was always overwhelmed at the size of the universe.
I actually meant to read Discworld books at one point many years ago, but was always overwhelmed at the size of the universe.
Just pick one (preferably a one-off or one at the start of a series, thought at most you’ll miss some character background and lore if you pick one in the middle) that looks good to you and start reading, they’re all good.
The very first ones are a bit different than the rest, especially the first two (more genre parody than Discworld proper) as he was still finding his footing, but they’re still good.
Guards! Guards!, Small Gods, Wyrd Sisters (technically Equal Rites is the first Witches book, but it’s still a transitional one), Pyramids, Mort, or Sorcery (still a transitional one, but quite a good one) are good starting points.
Or if you want something with less books just pick up the Bromeliad, aka The Nome Trilogy; just three books, and a whole different setting, but also a classic. Not exactly the same style as the Discworld books, but they’ll give you an idea of how you like his writing (probably more than the first two Discworld books, really).
lol yeah i hope pratchet makes it one day
If you read much as a kid you knew back then the books weren’t well written. The stories were fun but never has Jo been a competent writer. The books are riddled with plot holes and inconsistent themes and straight up retcons because she didn’t keep notes and is a hack writer. But there are actually good books with cohesive themes and messages that aren’t rambling messes filled with inconsistent ideals and casually racist ignorance. The Harry Potter books are not well written, at all. She contradicts herself constantly, breaks her own world building, and half forms ideas that she abandons halfway through each book. Seriously, read any actually good author, Rowling writes like a fucking middle schooler. I have in fact read shit written by middle schoolers that was more cohesive than Jo’s attempts. And this is all coming from a person that grew up with Harry, reading the books as they came out. Hell they helped me figure I was queer. But they’re not well written, at all, and Jo is a monster and bigot and is responsible for killing trans kids. Be better.
No. Stop funding J.K. Rowling’s hate. A significant portion of every dollar you spend on Harry Potter anything goes directly to her hate organization(s). Directly. She has said as much. Stop funding her hate. Just stop it. There’s other media to enjoy.
Cool. I spend nothing on her stuff after finding out she hates trans people. I wanted to donate the books, but my wife wants to keep them. I got the game for free.
The Harry Potter franchise has grossed $35 BILLION dollars of revenue so far. Rowling is a billionaire. Even if HP sales went to 0 tomorrow, she would still be a billionaire. While not buying her stuff is good, 1) sales data shows people are still buying her stuff and 2) we should be going after her obscene wealth. No moral person is a billionaire.
It’s very simple. Stop funding genocide. Saying “oh she has billions of dollars, what does it matter if I buy a movie or book?” is exactly HOW she has all that money to fund hate. STOP FUNDING HATE. It’s that simple.
Look at you trying to justify why Harry Potter is more important to you than trans people’s lives.
Wow, assumptions assumptions. I don’t give a fuck if people stop giving her money. I’m just saying you will not make a dent in her well-being. Tax. Her. Fucking. Wealth!
Looks like you are fine having trans people keep dying with ineffectual actions that will accomplish nothing at all.
Genuine question, what about buying second hand? She doesn’t get any new money, so if you wanted to read the books/watch the movies because you support the actors, that would be fine, no?
Stop supporting anything she does. Another commenter said “it’s very easy to not fund genocide”. Don’t support people like her, even second-hand. You’re still benefiting her by keeping her creations relevant.
I am paraphrasing but I have seen some people argue that by consuming media created by JKR, you could be creating new fans.
I think that if you want to consume any media related to JKR, you are morally obligated to pirate it so that not a single cent goes to her.
If, for example, you like your pirated Hogwarts Legacy game and want to support the studio, they have other games you can buy as proxy. You can even check if they have direct donations and pay them the full game price. Same thing goes for the movies, buy a different movie from the same director or actor so that some of the sale profit goes to them sidestepping the digital ownership of Rowling.
I won’t even condone pirating it. There’s so much more media out there that you could spend your time and money on. Things that weren’t created by someone who hates a whole group of people just for being themselves.
To be clear, I’m a cis white male. I have trans friends but that’s as close as I get to the trans community. It just doesn’t sit right with me to read or watch anything related to Harry Potter ever since she started being so vocal about her hate. That kind of person is exactly the kind of person we don’t want to support. Go watch anything else. Go read anything other than HP. There’s so much more.
For me the golden rule here is “how do my actions affect trans kids?” (And adults too for that matter).
For most people, playing a HP video game will make HP content more recent in their brains and come up more in their thoughts and conversations.
For a lot of people, knowing what the author supports makes HP less fun… just like Ender’s Game before it, and countless other properties.
It makes sense that a loss of a cherished story from childhood is felt as a loss, and the books and related media were important to a lot of us growing up. There might be some contexts where talking about HP doesn’t increase the demand for it, or enrich JKR, like if you’re criticizing it or talking about how you don’t like it any more, etc.
If someone theoretically never knew anything about JKR and never told anybody about HP, then theoretically them enjoying the stories would have no effect on anything. If someone is in that boat, awesome. Keep living your best life, theoretical HP-enjoyer who doesn’t discuss it!
Thank you for your take :)
So you wanna support people that support her? Second hand still doesn’t support them.
Here is my line of thinking. Say someone bought the books 20 years ago and donated them to a second hand book store, and you picked them up there, you aren’t supporting the person who bought the books originally, you aren’t supporting joanne either.
I know a lot of people are polarized on the separate the art from the artist line of thought. Some people say you can, others say you can’t.
No I was just mostly saying that buying second hand doesn’t in any way address your point of wanting to support the actors and not the creator. Second hand is fine, though again Harry Potter is pretty poorly written if you read much at all.
Ah sorry, I misunderstood! Thank you for clarifying. Yes second hand certainly doesn’t help support the actors, good point.
Not going after fans. Going after CUSTOMERS. Very clearly this is about GIVING MONEY to a militant bigot, not about being a fan of Harry Potter.
Fuck Rowling stans.
You know how easy it is to not fund genocide?
Actually pretty hard given how many products turn out to have financial links to Israel, but at least it’s easy to identify what does and doesn’t fund Rowling.
Yes but it’s real easy to not buy HP trash.
Depending on if your government is using tax money to do it.
Can be quite hard, if you pay taxes, or buy anything unfortunately
Crazy how people think it’s cool to just “enjoy things in a fucked up world”. When the thing they’re enjoying is genocide.
Sure. Ok bro.
Are you 100% sure that every piece of media you enjoy was produced by a saint?
Or do you just not enjoy things? I doubt this.
I think it’s more likely that you do enjoy things that were made by rotten people, but you don’t think it’s the same thing.
That I currently enjoy? To the best of my knowledge, yes.
You see, not supporting genocide is a really low bar.
Not supporting a sex pest is a really low bar.
Not being a Nazi enabler is a really low bar.
If you can’t find media without resorting to supporting genocide, what the fuck does that say about you?
That an ongoing genocide isn’t worth the tiniest inconvenience to your enjoyment.
When people say most wouldn’t have hidden the Jews in their basements, they’re talking about you. You, who can’t be fucked to walk away from a media franchise. Much less put your life on the line to help others.
There are many words for people like you. But simply put.
You are a coward.
When people do fucked up shit and my consumption gives them the means to continue doing fucked up shit, I stop consuming. It’s not a hard concept.
Woody Allen is a predator? Guess I’ll wait until he’s dead before I re-watch Annie Hall. Bill Cosby is a rapist? I don’t need to buy Leonard Part 6 on DVD. Hell, Chipotle got caught union busting? There’s other Mexican places that are better anyway. I can choose not to engage once I know it’s a bad thing.
Stop trying to justify your own moral failing by saying, “Well I bet everyone does it and they just don’t know it!” No one makes perfect choices, and you’re right that some of the stuff I consume is probably made by bad people and I just don’t know it yet. The difference seems to be that once I do know, I change my behavior.
The difference seems to be that once I do know, I change my behavior.
No, you don’t, and you’ve told us you haven’t. You just tell us you do for “points” on the Internet, like anybody’s counting.
I’ve said at least 2-3 times that I read these books and played these games in the past and that I’m not buying the new audiobooks, I’m not watching the new series, etc. But you still persist.
If anyone were counting, they’d be able to see that as well.
Hold yourself to the same moral code you hold others to. Your problem is that your moral and ethical system benefits you and makes everyone else a liability. Alter it a bit so you’re held to the same standards. Otherwise, you can’t hold the high ground, and anyone you’re trying to score points with can see it.
When the creator tells you that they’re a piece of shit with their actions and words, you listen. Rowling is one such creator. Stop defending her.
Are you 100% sure that every piece of media you enjoy was produced by a saint?
This is a situation where we are 100% sure. Your argument here seems to be, “Well, if I didn’t look into it, I wouldn’t know, so why can’t I just pretend I don’t know?”
You’re perfectly entitled to stick your head in the sand but please don’t cope out loud in my direction.
They don’t have to be perfect saints to be better than someone actively pouring millions into a genocide.
Also, expecting someone not to give money to someone who obviously, and publicly funds genocide is not the same as expecting someone to do rigorous, indepth research on every person involved in every piece of media they consume.
Ok there’s a difference here, and the difference is effect.
I like HP Lovecraft’s work and he was a racist piece of shit.
I liked Harry Potter and JK is a transphobic piece of shit.
But HP is dead and his stuff is public domain so none of my money goes to racist organizations.
If I bought any Harry Potter stuff, some of that money would go to JK who uses that money to fuck over trans people.
No one is saying you can’t enjoy Harry Potter, and it’s wild to think that you can’t imagine enjoying something without buying it.
If I really wanted to reread the stories, I’d pirate them or borrow them from a library. Same with the games. JK won’t get a dime from me and hasn’t in a long, long time.
If people like Harry Potter, I don’t judge them poorly, but if they are buying it now, I do judge them.
I am. I’m saying don’t engage with the Harry Potter IP in any way. If you support her at all, she views that as support for her fucked up ideas about trans people. If you merely talk about it, even online, you’re helping her and showing her support. These are things she has said herself. FUCK JK ROWLING.
I think that’s a bit extreme. You’re talking about her now, online. I think people should talk about her and criticize her.
No way you can expect anyone to read that after the first sentence. You highly earned a tag edit. And the first one was not complimentary as it was
I mean, if you wanna judge a book by its cover and tell the person, that says a lot more about you than it does me. And you can’t really dispute that since you said you can’t comprehend a post longer than a Tweet or a TikTok video.
That said, I wish I could figure out this user tagging thing. It sounds kinda useful. I thought it was a PieFed thing, but you’re on Lemmy.world. It could be the interface I’m using. The app I use doesn’t present the option, either.
It’s entirely possible to have the ability but not the desire to read a wall of text.
Not reading a wall of text doesn’t reasonably preclude someone from disputing a claim unrelated to the content of that text, it’s odd that you’d think that.
Complicit probably isn’t the right word, but to claim there’s no link at all is factually incorrect.
The fact that a proportion of the money in rowling’s hands goes directly into funding anti-trans efforts isn’t in dispute.
She’s the first in line to back up that claim.
If your enjoyment of the media isn’t soured by that, thats your call, everybody does what they can live with.
If your enjoyment of the media isn’t soured by the knowledge that it directly funds hate and genocide, you’re a piece of shit.
The rise of Donald Trump has shown me that a full third of the population is unrepentantly mean and bigoted and actively wants people like me dead. A full half the population doesn’t care that they want to kill me as long as I didn’t disturb their peace, and if I do then I’m the problem. And most of the rest seem willing to sacrifice trans kids to the bigots and uncaring majority in a misguided attempt to save themselves. Humans aren’t good.
People are people, peoples perception of “good” and “bad” is relative and contextual.
Take that in to account when building your expectations of people.
I personally try to take the approach that everyone is inherently selfish and will do what’s best/convenient for themselves (and perhaps the people closest to them).
and i mean selfish as a neutral descriptor, not a derogatory term.
No expectations, no disappointment, but i know that’s not a viable approach for a lot of people (and i’m not immune to the occasional hope of someone pleasantly surprising me).
I’m not saying i don’t expect good things/behaviours to happen, i just try not to build expectations on that eventuality.
That’s not very useful though. There are perfectly sound arguments that empathy and altruism are inherently selfish and self serving. Selfish behaviors can be pro-social, but humans tend strongly toward the anti-social ones in spite of being intrinsically social creatures. Humans are not good.
That’s an opinion, sure.
There’s a great deal of modern day interactions that are similar in nature, where each person draws their line is up to them.
How people view other peoples line is also up to them.
What i was getting at here wasn’t the subjective morality or ethics, that is an interesting subject though.
It’s entirely possible to have the ability but not the desire to read a wall of text.
Okay, but if you refuse to comprehend and understand what someone is saying, your ability isn’t relevant. The person you’re telling the world you aren’t listening to isn’t obligated to take you seriously at all. Because you’re not making arguments. You’re stating that you’re ignorant — whether or not this is true is not relevant, because you’re presenting that about yourself. Who am I to dispute your claims about you? I don’t know you IRL. I’m just going to take your word that you’re a pigeon on a chessboard — rather than make an intelligent move, you’re just going to knock over all the pieces and make a big show of it.
It is directly relevant if you’re making a claim against that ability.
since you said you can’t comprehend a post longer than a Tweet or a TikTok video.
It isn’t what they said, at all
No way you can expect anyone to read that after the first sentence.
Is what they actually said.
The person you’re telling the world you aren’t listening to isn’t obligated to take you seriously at all.
Fair.
You’re stating that you’re ignorant — whether or not this is true is not relevant, because you’re presenting that about yourself. Who am I to dispute your claims about you? I don’t know you IRL. I’m just going to take your word that you’re a pigeon on a chessboard — rather than make an intelligent move, you’re just going to knock over all the pieces and make a big show of it.
I’m not the person same person from that reply.
While that imagery is vivid and amusing, it’s a lot to read from a two line reply that doesn’t mention intelligence at all.
My favorite thing about Hogwarts Legacy, didn’t play it my partner did, but I know one day people are going to mod unreal engine games massively and it’ll offer a bunch of assets and tools that will make it so fucking sick.
