The most moderate, nuanced and productive people I have discussed the Israel-Hamas war with have been Jews, Israelis, and people with Palestinian family. Everyone directly affected by this just wants it to stop and to have peace and safety in the region in a way that minimises the casualty count.
The most extreme and performative and vile things I've been told are by people who have no connection to this and like to think they are experts because they have covered adjacent topics during learning, or read stuff online.
If all the randos in the west would just shut up for ten minutes and let those of us actually affected, with an understanding of the history of the land and the culture and the generational trauma experienced by Jews and Palestinians alike talk, we might actually have a chance to salvage this and stop it spiraling
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It's just... odd to me, I suppose, going from "what is in my pants is completely irrelevant to most anybody else's life" to the expectation that you must be completely open, essentially, about what is in your pants.
I think a lot of people understand the general idea of why it's bad decorum to demand people offer explanations for private information like this, but they don't analyze exactly why it's bad besides, "asking directly is just rude" and not "asking in any way still enforces the often violent nature of gender and sex, and putting people in the 'right box' is a part of that violence."
It's especially odd when seeing other trans people enforcing the idea that "what's in your pants?" is a genuine, good-faith basis for interacting with others.
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forgive me…. i am a little dumb… does that COI number mean stellina is like. 40% inbred?? i’m assuming no but could you explain what the numbers mean?
Stellina is more than 40% inbred 🙃 but yes, that is what it means.
COI = coefficient of inbreeding, or essentially how inbred a dog is. A parent-child breeding, or a breeding between full siblings would theoretically give you a dog that has a COI of 25%. On average, purebred dogs are at about 20%, but that varies depending on breed - some breeds are very diverse, others are very inbred. The collie breed average is estimated to be around 40%, which is very much on the high end - it means on average, collies are almost genetic full siblings. This website has breed breakdowns, for a visual reference.
Genetic COI is a relatively recent thing, as before we had DNA tests we had to rely on “pedigree COI” aka literally laying your dogs pedigree out on paper, counting how many times certain dogs appeared over the generations, and then doing calculations based on that. These tend to be significantly lower than the genetic COI because that doesn’t take into account the overall gene pool of the breed. Stellinas pedigree COI was somewhere around 18% when I calculated it iirc, which is still high but significantly lower than her genetic COI. That’s because the amount of dogs originally used to create the modern collie breed was very small, so all collies today are pulling from the same small pool of DNA. When you have breeds that are all direct descendants from the same handful of dogs, and with how COI only accrues higher and higher with each generation… it’s totally possible to end up with thousands of dogs that are genetic siblings.
The good news is that despite their very low genetic diversity, collies are still a healthy breed with a respectable average lifespan on 12-14 and few major health issues. But that’s despite the high COI, not because of it. On the other hand take the Doberman breed, which has a similar average COI around 40%. Something like 2/3 Dobermans will die from a heart disease called DCM, which makes seemingly healthy dogs just drop dead. And because virtually every Doberman is a genetic full sibling with each other, there’s no real way to just breed away from it. The breeds essentially in a death spiral unless there’s some miraculous medical breakthrough, or unless they start breeding Dobermans to other, unrelated dogs to try and increase diversity. Which is a huge can of worms by itself. so while collies are still doing, all things considered, really well, they're very much the exception and not the rule. unfortunately because there's no immediate repercussions, that means a lot of collie breeders and clubs will hand-wave off the high COI as "oh that's not a problem for us" which, like. yeah. for now.
so tl;dr: yes COI is how inbred a dog is. yes it being high is bad. you can have a high COI and still be healthy (and have a low COI and be unhealthy), but it's still really not great and should be avoided. however in breeds where the COI is already high, there's not really a feasible way to get around it.
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BBS is a tragedy in many ways, but one of the things that gets me is that the catalyst, the one big thing that caused this mess to begin with, is so avoidable.
Like, the story starts primarily because Terra starts to fear himself (because of the darkness he has unwittingly 'used') and this causes a spiral of doubt and obsession. A spiral which he could've escaped from or maybe not even started if he just 1) had been taught the balance between light and dark properly (that darkness is more than just unquestionable evil, that light is more than unquestionable good, that they can and should co-exist in balance), and 2) had consistent socialization from more than the same 3 people.
Like. BBS is a cautionary tale about what happens when people aren't exposed to a wide enough variety of people and, therefore, end up naive and overly trusting because they never learned that people have ulterior motives. Terra is consistently manipulated and used by people literally everywhere he goes, because he can't see that they might not have the best intentions! He can't see the red flags because he doesn't know there are red flags to look for!
Xehanort knows this. It's why he targeted Terra to begin with: because he would be susceptable to his words. The main reason he couldn't use Aqua is because she was too confident in her own values, she didn't have the seed of doubt that Terra had. It's the only thing that prevents her from being used the same way he is, even though she is just as naive and trusting as he is.
Ven probably has it the worst socialization wise. Unlike Terra and Aqua who, presumably, has/had a family and life outside of the Land of Departure prior to beginning training there, Ven doesn't remember anything before then (not that he had much he'd be happy to remember anyway). And since he's the youngest and most 'fragile' one (due to being in recovery for most of his time here), he gets somewhat coddled and shielded by everyone else. Not to mention the way Eraqus completely forbid him from leaving and never intented for him to ever see worlds outside the Land of Departure. Sure, Terra and Aqua aren't typically supposed to leave either, but at least they'd be allowed in certain situations. Ven wouldn't.
Ven isn't allowed to interact with anyone outside of home. He's not allowed anything that involves the outer worlds. (He and Naminé are a bit alike in that sense. Though at least the people he's stuck with are nice to Ven and do genuinely care for him, unlike Naminé...)
BBS happens largely because Eraqus failed as both a teacher and a parental figure to all of them, but Terra most of all.
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this poll was submitted by an anonymous user. if you have a poll you want boosted feel free to submit it to me or post it and @ me in the replies or send me the link in an ask!
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