The scale at which you would have to be a minority for this to impact you significantly is somewhere in the 1-5% range

OK, so you need to reach a threshold of 5% of the population before you’re allowed to have rights, got it.

with the assumption that the other 95-99% are opposed to you.

That assumption isn’t actually necessary.

Let’s say there’s a small town where 65% are non-racist (or less racist) whites, 30% are racist whites, and 5% are black. If your diner decides to serve that 5%, the 30% of racists will refuse to eat there, and you’ll end up losing a lot of customers. So, rather than “95-99%” needing to be opposed to you, it only needs to be the case that your population is outnumbered by the people who hate you - which is the case for many minority groups in many places in the country.

A diner not serving black people is impactful because a handful of people are the business owners and are effectively gating you out.

That’s not really true. If if was just a matter of a handful of business owners being racists, then those racist businesses would be out-competed by non-racist businesses that appeal to everyone. The problem was wider and more systemic, being welcoming to everyone would cause racists to boycott the business, so even if a business owner wasn’t racist themselves, they would be incentivized to ban the people who the racists hated.

This also goes both ways and is potentially international, Japanese could choose not to serve non-Japanese, a black person could choose not to serve white people for comfort or security.

You’re fundamentally not understanding why Uber allowing people to make this decision is not the same as 1960’s segregation.

Because it isn’t! The scenario you described is literally the exact sort of thing the Civil Rights Act exists to stop! You are literally advocating for allowing denial of service based on protected classes!

So long as the option goes both ways this only hurts the people who opt into the program, not everyone else. The only way this could hurt others would be if those who choose to opt in (as in they only want a certain thing) get priority in the scheduling or if you live somewhere where you are the overwhelming minority.

So the only way it could hurt anyone is if they’re a minority. Yes, that’s exactly why we have the Civil Rights Act and why what you’re suggesting is illegal.

In the second example, if you are still living in a sun down town then getting Uber rides is probably not your biggest problem.

Next you’re going to tell me that black people in racist towns should just eat at home if restaurants don’t want to serve them. And if the bus driver makes you sit at the back of the bus, just drive a car.

Even now, Uber drivers are independent contractors

This is a bullshit legal category that exists primarily to exploit loopholes, but even that does not give anyone the right to discriminate and violate the Civil Rights Act.

If the driver pulls up and thinks you’re sketchy they can cancel the ride, there is no obligation.

Strictly speaking, if a driver cancelled every ride that a black person booked, they could be sued for it, although such a suit would be very difficult in practice because you’d have to have enough records of that driver (or the company, if that was the target of the suit) to show a consistent bias.

This is the case in every business. Denial of service based on protected classes is illegal.

So you disagree with the Civil Rights Act then? Because one of the things it did was force businesses to serve customers, regardless of things like race or sex. And before we had it, there where large parts of the South where black people would be refused service, and if someone did serve them, they’d lose a bunch of white customers.

That’s the very good reason why it’s “not already an option.”

Neither drivers nor Uber have the right, or should have the right, to refuse service based on categories protected in the Civil Rights Act.

The government spends every dime it can on the military anyway. If they could squeeze more to replace a ship they would already be squeezing more to build a new one. They already spend as much as the next nine countries combined.

If the war machine was going to grind to a halt just because they had “enough” ships and bombs, it would’ve done so already. It’ll keep going, more and more forever, starting more and more conflicts just to justify lining their pockets, until they finally bite off more than they can chew and kick off nuclear armegeddon. Any of their shit that gets wrecked in their stupid, psychotic adventurism is a good thing because it slows them down from that, even if just a little.

None of it saves me a dime and even if it did I wouldn’t care because my dimes won’t be worth anything when they destroy the world.

You’re misinformed, and your sources don’t claim what you’re claiming.

Your first source is specifically about instruction in monestaries. The second source, as davel literally just explained, is about the language of instruction, not about a language being exclusive.

You can criticize those things if you like, but the idea that China has banned the language outright, or even that it’s stopped teaching it in schools, is an outright lie with nothing to back it up.

What have I said that’s in any way dishonest or indicates bad faith or that I haven’t read your comments?

You’re just proving my point. Any sort of reasonable skepticism, any scrutiny whatsoever, applied to negative claims about China, gets dismissed and automatically labelled as “bad faith” or “dishonest,” and it’s expected that I blindly believe whatever I’m told, even if the only evidence provided is “sources indicate” and “are believed to have.”

And if it doesn’t get sunk, my tax dollars would just go to building another ship.

Not enough communists.

It’s not saving me a dime, it ain’t my $1 billion ship.

I did. I typed the monk’s name into google before I even commented.

Then why didn’t you provide a source that actually said the thing you claimed, as is your responsibility when you make a claim?

Did you?

Yes, actually, I did. I didn’t see a source that I recognized so I treated them all skeptically and continue to do so.

Not that I had any responsibility to. Because all I said was that this source does not say that the person went “missing,” which is both objectively true, and does not require looking at any other sources to say confidently.

You sound pretty sure about that claim…seeing as how you included the “100%” part to emphasise just how untrue this story is. But, again…you didn’t even bother to look it up before you said it. Turns out your claim was based on “100% baseless speculation”.

Yes, I was sure about that claim because it’s correct and I stand by it. The article is full of “sources indicate” and “are believed to” and things like that. No further research is required to dismiss this specific article as baseless speculation.

Except that you entered this conversation stating your opinion as if it were a fact…which was in itself, incorrect

That’s because what I stated is not an opinion, it *is" a fact, and a correct fact. You have said absolutely nothing to show that it’s incorrect. Again, “sources indicate” and “are believed to” are baseless speculation. If there’s evidence for those claims, this isn’t it.

Man, if you could only see how much projection is stuffed into this paragraph, you would blush. You’re basically telling on yourself…but either lack the self awareness to see it, or just the integrity to admit it.

That’s you, not me. I don’t know how you got it into your head that blindly believing “sources indicate” is somehow the rational position, but it absolutely is not. You are the only one blindly believing claims and insisting everyone else should do the same without a shred of evidence, I am the one pushing back against that.

Rationality and skepticism go straight out the window for you the moment China is mentioned.

Test your opinion, before simply “deciding” that you know what you’re talking about.

You ought to practice what you preach.

It isn’t even hard. If you type in the guy’s name, there are dozens of different articles about him from a wide range of sources, going back years. Read several, and cross reference the claims, to see if they are even consistent. If your goal is to disprove what’s being said, it helps to know the facts. And you never know…you might find out that your initial reaction was wrong.

Again, that’s the job of the person making the claim. All I said was that this source doesn’t claim that he was missing, which is true. If you make the claim, then it is entirely your responsibility to find a source that backs it up.

Or, you can just be the kind of person who doesn’t care about facts.

I haven’t said anything incorrect this conversation, and in fact, I have pushed for a greater degree of scrutiny into the actual facts. So it’s strange that you would say this. On what basis did you arrive at this assessment of me? The fact that I didn’t believe a claim without a source?

It’s incredibly ironic because what you’re doing here is instantly deciding to believe propaganda, and then saying I “don’t care about the facts” when I refuse to do the same without evidence. Again, you should try practicing what you preach.

“Lazy disbelievers” lmao what? That’s called reasonable skepticism. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. If you understood and practiced that, maybe you wouldn’t be so gullible and succeptable to propaganda.

I’ll do your homework for you this time, but after this, you’re going to have to start helping yourself

No, you’ll do your homework, since you’re the one making the claim. I don’t have to go out and find every claim that’s ever been made about Bigfoot before I’m allowed to disbelieve in him.

Note also that what I said was "this source doesn’t even claim he’s been ‘missing,’" which is true. I never said that was no source out there that claimed that.

Fewer assumptions than there were in yours.

The man’s been missing for the last 5 years, after Chinese authorities arrested him. That’s confirmed by his family…not “unnamed sources”.

This source doesn’t even claim he’s been “missing.”

So, either this report is true, and he’s been in prison the whole time…or those Chinese authorities killed him.

I swear, you don’t even need propaganda to make up lies to tell you, you’ll just invent the lies yourself based on nothing. Absolutely ridiculous.

I don’t believe claims made without evidence because it’s an even safer default.

The thing that separates a “tankie” from a liberal is that it literally doesn’t matter to us how severe of a claim you make if it isn’t backed up by anything. In fact, the more extreme the claim is, the more skeptical you should be. But for liberals, all that matters is whether you’ve committed the sin of “genocide denial,” regardless of how little evidence the claims of “genocide” actually have. You don’t even care to investigate the claims at all, because if you did you’d see that they’re baseless. But it’s that very idea that claims about “bad” countries should be subject to any kind scrutiny that liberals are outraged by.

That would be a pretty shocking deviation from the current policy where over 90% of students in Tibet receive a bilingual education in primary and middle school.

Go die on the front lines for your leader

I would, but China isn’t fighting any wars right now, and hasn’t ever been in my lifetime.

Well, to start with, something more credible than “sources indicate” lmao. Y’all really just believe anything bad about China no matter how flimsy it is.

This is just straight up lying. Anonymous polls conducted by Western sources have found the same thing.