Sysadmins/other adjacent roles should likely have the same requirements. An unmaintained/unsecured server can create a huge liability.

It's unfortunate because trans people are just as much people as cis people and deserve complete equality, but the reality of equality is that it can be very hard to do right.

Civil rights are hard because there are a lot of "rights" that can be applied to oppress others. Freedom of speech can absolutely be used to crush others, so how do you enact reasonable limits to prevent that without simultaneously causing the oppression that you aimed to prevent?

There are statutes in the US that put requirements on public school sports in relation to sex (sex is the quantifier used in Title IX). This to some effect limits men's sports in schools because of requirements for equality (typically represented as having an equal number of men's/women's sports). We consider this acceptable because otherwise there is the possibility that woman's sports are underrepresented because men's sports are more popular. In this case it's important to remember that there is limited funding.

The thing is, the class you are "bringing up" here is ~50% of the population. You're slightly limiting the other 50%, but it's barely of consequence. You are simply ensuring that to some extent funding isn't biased.

For trans women athletes, you are taking about a <1% subset of the population. This is not to say that minority populations don't matter (the United States is a great place because of minority populations). But if the majority of the women population say "no" to the <1%, then frankly at some point that's how the cookie crumbles. They still have the option of men's sports, they aren't restricted from competing there. They certainly are a huge gray area with the respect to physicality, even more so at younger ages when trans people are less likely to have transitioned (and more likely to be competing in a sport).

> The people whose opinion should be polled should be actual competing athletes

Really? In this case are you limiting it to just Olympic athletes? Can we include Diamond League athletes? Collegiate? Local 5k runners?

What even defines an athlete? Do I have to enter a race every so many months to maintain "athlete" status? Is a local race fine or do I need to be in Boston? This is silly gatekeeping.

> The biggest anti-trans athlete is some 5th place loser

Does this matter? It's also just "the biggest anti-trans athlete" that you know about. I'm sure there are some other women out there that are more hateful.

There are nuanced arguments to have about the trans women in sports situation, but the right is entirely against having them on completely bigoted basis, and then there is a very small subset of people who poison the well by turning good faith discussions about the topic into just hating the people having the discussions. At no point have I said anything disparaging about trans people or athletes. I'm just bringing up the reality of the situation being complicated, and as you called out: very unfortunate. It's unfortunate for trans men too, but nobody seems to complain about that one. :)

> this is nothing more than a misogynist attempt to make women’s sport as unimpressive and average as possible. Rules set by mostly old men of course.

Well, not really. 56%[1] of young women think that trans women should not be allowed in women's sports.

> It’s also mighty interesting how it’s always the male division that’s open, until you happen to have a sport where women are beating men at it, and then suddenly it’s the women’s division that’s the open one! (See shooting.)

IMO the "better" division should be open. If we are going to do two classes, and we find that one class has some sort of physical advantage inherently, then that class should be the "open" one.

> Stuff like this is why professional sports is widely seen as a cheater’s club where everyone tries to cheat as hard as possible just shy of getting caught, then acts completely innocent and indignant when someone else just barely crosses the line into getting caught.

A lot of people (the majority?) don't understand the extent of PEDs usage in sports. When everyone cheats nobody does. I've heard the argument before for going an "anything goes" division from friends for some sports, but then people are just going to start dying regularly from side effects like in body building.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-american...

> Please make a list of things you don't need so that in case of any issues with the company or system that allows access to them you will know to just stop using them.

If you didn't expect me to be introspective to MYSELF then why even bother asking? Of course my list is personal.

While it is personal, it also can apply to others. The reality is that most people are completely unwilling to inconvenience themselves.

Go without hot water? Okay, sure. I take cold showers, they are better for your skin. I wash my clothes with cold water. The only thing I use hot water for is dishes. I think that might be a bit weird, but I think dish soap is anti bacterial so it's probably not an issue? Now you can reply to this saying: "well YOU can do that but other people will feel differently." No shit. But most of the world goes without hot water so who cares.

> If you really cared about something's place in your life, you wouldn't classify it as a convenience, so you are conveniently applying your own classifications to other people's lives, which you don't have a right to do.

Most people don't actually care about TV in their life - they just have never thought for a minute to consider the reality of not having one.

> This is why we have democratic institutions and authority -- to make these limits about what is tolerable and intolerable -- not what people's conveniences are.

Not sure how this is relevant. I'm all for consumer protection. But the most apt way to protect yourself is to vote: first for politicians, and then with your wallet.

In my experience for most people it's strictly a time wasting/filling/background noise activity. If you are spending a considerable amount of time watching television to time waste then you probably should try and find more fulfilling activities. This is not prescriptive of what those would be.

The core part of what I wrote was "need." If you believe you "need" as in "can't go without" a TV, in this example, then you probably should consider whether or not you may be addicted to consuming television.

Do this as an exercise: Which of these statements indicates that somebody may have a a problem?

- I need a cigarette

- I need a beer

- I need a TV

- I need to eat

- I need some water

- I need to relax

The last three are clearly real needs. The first two are addictive. TV isn't a literal need, so if you find yourself NEEDING it, you may have a problem.

Are there some things I would struggle with if suddenly there were issues? Sure. I had to significantly increase my internet spend because of the (much) cheaper option going to complete shit. I require the internet for my career but unless the entire world collapses I doubt I'll run into any true blocker that would prevent me from using it for work.

Most people are just afraid to change their lives substantively. I am too, but I'm also willing to do it for causes I believe in.

A disturbing proportion of my family spend more than half of their free time watching television (typically while doom scrolling tiktok). They don't "need" TVs - they need to find interests.

Most consumers are unwilling to take an option that they perceive as inconveniencing them more than getting screwed by the company inconveniences them.

Obama was a very moderate Democrat for his time. If you go back in time a moderate Democrat and Republican were similar because the "center" was more reasonable. Now the "center" is just people that are ashamed that they vote Republican.

> Being attractive gets you all sorts of unwarranted hatred, targets on your back etc. for doing nothing.

I'm not aware of what fantasy land exists where attractive people are hated and being fat is the new style trend. Certainly not there one where GLP-1s become the hottest new pharmaceutical.

Turns out the 2007 version of the game was ROUGH for a lot of reasons - they picked the time because, IIRC, it was the most complete backup they had.

OSRS has now had nearly a decade of consistent updates, a large team, and typically 10x the online player count of the "modern" game. The catch is that OSRS is not the 2007 version of the game, it's an alternative update timeline which broke off at the 2007 version of the game.

Are you being intentionally obtuse here? Intention matters here.

> Virtually nobody got sued for torrenting with a VPN on.

Let's not use obviously illegal actions which are done covertly to act as an example that is in any way similar to singing a song in the "open."

You were specifically calling out individuals singing a song, not publishing lyrics online. These are not the same thing. Again your distribution/consumption model matters here.

On artists being "cool" with it - if the copyright holder doesn't pursue you then does it matter? The only valid argument I would see here is if the copyright holder doesn't know about the infringement and therefore cannot seek remedies, but we can fish for illegal scenarios all day if we would like: that's not useful though.