Interesting Links for 13-11-2022

[andrewducker]

1. A material normally only found in meteorites has now been made artificially, and may solve our issues with some rare earth metals

(tags:materials meteor space technology viaSwampers )

2. German transphobe also a Holocaust denier

(tags:Holocaust transgender Germany viaSwampers LGBT )

3. Iran Votes to Execute Protesters (there are 15,000 in prison right now)

(tags:Iran protest death_penalty OhForFucksSake )

4. English people encounter pizza for the first time

(tags:pizza history )

5. Discovery of bronze statue rewrites Italy's Etruscan-Roman history

(tags:history archeology Italy )

6. Why do so few women excel at maths? Sexism, of course

(tags:sexism women mathematics )

7. Major ad firm Omnicom recommends clients pause Twitter ad spend (clients include Apple and McDonalds, and 5,000 more)

(tags:Twitter advertising Doom )

8. How "Wordle editor" became a real job at The New York Times

(tags:games language )

Comments

[hairyears]

The key context, here, isn't the entirely unsurprising discovery that a transphobe has Nazi views.

It's that prosecutors in Germany are doing this.

There are certain expressions of support for National Socialism that are *not* free speech in Germany, and Holocaust Denial is one of them.

It hasn't been prosecuted in this context before.

And prosecutions under this particular law carry a huge weight in German public opinion.

I don't think that this significance is communicated in the article, but why would it be? The target audience is immersed in it, no-one even needs to say that it's important, nor why.

...And we, as outsiders, see the detailed arguments - which the German public are following very closely indeed - without realising that the context is more important than the detail.