The first thing to note is that Buddhism is a broad term that contains a lot of different belief systems. It is also plagued by poor translations of terms that don't translate well into English, especially without looking meanings of the original terms.

Imo, your friend has distorted and misrepresented Buddhist teachings in order to justify not changing their behavior regarding meat-eating.

I'd challenge the use of the term "deserved" altogether, and I'd say "caused" might be a more accurate interpretation. Karma is not about an intelligent, all-powerful being passing judgement and smacking you down. It's sometimes referred to as "the law of cause and effect." It's described as a function of the universe, the same way that physical laws makes objects fall to the ground when dropped. The exact way in which this works is up to interpretation. More secular-minded Buddhists might point to logical and observable consequences to explain it, while more spiritually-minded ones might argue that it's more of an invisible, unexplainable force that carries over between lifetimes.

To use an example: a child that is fed a hamburger by their parents does not have knowledge of the animal's suffering that was required to make it, nor do they have agency to control their diet or to prevent the animal from being harmed. But, an animal is still harmed through the process. The intent and agency of the actor are not important in the same way that it doesn't matter if a ball on top of a slope is pushed or knocked over. It would only really matter if you're dealing in terms of judgement.

It is not your responsibility to enforce karma on others. Karma isn't a positive or negative force, and just because something happens that doesn't make it good or fair or deserved. Rather, the idea is to navigate the world in such a way that you minimize undesirable consequences. Buddhist precepts are a list of guidelines that are intend to do just that, the precept about nonviolence being the first. The idea is: "Bad things seem to happen a lot when people go around killing living beings so it's probably better to not do that, generally speaking."

You are correct that your friend's interpretation and worldview is a mess of contradictions that could just as easily be used to justify harm to humans, and that they're blatantly violating the first precept. But I would argue that they're not accurately representing Buddhist teachings, and their views shouldn't be held as representative of the belief system, though admittedly, like I said there are a lot of different traditions and beliefs.

Because no fighting was happening in Ukraine before the Russians entered the country, right? The war just fell out of a coconut tree?

So, instead of rehashing the same old talking points for the upteenth time, would anyone be interested in discussing China's political project in a broader and more mature way? Like for example:

• Who do you think should've come to power following the fall of the Qing, through to the civil war (if not the CPC)?

• Do you agree with the direction of Deng's economic reforms and opening up to foreign investment? If not, should he have stayed closer to Mao's policies, or should he have gone further towards liberalization, or something else?

• What aspects or projects of the CPC have been good or successful?

• What aspects or projects of the CPC have been flawed or unsuccessful?

• What lessons can be learned from the successes and failures of the CPC?

Ngl I don't have high hopes for this comment but I'm tryin' over here.

Adding "jailing pacifists for speaking out" to the things dronies openly support, along with forcing others to fight when they're not willing to, poisoning civilians with generations of birth defects, and giving cluster bombs to Nazis.

The moral high ground, ladies and gents

Yet more confirmation that the West regards Ukrainians as subhuman, and that they know they're not getting the territory back. Generations of birth defects, the unexploded bombs that cluster bombs leave behind, more and more people being drafted and shoved into a meat grinder in a war that's already lost, just so some American ghouls can make a bit of extra cash off their Raytheon stocks.

None of this was worth it. But it's going to keep happening. The US will keep arming Nazis and pushing war over diplomacy and destabilizing everything until something is done to get rid of those bastard war profiteers and the ghouls who lied us into Iraq and Afghanistan.

This shit's so fucking stupid. Can't wait for the chickenhawks to call me a bad person while sitting behind their keyboards demanding others be forced to fight in their stead.

My reservation was specifically that the MeanwhileOnGrad comm has a charicature of Xi Jinping where his skin is colorized to be yellow. I think that turning an Asian person's skin yellow as a charicature is racist, and I felt that allowing that on a comm reflected poorly on the instance. I don't mind that people hold different views from us (as many on lemm.ee and lemmy.ml do), but we don't tolerate racism or bigotry. Despite that, I did vote to federate, in part because it's such a small comm.

I will respectfully disagree that you can make that evaluation without knowing what the text actually says.

You don't have to click the spoiler. It's literally one line you can easily scroll past, but some people who have more time might find it interesting.

Anyway it's a response to a pretty low-effort, unoriginal meme, the whole "proportional time" thing cuts both ways. I've added more to making these comments a meaningful, intelligent dialogue than OP did.

We can vibe and hate America at the same time, actually

Ukrainians are dying too, including ones drafted against their will. Maybe you should fight in their place before asking them to die on your behalf.

I'm not sure what that has to do with shelling cities, are you suggesting he was hiding in one of the buildings or what?

Just "but go off" would work perfectly well.