diff --git "a/quiet-ml/17/answer2.csv" "b/quiet-ml/17/answer2.csv" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/quiet-ml/17/answer2.csv" @@ -0,0 +1,2639 @@ +sentence +"cleansoap: I agree with the title of your post, as (ignoring all ethical, environmental, health, and political angles of GMOs (which I will continue to ignore for the entirety of this conversation as they are NOT what's being talked about)) GMOs are a productivity increasing technology. It is historically commonplace that small businesses are the ones which suffer when market-shifting technologies come on-line because *what makes a technology market shifting is the dramatic increase in productivity it allows* , and small businesses, on the whole, are much less likely to have access to the capital needed to implement these game-changers early on. + +What I'm going to argue with, in compliance with comment rule #1, is this line ""thus they are basically being swindled. "" + +It is not the sellers of high-yield enabling GMOs which are doing the swindling, if anything it is the market itself. First-world large-scale production of (often GMO) crops has driven prices down dramatically. Driven prices down so low that often imported crops are cheaper than crops grown by local *and inefficient* farmers. THAT is the source of pressure. + +What would benefit small farmers would be the removal of artificial subsidies which force them to compete with government-lowered food prices, but that is probably sticking a finger in the dam. The hanging sword is still the efficiency imbalance. +clavicon: I definitely agree that state subsidies are complicating the issue of free market decisions among farmers and consumers, and leveraging much cheaper crops made in power centers, like corn in the US, against other world markets lacking such support and entrenched production/technology. + +On the matter of state, do you know if governments in developing countries actively cater to GMO corporations, and offer subsidies or lowered taxes in order to get farmers to adopt these technologies?" +"GameboyPATH: >Firstly let me say that this is my first post in this sub, and I'm hoping that it's the correct place. + +You're in the right place. Welcome! + +Have you ever watched [the episode of South Park](http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s05e02-it-hits-the-fan) where everyone found it publicly acceptable to say ""shit"", and the result was everyone started saying it without a care? The message of the story was that swearing carries with it a significant emotional strength. Swearing is ""strong language"" because it's used only sparingly to express strong emotion or to reduce inflicted pain or stress. + +So when swearing is used commonly, the strong feelings associated with it are lost, since no one is going to infer strong emotion from a word that's commonly used. If you (and society around you) swear a lot from the minor inconveniences, what language would you use if you experienced tremendous injustice and felt significant rage and inner pain? + +What's this have to do with kids? We want to encourage kids to have an expansive vocabulary so that they can adequately express themselves and convey their thoughts and feelings. Teaching a kid to swear is akin to giving the kid the trump card. Why should they learn or use broader language to understand or express their negative feelings when they can just complain about the fucking bitch who can't do shit? + +In short, if you'd trust your children with ice cream in hopes that they'd eat it only in moderation (and in the context of a broader array of healthier foods), you could teach them swearing. Otherwise, give them time to understand moderation and the effects of language on others. +Kaleb1983: &#8710; + +Hopefully I did that right. + +Edit: Wow.. that actually makes a lot of sense. I never really thought about it like that, thank you. +I think I'm really going to like this sub. I just posted a controversial opinion and got a well thought out and logical response instead of a down vote :). + +Combined my post explaining how he changed my view with the post awarding the delta. Hopefully that fixed it so he's awarded the delta correctly." +"moonflower: When my children were born, I wanted to bring them up without ever lying to them, and managed to do it, so I agree with you to a certain extent, *but* I think there could be exceptional circumstances where it would be in the best interests of the child to lie: for example if a young child was due to undergo major surgery which was very risky, I think it would be best to reassure them that everything will be fine, and not to fill them with terror by spelling out what might go wrong. +RickySTaylor: Hmm, okay I can see the benefits of this. Short term reassurance. It's an easy solution, but I still think developing a habit of this is wrong. You can cushion your child from worry but you only have so many cushions. Constant softening of the blow is rejecting them an essential emotional experience. Essential for development that is. + +I do like the example you presented, It does a good job of representing that there could be a physical benefit to the lie. A relaxed child may be better in an operation. ∆ That said, I don't think the adult should bear that burden alone, especially if it concerns the child's life. If you yourself were going into the same operation you'd make an effort to understand the risks. Instead of telling him that everything is going to be alright (a blanket statement that can't cover everything and I think that's where easythe doubt lies.) tell him that the doctors have trained for years and have done the operation before. If the doctor wouldn't lie to the child I don't think the parent should. Sorry - I ramble, I just want to reiterate that there's always a constructive way to solve the problem. It may take more time but it's ultimately worth it." +"mizz_kittay: Well I *think* these people actually do feel humbled by their great experiences. They experience something amazing and great that the vast majority of human beings will never get to experience, and it makes them feel guilty. They don't feel like they are some extraordinary special person who deserves this experience while other humans don't deserve to experience it... rather, they think *all* humans deserve to experience it and they feel guilty that only they get to experience it. Coming to terms with this guilt and accepting that this is just the luck of the draw that is life and you aren't anything special even though you get to do this special thing *is* ""humbling."" If the people you refer to use it like that, then they're using it properly. +LiveBeef: I haven't been put in such a position personally, but based on my observations of how they react, 'guilt' seems like the last emotion they feel. Even if so, the sentence ""I wish others could feel what I feel now"" is a much more accurate way to describe that feeling than ""I feel humbled"" which has connotations of lowering oneself. Humility and guilt are not the same emotion." +"MrMonday11235: It's not a question of ""Is attempting to mind control him wrong"" - it is. But the thing a lot of people, I think, forget when they evaluate that is that they're carrying the Queen of Naboo on board, a fact that will eventually get out if they stay too long. Moreover, they're fully aware that the Trade Federation could track them down really easily (as they do, but that's due to Sith dark magic XD), and they need to disappear before they're tracked to Tatooine. While it has been a fairly long time since I actually watched the movie (and as such the details are a little hazy), to the best of my knowledge, there wasn't anywhere else they could get that particular part, and there was no way for them to pay Watto in a manner that would be acceptable for him. + +Qui-Gon in general likely doesn't go around Jedi mind-tricking random merchants into giving him their wares, but it's a case of urgency and an on-the-spot judgement of whether standing there and arguing over it was worth the potential risk of jeopardizing their entire mission, as well as control of a planet, it's population, and potentially its monarch's life. +Vorpal_Smilodon: > and there was no way for them to pay Watto in a manner that would be acceptable for him + +In the next scene Qui-Gon makes a radio call to find out if they have anything of value they could trade to get the part - they don't, but he didn't know that when he tried to mindcontrol Watto. + +You make a good point that he's on an urgent mission though. But he still doesn't investigate any other options. The ship is later shown to be wirth a lot to Watto in it's broken state - he could likely have traded it for a lesser but working ship. He just doesn't put any effort into problem-solving and goes straight for mindcontrol." +"Racathor: Would it not be far simpler for the host to provide the appropriate cutlery, and after a meal, clean it properly in soap and water? I think this would be more hygienic, and add to the atmosphere of a restaurant. Particularly higher-end locations, the cutlery is part of the appearance of the dish. + +In addition, there are, as you've noted, case specific pieces of cutlery. If I carry a foldable spork, eating ramen, or Chinese food, or sushi would feel simply wrong, as I should be using chopsticks. Alternatively, if I choose to eat a sunday roast, with lamb, potatoes and vegetables, chopsticks would be inefficient and feel wrong. The best case is probably things like steaks, where you need a specific knife to be able to easily cut it. A lot of people don't decide in advance where to eat, and I think allowing the restaurant to provide non-disposable cutlery, they will then clean, is a much better idea. +Love_Em: I have no issue with non-disposable metal cutlery provided by restaurants, I just think replacing disposable cutlery with your own permanent set would be beneficial to the environment. " +"mayoneggz: Some people simply find it much harder to pick up new languages, especially with age. My father is someone who took german for years and could never pick it up. Should he continue putting in time in learning a new language instead of something he's more talented in? He is a doctor in a city where every person speaks english. He has no plans to travel. It would take a large amount of time for him to learn a new language and it would take away from his job and hobbies. + +I agree that for many people, learning a new language is great. But for some it's not worth the time and effort. +xNtrozSquared: I do agree that learning a new language is hard (learning Spanish now) I was more focused on the fact that middle and elementary schools should be required to teach another language." +"TheHellion: > Basically you can(/should be able to) cycle + +That doesn't work in all climates. If you lived in a very cold or very warm place, you you wouldn't want to cycle. + +> or get public transport to shops and places of work. + +Public transport takes ages to get to the same place you're going to, and it often doesn't take you there directly, but through many intermediate steps. Furthermore, it doesn't take you there where you need to go, but it takes you more or less in the vicinity. + +Granted, if what you propose were ever to become a reality, the network of public transport would become more extended, but I still doubt that it would be extended enough to provide a viable alternative. + +And what should the elderly and people with disabilities do, when the bus drops them three blocks away from where they need to be? + +Plus don't forget that not everyone lives in a city, and a bus cannot go to and from a country town every ten minutes. That would greatly limit the possibility of movement of people living in towns and villages. +Omni314: M∆N OH MAN! Do I wish I hadn't started this thread, yeah it's pretty flawed on a great number of levels." +"cwenham: People feel ownership for the places they spend enough time in, so even if it's a privately owned web site, the fact that they opened it up for anyone to join means the effect will take hold. + +If you do this, if you lay this ""trap"" unwittingly or otherwise, then things like /r/subredditcancer et. al will happen. At the Spock-level of logic, such people would move somewhere else if they don't like what the site's owners are doing. Go to [voat.co](https://voat.co) and leave us alone. But we're not Spocks, we're Kirks. Fuck the Neutral Zone. + +In the future, I think the operators of forums similar to reddit will recognise the implicit social deal: you like all this traffic and commercial potential? You like having over 100 million pageviews per month? You like being cited in mainstream news articles? Okay, well that comes at a cost beside your servers and bandwith: this place is now _ours_. No backsies. + +I've been told that the American Civil War was not really about slavery but about the degree of control that the Federal government wanted to put on the states, after a hundred years of minding their own business. The expectation of self-control was already baked in, so even a mind-bogglingly positive policy such as the abolition of slavery was the canary in the coal-mine. The states revolted and it got messy. + +What's happening on reddit is at a microscopic level compared to the Civil War, but many of the same feelings are mixed in. It's just part of human nature, and that's why Pao's actions will be harmful: the implicit contract was broken, no matter how good the intentions for breaking it. +superboombox: &#8710; + +While I stand by my original prediction, you have changed the way I view those who are concerned. " +"tamman2000: White and asian kids get warnings for crimes that black and latin kids get prison for... White kid smokes pot: ""he's learned his lesson"" Black kid smokes pot: ""he is a cancer on society, lock him up"". + +you can't blame blacks and mexicans for this truth. that is one hundred percent bias based... and this (along with other bias derived hardships) trickles out over society as a whole to disadvantage many minorities. +throwoutisnttaken: On the Marijuana issue, you're definitely right. This seems to be the case because sentencing for drug possession is massively skewed, due to the debate on whether or not anything wrong was even done at a moral level. This is a law that has far too much subjectivity, and that shows in its enforcement. + +With something like robbing a bank or mugging someone, however, it's much more (pardon the pun) black-and-white. If someone who had a knife to someone else's back and demanded money was caught, I doubt very much that anyone would say ""he learned his lesson"", regardless of race... and with these crimes, it's still skewed among races. + +Thank you for your reply, and happy cake day!" +"NuclearStudent: There are probably aliens, but the odds of them being on earth are close to nil. Your boyfriend would be correct in that there are tremendous numbers of planets the size of earth, with water, carbon, and complex organic molecules to form life. Out of all the trillions of planets with the ingredients of life, at least a few ought to have followed the same process that led to life on earth. + +Knowing that the creation of intelligent life is possible and that there were trillions of chances for it happen, you may ask why we haven't seen any. We don't know the answer, but it's unlikely that scientists are covering it up. We would not be spending billions of dollars to look for something that we needed to hide. It's also unlikely that aliens would take the time to cloak themselves from all of earth's telescopes, amateur and scientific, but flutter around completely visible to airline pilots. + +The most likely possibility is that whatever aliens may exist are too far away to contact us. +dessert_all_day: &#8710; I didn't know that there are trillions of planets and knowing that has made me believe that it's possible that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. + +>Out of all the trillions of planets with the ingredients of life, at least a few ought to have followed the same process that led to life on earth." +"IIIBlackhartIII: I think it's a very simplistic idea that solving our issues comes down to having a smaller population. Most of our issues in the modern world are very multi-dimensional, and population is but a single factor. Pair that with the fact that [most people in the world live in some kind of poverty](http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats), and the[ global population trend shows that there's more people in underdeveloped nations than first world countries](http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2012/world-population-data-sheet/fact-sheet-world-population.aspx), and I don't think your solution would be the perfect answer you think it is. +___ +#As direct responses to your categories, however: + +##Global Warming/Ecological Impact: + +The fact that most of the world is not highly developed shows that a lot of this pollution comes not from a bigger population, but from more developed regions with higher population density. There are plenty of ways to cut down on pollution without necessarily reducing population size. There are pushes for green energy, more efficient technologies, tighter regulations on corporate environmental practices, pushes for recycling, mass transit and carpooling, electric cars, etc... By reducing the population, you might potentially slow the rate of development, but the issue of global warming is a cumulative effect of emissions over time. We'd still have to deal with the environmental changes, but perhaps we'd have more time to deal with it. That's more a bandaid fix than a solution outright. + +##Global Energy/Food Shortage: + +In terms of energy production and food supplies... we actually aren't doing that bad in the world. The only issue is that [developed nations hoard their resources](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/19/global-wealth-oxfam-inequality-davos-economic-summit-switzerland), leading to starvation in regions like Africa and much of Asia. There was a great post over on /r/theydidthemath; and an [amazing comment](http://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/2qzts1/request_how_much_money_would_it_cost_the_citizens/cnb3apd) which calculated that first world countries only make up about 12% of the population, and even still it would only cost us 9¢ a day to end world hunger, or less than 5% of the United States annual military spending. + +For the energy part of this equation, we already have limitless resources for power (e.g. the sun, hydroelectrics, wind farms, etc...) we just need more pushes to actually pursue this technology, which is not going to make OPEC happy, but they do not represent the best interests of humanity in the long term. + +##War: + +Reducing population isn't going to end violence or war any time soon. We've had wars throughout the history of humanity, even when the distances were great between peoples. Population may increase the relative stress of resource distribution, but with how technology has offset that process, it really comes down to violence, diplomacy, and greed. And as above with the effects of global warming; we're going to use up our resources eventually. The issue is not to try and slow the bleed, it's to explore other options to keep our growth sustainable. Looking towards alternative materials, recycling, asteroid mining, etc... + +##Epidemic: + +We're already pursuing herd immunity and we've been able to destroy diseases like small pox in the past. Despite what the crazy anti-vaxxers might try to tell you, vaccinations are protecting our population from outbreaks. That said, increased population is a concern, but only if the health standards are affected by this increase in population. If living in sanitary conditions, the number of people is less important that the treatment received for illness. And, with the interconnection of the world, while you may reduce the overall population, the requirement for corporations, businesses, and interaction would lead to greater contact overall. The greatest threat in terms of epidemic and pandemic really is transportation, and how these diseases can ride on ships, planes, and trains to spread themselves rapidly. Population is only one factor. + +##Psychological issues: + +While there may be some stress from living in a big city, I don't think you can attribute all mental health issues, or indeed most, just to population side. Setting aside the fact that there are plenty of extroverts who would thrive in a more populous region, those who are under stresses that lead to depression and other mental illness are often driven there not by the number of people around them, but by the societal pressures that population brings. Competing for jobs, dealing with negative advertisements and peer pressure, feeling threatened by certain people, trying to support ones self. It's more about quality than quantity. +turboboob: Okay, those are all good points. I appreciate you not calling me crazy or a doomsday enthusiast. I get that a lot. + +To address one point, I may have made the post title a little more clickbaity than I could have. I know population control isn't going to be a be-all end-all solution to large problems, but I do think it'll still be a good sign if we could collectively acknowledge that there's a problem that if it isn't here yet, is coming. + +Alright, down to the details! + +>The fact that most of the world is not highly developed shows that a lot of this pollution comes not from a bigger population, but from more developed regions with higher population density. + +I guess I don't see the distinction between what I perceive as a large population and what was proven as a small population with areas of high density. The numbers are still the same, they're just arranged differently. + +If we looked at NYC and took the population down 75%, there would still be less people requiring goods and services which would therefore require less transportation for delivery of those goods and services. By that logic, the average carbon footprint of the city would diminish over time. + +I understand that the damage that has been done has been done, and that moving forward there will need to be be adjustments both for the effects that have already taken place as well as efforts to reduce future impacts, but having a smaller population would allow for more time to to make those adjustments while minimizing the damage done during the transition to a more sustainable culture. + +>The only issue is that developed nations hoard their resources, leading to starvation in regions like Africa and much of Asia. There was a great post over on /r/theydidthemath; and an amazing comment which calculated that first world countries only make up about 12% of the population, and even still it would only cost us 9¢ a day to end world hunger, or less than 5% of the United States annual military spending. + +I may have just been taken in by the news on this one. It really seems like there has been a lot of coverage on shortages but really that can just be attributed to the hoarding of resources, which nobody reports on but most people know about. There's a reason that we can go to a grocery store in the US and have our pick of the goods while our counterparts in Somalia are fighting for a meal a day. I'll have to read that thread from /r/theydidthemath. + +I guess in the end if I wanted to stick to my guns on this topic, I could argue that if there were less people vying for the static number of resources, there would be a logical tipping point where hoarding would be more costly than sharing and those without could receive resources from those who have too much in order to keep the resources from going bad. But I think that was the basis for trickle down economics...haha so maybe not. + +>violence, diplomacy, and greed. +I'm struck by how these are all innate qualities in man that drive war. One other quality of man is the need to consume, where we use those three initial qualities to sustain the demand to consume. That leads me back to war and the need to consume a commodity that another group owns. + +The problem I run into with my own train of thought here is that the only way to properly provide resources to all groups when the those resources are held by a singular group is the basis of socialism, which doesn't work for me. So I agree that war probably won't *end* since we've divvied up the world and it's assets already and we're not going to be dissolving borders anytime soon. I'm having trouble tying that one back to overpopulation, so I'll concede. + +>increased population is a concern, but only if the health standards are affected by this increase in population. + +Alright, one I can REALLY dig into since I have firsthand experience! Increased population *is* without a doubt causing healthcare standards to stagnate if not recede. I've looked deeply into this topic, and I'm going to sketch out a line of events to follow: population growth --> need for more production of goods and services to sustain quality of life for population --> more hours worked resulting in the decline of general health of the population (think obesity from fast foods etc.) --> greater strain on the healthcare system as unhealthy population ages --> strain on actual healthcare workers in form of greater number of patients --> more patients = lower level of care per patient. + +The only reason I can argue this one is because I see it everyday. There is a definite shift towards in our population that's driven by those of us working longer hours at a sedentary job that doesn't allow for proper diet or exercise. My wife's a nurse and I'm getting my masters in public health and safety. We both see it everyday and it's terrifying. Couple my firsthand experience with the fact that insurance companies are now implementing wellness programs to reduce the costs they're paying out in claims because prevention is always cheaper than treatment and it's paints a pretty decent picture. + +> And, with the interconnection of the world, while you may reduce the overall population, the requirement for corporations, businesses, and interaction would lead to greater contact overall. The greatest threat in terms of epidemic and pandemic really is transportation, and how these diseases can ride on ships, planes, and trains to spread themselves rapidly. Population is only one factor. + +FWIW I agree completely. The fact that we're so physically connectable now is something that even population control won't fix. Even with a smaller population the planes, trains and automobiles will still run. + +>While there may be some stress from living in a big city, I don't think you can attribute all mental health issues, or indeed most, just to population side. + +Absolutely not. I doubt that there are people who are actually becoming consciously depressed over population growth. It's the implications of it that help psychological issues present. I think that you were driving at in the second part of your response is exactly what I was saying: +>those who are under stresses that lead to depression and other mental illness are often driven there not by the number of people around them, but by the societal pressures that population brings. Competing for jobs, dealing with negative advertisements and peer pressure, feeling threatened by certain people, trying to support ones self. It's more about quality than quantity. + +It's my opinion that all of those things that add to quality of life are threatened when the population reaches critical mass and that's what drives the psychological issues. If there's overpopulation in the city, there's fewer jobs. If there's fewer jobs, there's higher unemployment. If there's higher unemployment, there's a greater amount of household stress. If there's greater household stress, there's a greater chance of mental trauma leading to a psychological issue. + +I absolutely *raced* to respond, so if this is all incoherent rambling please don't think me unintelligent. I'm probably going to go in and revise some things and formatting after I reread. + + +" +"n_5: Remember, the argument that mass piracy preserves things assumes that hundreds of years from now we'll have technology which can read in and play back the same files we're pirating today. It's all well and good if we have thousands of hard drives remaining 600 years from now, each with the entirety of the GoT universe (books, TV show, lore, you name it) stored on it. However, if there aren't any computers (or other devices) available to play them back to you, those hard drives are essentially useless. To put it another way, it's like [that scene from Zoolander](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2uHBhKTSe0) where they're trying to figure out how to access the files in the computer. If the files exist, then we technically have preserved them - but if we can't actually access them, then what's the point? + +Part of the reason cave paintings have survived so well is because they're entirely intelligible even without any other knowledge of human culture. Monks' manuscripts from the middle ages are similar, in that they've preserved materials in a language we understand - but what happens in a thousand years where someone who has no knowledge of the English or Latin or Italian (etc.) languages or any way to get that knowledge stumbles upon those manuscripts? They'll have the really old stuff in tactile, tangible form, but they won't be able to access any of the information on it. Hard drives would be even worse - if you can't get into them and see the files stored there, they serve no purpose other than really old paperweight. + +So, to answer your question: Is home recording/piracy an effective form of preservation? Sure. Is it the *most* effective, though? Absolutely not. If you really want to be able to store GoT effectively, paint the entire series on a cave wall somewhere. +mrsix: > : Is home recording/piracy an effective form of preservation? Sure. Is it the most effective, though? Absolutely not + +∆ + +There's really no way to counter that. I suppose it's certainly not the *most* effective in general, but as long as we have digital medium and the ability to read it, I would still contend it's at least the most effective way of preserving a digital file." +"championofobscurity: The simple answer, is that at least in the United States, with very few exceptions people are ""At Will"" employees. Meaning that if you aren't up to the task, a company can just fire you. + +What this means is that it's much more efficient for an impersonal HR person to interview you for two reasons. + +1.) It adds something to their job, and once you're big enough to have an HR department you can't hope to be functional without one, so you may as well utilize your investment in it. + +2.) It takes time away from a person's ability to work, if they have to do interviews repeatedly. You have to consider that, on average you can't just interview a single person and call it good. You have to entertain multiple applicants, which means that over the course of a week you might pull 15 or more hours of Research and Development time away from a project so you can hire one person. That's assuming the situation is as cut and dry as I've stated. A lot of the time that isn't the case. +cognitive_labyrinth: ∆ for your second point about the person being overscheduled even though I think this can be planned ahead of time if it's part of their job (and there can be more than one person in that area of work doing interviewing). As for your first point, why shouldn't Human Resources just be used for the onboarding/offboarding of employees, managing payroll and sending W-2s? That alone can be a full-time job. Is it really worth the investment if you're losing the potential for higher quality candidates that will improve the growth of your company in the long run? Can't the time sacrifice be considered an investment?" +"CherrySlurpee: Well, first off, no matter what you eat, you're killing something. Plants are living as well. That is how humans have always survived, buy consuming other life. + +Second off, I'm assuming that you mean it's wrong to kill an animal to eat it. It seems like the consuming of the meat isn't the problem, it's ending the life to do so. + +Now, most people would agree that killing other humans to eat them is wrong. Human life is special to most. And everyone agrees that killing plants is alright. So whats the difference? Thought? + +But what about bugs? We stomp on roaches and swat flies. They have thought. + +So when you step back and look at it, it's less of a cut and dry situation and more of a greyscale. We all have a cut off level of intelligence - below that we don't value the life of. And chickens are pretty low on that scale. Turkeys are pretty low on that scale. +tralfamadorian8: ∆ + +This is late, but after considering my view before this and after, I think you did at least alter my view since I hadn't realized that regardless of whether or not I eat meat, there will always be some scale or level below which I don't think it's morally wrong to kill animals. Didn't totally change my view, but definitely altered it." +"RandomhouseMD: One thing has to do with how feasible/expensive it is to get live shots. Because the phone has a shiny glass face on it, phones tend to look washed out when using actual shots. There are other reasons that are less legit (not having the damn thing working at the time of shooting being one of them), or downright disingenuous (showing screens that just look 100% better than reality), but getting a phone to look good on camera is a difficult task. +Anon_Guy1985: &#8710; + +While I understand it is expensive / difficult, maybe there needs to be additional clarification on how the images are simulated. As I feel based on the way these products are advertised (especially in my LG G3 example), it definitely looks like these photos are enhanced. + +EDIT: I'm going to award you with an overall delta, because at the end of the day, I did not consider the filming difficulties and it definitely should be considered when reading the ""Screen Images Simulated"" I still feel that the manufacturer enhances the image. However, I do retract my overall feeling of ""false advertising."" " +"Joined_Today: Don't attach rainbows and lisps with gays. These attributes aren't exclusive to gays. A lot of gays are nothing like that. A gay person acting like a fool should disgust you no more than a straight person acting like a fool. They are both fools. A straight man walking around in leather, acting like a girl, talking with a lisp and liking rainbows would be just as annoying. It's not the sexual orientation, it's the action, and not liking an action is completely normal. Just understand that these people enjoy these actions, and what other people enjoy may not be what you enjoy. Take anything you do, and ask yourself if 100% of people on earth would not see you as a fool for doing it. Somebody will, and that is because everyone has opinions. + +Don't hate people for the way they act, there's no point. What you see as ""acting like a fool"" may be totally different for someone else, and what you do may be seen as ""acting like a fool."" Just live and let live. +olkjas: &#8710; I feel like I may have been a bit blinded by media and personal anecdotes in associating that kind of behavior exclusively with gays. It is like how I am equally irritated by both ghetto black and white people. It isn't because the person is that race that I dislike them, it is how they act. If a straight person acted flamboyantly, I would be just as annoyed and predisposed to dislike them. Sorry for rambling." +"[deleted]: Disclaimer: I've done about 10 minutes of research on this guy and these paintings, so anything I have to say about it should be taken with a grain of salt. + +I think the whole point of these kinds of paintings is that he was trying to redefine how a viewer actually interacts with art. His paintings are technically valuable. They focus intensely on color, shape, scale, balance, composition, depth and detail. To put it simply, they're painted well (in the way artists are expected to paint), but you're right- to some extent, it's devoid of communicative purpose. They're empty. I think the expectation then is that a viewer would look at the painting, and fill in those gaps themselves. It almost brings in the viewer as a complementary artist, as they can fill in the gaps intentionally left open by the artist. + +From doing some research, I find some familiarity- he was heavily influenced by Nietzsche. His painting style then starts to make some sense. Nietzsche was interested in both the simultaneous power and emptiness of the human spirit- man, according to Nietzsche, has had its spirit subjugated through cultural forces, and he was interested in reinvigorating that spirit. But this means a person becoming their own being, not becoming something that Nietzsche tells them to be. Does that make sense? An Ubermensch is someone who has power over his own spirit, and isn't bound by the influences of anyone else. + +I think this artist was trying to paint something that had all the technical value of a painting, but wanted to leave it empty of any culture, message, or meaning. He's not interested in telling people the meaning of something, he's interested in forcing the spirit to acknowledge nothingness and fill in the gaps with its own being. + +This is all very abstract, but think what happens when you look at the painting. Your first reaction is to try and understand, why? Why did he paint this? What's he trying to say? What's the point? I think the artist wants you to reach the conclusion that he didn't have a message to send you. But we as human beings seek meaning in our experiences, so now the internal push we feel is us trying to fill in the gaps with our own meaning and understanding. + +Ever hear a description of silence being loud? This is because silence forces us to acknowledge that silence, and that can be a really uncomfortable, but enlightening, experience. I think this is similar- it's forcing us to acknowledge the silence of the painting, which makes us uncomfortable the same way silence does. + +Edit: There's a really great Nietzsche quote that summarizes these paintings: ""When you look long enough into the void, the void begins to look back through you."" The artist is confronting us with a void- and at some point, that void starts to stare back into us as well. +Mainstay17: ∆ + +My original reply to this seems to have disappeared, which is odd, but this has indeed changed my view on the subject. Thank you for your input. + +RFE: Clarification." +"Mlahk7: Well I can think of a couple of situations where your tattoo could hurt your chances for employment if it is particularly offensive or obscene. + +For one, you sometimes get job offers at weird places. For instance I met a member of an accounting firm (I'm an accounting major) at a baseball game and got offered an interview. There was also a ""meet the firms"" night at a restaurant near campus that I accidentally stumbled upon and met many job prospects there. +Also, during my internship, we participated in some outdoor activities after work, like playing kickball with the employees, which helped you meet other people at your firm and helped make a good impression. + +My point is that you can't always rely on covering up a tattoo because sometimes you run into job opportunities or situations unexpectedly. Of course this only really applies if your tattoo is obscene or offensive, because most employers could care less if you have a tattoo as long as it isn't like, on your face or something. +Ktrayne: ∆ to you because I didn't consider the fact that besides the interview process there are other places I would meet an employer prior to being employed. I suppose I wouldn't be able to cover up the tattoo in all instances. " +"bytor99: >My experience has been limited to the tech sector + +This is why. Most people who are complaining about failing to find jobs go for things they love, yet struggle to find jobs for it. + +So, for example, Philosophy has a 9.3% unemployment rate, while Chemical Engineering has a 2.2% unemployment rate [(source)](http://www.studentsreview.com/unemployment_by_major.php3?sort=Rate). + +Unfortunately, what someone *wants* to do and what is economically useful doesn't always line up. There are more philosophy majors than there are jobs for philosophy. Most businesses aren't too excited about hiring philosophy majors. Yet, for more tech-oriented fields, the demand has never been higher. And when we look as a whole, rather than just at one field, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that *48% of college grads are in jobs that don't use their degree!* [(source)](http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/28/half-of-college-grads-are-working-jobs-that-dont-require-a-degree/) + +So, with regards to tech fields, you may be right, but for ALL college graduates, because too many of them go into fields with a very low demand, they have a very hard time finding a good job. +not_that_abused: I don't disagree with you, but I have some issues with complaining about being unemployed while pursuing a field with high unemployment. If someone has a dream and wants to pursue it full time, I am happy for that person. However, dreams must be put in realistic terms. That is to say, someone who wants to study philosophy should be aware that the positions are limited and adjust their expectations accordingly. This is where I see pragmatism meeting idealism. Just like if someone wants to be an actor in Hollywood, spending ten years waiting for it to work out is not unexpected. + +I feel like there are many paths to success, and not all of them involve chasing your dream directly. Learning life skills through pursuing a career in one field can give you the ability and the capital to succeed in another field later on. What I hate is the idea of wasted potential, where people pursue very limited opportunities unsuccessfully for long periods and waste opportunities for growth in other ways. There are stigmas to getting a job outside of one's dream path, but having money and learning skills for success can create a foundation later on if the initial attempts at one's dream do not work out." +"CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH: First off I have to admit that I have a huge bias. I am far better at tests than I am at projects. + +But the reason for this is that I have the exact opposite reaction to these types of things. I am never stressed in a test, but often get extremely anxious and extremely stressed over projects. In these projects I often don't preform to my top measure because of this stress, but during a test I do preform my best. + +Now I'd also argue that most jobs are more test based. Other than engineering you usually have to do a lot of work on the spot. Being able to think quickly and memorizing material is important for when you are interacting with clients or customers. + +Personally I think both are important but most people seem to be good at one or the other. Because of this I think that it would be best to give students to option to either do a project or a test. +timpinen: &#8710; +I am a physicist/mathematician, so that is part of my own bias; I spend many months by myself thinking of strange problems with minimal interaction with people, working in my own environment; therefore, my job is not test based in the least. I agree that it is important to think quick on your feet, and acknowledge that memorization is important, but I feel that there is too much emphasis on memorization. I agree that there should be some form of tests, but I guess I am rather against the current system of having a single exam worth 90% of your mark. I am not necessarily against tests, but rather how they are administered. I believe courses should have emphasis on learning the information and applying it; though I do agree a choice would be beneficial." +"294116002: I'll agree that if you are unsure of your own self control and/or have an addictive personality, drinking (at any point in your life, really) is a bad idea. If, however, you are truly confident in your ability to stop when you've had enough and not drive if you've had any (neither of these things are particularly difficult), what's the problem? When I was in highschool, I drank with my group of friends but we never left my house and never did anything that could be potentially dangerous. +cstarr78: Those are all good points. I *am* confident in my self-control. However, what made the experiences fun? More fun than anything you could do while sober? What made drinking worth it to you?" +"ACTUAL_TIME_TRAVELER: Well, it depends on how much you're looking into. If you're just checking what their favorite movies or bands are, that's fine, but if you're digging into their deep past for no real reason, that gets kinda creepy. + +It's kinda like this: Say someone new just moved in down the street. You didn't really get to know them when you first met, but they seemed nice enough. You tell them that they should come visit again sometime so you can get a better chance to know them. It's all going well until a few days later, when you catch them digging through your trash in the middle of the night. When you confront them about it, they tell you that they're just trying to get to know you better. And while, fine, alright, you could probably learn things about someone from their trash, it gives you nowhere near the full picture, and also breaks about a thousand social boundaries. + +Going deep into someones Facebook history is the same way. You go back four, five years, and it's littered with the old, accumulated trash of who they used to be. It's not giving you an accurate picture of who they are now, and its probably not what they want you to see. I know I probably have plenty of things buried in my profile I'd prefer STAY buried, but I haven't deleted them because A) That's who I was, and I don't really feel the need to censor that, and B) I'm not expecting people to go rummaging through there and using it to base their opinions on me. Because if they did, well, it'd be kinda creepy. +TooLazyToRepost: At first read-through I really liked you trash example. I think it works really well at the concepts of what would be wrong about it, but I'm still not wholly convinced. + +You did change my perspective a little bit, since I realize I'd be really creeped out. But I tend to agree with /u/JillyPolla. + +I give consent to my FB friends, I don't give consent to my neighbors. If I had told my neighbor to come over, even when I wasn't there, I'd kind of be asking for something uncomfortable to happen." +"Riktrat: Youre presuming that among the ten poor people there exists 6 who dont think they'll be the rich man someday. If the social ideal is, as Mitt Romney said, ""we exist as a society of haves and soon to haves"" the poor will vote to protect the sanctity of the rich. +hellohellizreal: Thanks, you changed part of my view: the explanation i gave does not take into account the fact that people might not remain poor. ∆ + +However, most people know it is unlikely for them to grow multimillionaire. I think my reasoning is valid to some extent: if 50% of the population think they won't be millionaires, they benefit from taxation on millionaires + +" +"scottevil110: I am saying this as both a climate scientist and a person who lives on this planet: + +Go ahead and have kids. Yes, the climate is very much warming up, and yes, it's going to become more and more difficult to adapt, but humanity finds a way. The average temperature of the planet will rise several degrees. Sea levels will rise. Some places will be inundated, but humanity will survive it. + +Climate change will not kill people. It will make it more difficult for them to thrive, but most societies are already living well beyond what's necessary to stay alive. If resources become scarce, then societies will scale back before they simply start dying. + +And, yes, this sounds a little self-centered, but if you're able to read the IPCC report, then you live in a place that's going to do okay in a new climate. You live in a place with the resources to adapt. Changes to infrastructure can help to mitigate the effects of anything you're going to see over the next few generations. Rising sea levels can be dealt with by building better water management systems or simply living somewhere inland (I live 200 miles from the coast, I honestly couldn't care less how much the sea level rises, because it isn't coming up here). + +Most of the world outside of the polar regions will see more extreme weather more frequently, but it isn't something that will kill people en masse. + +Yes, life is going to require some changes, but you need not worry about the planet becoming uninhabitable within the next century. + +I realize that all that is pretty vague, but I'd be more than happy to address any specific concerns that you have. +hillofthorn: First off, thanks for your response. + +Asking you as a climate scientist, are claims that this planet is on the verge of another mass extinction event hyperbolic? + +Regarding sea levels: Would sea levels rising be the end of it? Even in North America, harsher winters and hotter summers, and the corresponding affects on food and water supplies, won't just harm folks on the coast. + +Then there's political concerns. Humans have a way of surviving in scarcity by hoarding from other humans. For instance, if there's a famine in Mexico, does the US send limited food supplies to that country to prevent a refugee crisis? I admit it's speculative, but I'm concerned that simply saying ""we'll adapt"" doesn't take into account that ""adaptation"" won't simply be about changing lifestyles around, but will in fact be about guaranteeing survival for some at the direct expense of others. +" +"EpicZiggles: I would say there's too many variables at play to designate one type of person as normal as then too many people are outliers. + +Take, for example, ethnicity. While the largest ethnicity group is Chinese, there are more non-Chinese as a whole, so how can an overall (in the scale of the global population) minority be considered 'normal'? + +Then, when you add in other factors, gender, handedness, hair colour, eye colour etc. There actually very few 'normal' people which pretty much defeats the purpose. +CurryThighs: I'm not arguing that there are 'Normal' people, I'm arguing that there are 'Normal' states. I think you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find someone that is 'Normal' in EVERY variable, as you said! We agree there! + +Also, you CMV'd me with the second paragraph. I hadn't thought of it that way. Here you go ∆" +"TryUsingScience: Rudeness is always bad. That out of the way, I am offended if my very Christian friends *don't* try to convert me at least once. + +Look at it this way. These people believe that nonbelievers will be tortured forever. I don't believe it and you don't and we could spend all day circlejerking about how it's stupid, but that is their genuine belief. If someone believes that I am going to be tortured forever, and they call myself my friend, how could they *not* try to save me? + +If you saw someone about to walk into the path of an eighteen wheeler, wouldn't you yell, ""Hey stop!"" You might decide they're making a conscious choice and respect it and not physically drag them back. But you're almost certainly going to check that it *is* a conscious choice, not a moment of thoughtlessness that could cost them everything. + +That's what (some) proselytizing is. It's believers yelling, ""Hey stop! Are you sure you want to jump into the fiery flames of damnation? Because there's a better way."" + +Sure, 99% of them ruin it for the rest, but some of them really are genuine. And I respect that, and I'm glad they care enough to try and save me. +Masennus: I'm not offended by the topics themselves. If a friend and I discuss our difference of opinion, I don't consider that proselytization, even if my friend's argument is designed to sway me to his view. So those personal conversations don't really fit my bill. + +I'm talking about the unsolicited variety. Can you offer me anything on that, or should I just continue to hate away at these zealots?" +"Glory2Hypnotoad: Those put on trial at Nuremberg were not rank and file soldiers; they were high-ranking officers. At that level, they were the ones giving the orders. No one was press-ganged into high-ranking positions in the SS. It was a largely volunteer force that that always had its pick of the most fanatical recruits. No one on trial at Nuremberg held the rank they held against their will. +ghroat: so if Hitler ordered them to do something, and they did not follow orders, what would happen? would they not have been punished? their defense was that they were ""just following orders"" so what happens when you don't follow orders in a military regime? + +genuine questions" +"huadpe: Do you have examples of immigrants who willfully choose not to learn the language, or people who advocate against learning the language? There are enormous personal incentives for immigrants to learn the language of the country they move to, as well as often legal incentives (with some level of fluency often being mandatory for naturalization). + +It feels like you're arguing against a straw man here. +theviridiansky: Mostly because there's a large number of Chinese immigrants in my city who refuse to learn the language because well, it's a majority Chinese area and they have 'no need to'. A large number of stores (many of which are *not* speciality Chinese stores) have Chinese-only signs and even those that include English signs have storekeepers that barely can speak English at all. My generation goes to school and speaks English so it isn't a problem, but it is a major problem with the older generations." +"Buffalo__Buffalo: Any RPG worth its salt is a story wrapped in a game (or maybe if it's Final Fantasy 7 then it's three or so stories all awkwardly crammed in together). + +Sure the fighting is important, as are the graphics and the music etc., but what really counts is the story. If you want a game which is just about the battles you have FPS and strategy games. + +If you're finding the RPG interesting but the battles unnecessarily drawn out and tedious then adjusting the game to suit your tastes so that you get the most out of what is essentially an interactive story isn't something to feel guilty about. Like any game, the most important part of it is the enjoyment you get from it - be it grinding for hours on end, blasting through and skipping all the sidequests, or anything in between. + +You aren't a professional gamer. Enjoy your games in the *way* you prefer them. It's not about measuring up or impressing anyone, it's about how much fun you have. + +*edited a word in* +garnteller: You're right, there is a lot of effort that goes into the story and environmentals, independent of the combat side, especially on these really-plot driven ones. + +I do see your point about enjoying them how I enjoy them - and that's easier with, say, Halo, where I know I don't have the reflexes (or eyesight) to play it well. I think my frustration with these RPGs is knowing that I *could* play them ""correctly"" but don't want to put in the effort. + +But you (and the others) are right - I'm playing for me, so whatever maximizes my enjoyment is the important thing. ∆" +"[deleted]: You have every right to compare yourself to others, it's what we do. But however, it's sometimes wrong to compare ourselves to others in ways we know would not help us gain any insight about ourselves or learn anything. For example, I have an extreme dislike for anyone who compares me to my brother by pointing out my failings and glorifies his successes. This would be an unproductive thing because this fosters resentment and agitation for one thing. It wouldn't help me with my relationship to my brother, it would only damage it. + +And seeing to compare yourself to find where you are is tantamount to asking people what they think of you. You know you at your most intimate and deepest level, through you conscious and experiences. If I have a 100K Salary and work at the 99th Floor at a Fortune 500 Company, I don't need to compare myself to Bob in Accounting to know where I am in the Company. + +I don't seek to compare myself to others all the time, except if I have good reason to do so. And comparing oneself to another can often times lead to judgement which may hinder your comparison. If so, I would compare myself many times to the ""Popular"" kids at school and wonder why I'm not so popular. I have good looks, get good grades, pretty sociable so where am I failing? But alas, I'm my own person. To try to compare my failings to the success of another would be ill advised because truly, everyone is their own person. + +So it's good to compare ourselves OP when we know we have reason to do it, but bad taste to do so all the time without consideration for oneself. +YogiAlex: I agree that everyone is their own person but I think we use this as an excuse to be okay with our shortcomings. What if I just compared myself in music? I think it is important to be better than other people because this is how everyone else sees us." +"incruente: > I think that watching these videos would have a much greater impact on people and make them more likely to do something to help. Personally, if I watch videos like this I feel sick and it disturbs me for about half a week. I cannot forget about them easily. Just reading about these events does not have this effect and I can forget about the issues relatively quickly. + +Having watched them, what have you done to help that you would not otherwise have done? Also, what more do you think can be done that is not already being done? Wars on such groups aren't like wars on countries. You can't just hit them and call it a day. It's a war on extremism, ideologies, and perversions of cultures. There is no specific ethnic group you can reasonably target (since these things span many such groups but encompass none of them entirely), no region you can unreservedly attack. Saying we should get people to do more sort of implies there's something else to do. +IceFieldsOfHyperion: Personally I donate to charities. Specifically ones who are involved with helping refugees. This gives some people a viable places to run to a possible way out. + +I may not have have done this otherwise. Without seeing really disturbing things it is quite easy to forget about something. Even if reading an article about it I make a mental note to donate I may forget about it during the day. Having watched footage that has deeply effected me I'm thinking about these people for longer an thus more likely to make a donation. Granted it is a small change but at least I am contributing a little." +"n_5: You have to remember that Pao is human too. Dealing with that kind of inhuman harassment is incredibly stressful and debilitating, and I can't blame her for stepping down. She's probably realized that being CEO of Reddit is not worth the absurd amount of strife she's faced from users who are, quite frankly, shitheads, but users who make up a vocal percentage of the userbase and users who have been relentlessly going after her (and, of course, many of these users are powerful enough with computers to make her life a never-ending nightmare). It's like the GamerGate victims: many of them shouldn't have ""given in"" to the angry hords of numbskulls, but personal feelings of well-being can often trump standing up against the shittiness of facing a crowd you'll never win over. +teleekom: This I can absolutely understand, but I just don't like this trend I'm seeing. It's not so long ago when all the Tim Hunt controversy happened when he was forced to quit his position for the twitter mob only to be revealed that it was all load of bullshit. I absolutely get that it might not be worth it to be constantly harassed, but this is scary precedent to hold. I just think people should stick to their guns, eventually things have to turn one way or another. Maybe staying out of comment sections could be some sort of solution, but that would probably be hard to do as reddit's CEO. + +" +"skittlemonger: This only works if it's me and my SO who make this decision and nobody else, because we're only two people. It's statistically no different from saying ""my vote doesn't count, because I'm only one person"". It's true. The problem occurs when *lots* of people think the same thing. If lots of couples adopt your logic, suddenly loads of people will stop voting in pairs, and both main parties will lose large numbers of votes. This means that minor parties will be proportionally overrepresented. +DBerwick: > This means that minor parties will be proportionally overrepresented. + +Not that the US couldn't stand for a bit of that, but the part about voting third party was on the condition that you (like many Americans) vote major party because of the spoiler effect; you and your partner can now vote for the party you most prefer without succumbing to said effect. + +if you genuinely support one of the major parties as ideal, then that point holds a bit more credence, but so long as the distinction between 'major party' and 'third party' has reason to exist, the over-representation of third parties is a drop in a bucket." +"huadpe: Many if not most Uber cars do follow them, being licensed as for hire vehicles but not allowed to take street hails. + +But Uber does not follow the one regulation which matters, and they shouldn't have to: the medallion system. + +New York City has set an arbitrary cap on the number of for hire vehicles which can pick people up off the street. This cap does nothing except produce economic rents for those who own medallions, and is fundamentally unfair. + +Vehicles which have passed safety inspections, have licensed drivers, and have accurate fare systems should be allowed to pick up passengers. Right now they are not unless they have a special permit from the government that you can't get because they stopped issuing new ones in the 30s. + +The medallion system is stupid and Uber is morally right to flout it. It should be repealed, and any vehicle meeting health and safety rules allowed to ply the streets for fares. +awesomeosprey: > The medallion system is stupid... + + +OK, fine, I disagree with you but you are entitled to your opinion and the rightness or wrongness of any specific regulation is deliberately outside the scope of this CMV. + + +> ...and Uber is morally right to flout it. + + +This is where I disagree strongly. + + +If people (and/or companies) felt free to ignore laws they did not like, that would be essentially the same as not having laws. Civil disobedience in human rights matters is is categorically different from a corporation willfully defying a duly-passed law, whose only effect ultimately would be to cut into its profits a bit. What if a pharmaceutical company decided that FDA regulations are unduly onerous, and starting distributing untested drugs through an app? " +"DHCKris: What about this: seeing women in these portrayals and not having as many positive female role models makes your girlfriend upset. Presumably, because feminism is a thing, it makes *many* people upset. Sadness is a bad thing, so something that makes a lot of people sad has a negative effect on society, even if it's a small one. It reflects ideas and values (no one, as far as I can tell, is claiming it creates them) that are upsetting at best and offensive at worst. Causing these emotions negatively affects a part of society. +LeonTheSexCoach: Ahh, yes I did not view it in that regard. ∆ Of course making people sad is certainly a negative effect, but wasn't really what I was looking for. The argument behind stereotypical portrayals of women in video games (according to my girlfriend) is that contributes to the idea that men are in power, and thus directly influences societal problems that affect women due to a patriarchal system. I'm wondering if there is any evidence that there is a link between these portrayals of women and real societal problems (e.g. Gender wage gap, underrepresentation of women in STEM fields) or if this is only seen as a problem ""because it hurts peoples' feelings"". " +"Crayshack: I am also enjoy fanfiction, but it is not a guilty pleasure for me. It is a way to explore the characters and the story in depth in a way that no writer has the time to in a normal story. Because I already know the way the original story went, exposition for the world where the story takes place is not necessary, and the writer of the fanfiction can focus entirely on exploring a character's motivations, or the interactions between two characters that got little screen time together int he original. + +Then there are also the stories that ask ""But what if this had happened?"" Even for a basic story, there can be thousands of scenarios that a fan of the work can come up with and explore, some of which turn out to be very interesting reads. I am also a fan of crossover fanfiction, where the possibilities are almost endless of characters from various works of fiction meeting under a myriad of circumstances and the events that can play out. + +Yes the vast majority of fanfiction you will find is not very high quality, but if you search hard enough you will find many stories that are just as good if not better than the original. There are a few works of fiction that I only started reading/watching because I enjoyed a few fanfiction stories that used characters or setting from them and I decided to go to the source. In at least one case, I was extremely disappointed with the original material as compared to what some people had done with it in fanfiction. +changemyromance: > I am also enjoy fanfiction, but it is not a guilty pleasure for me. It is a way to explore the characters and the story in depth in a way that no writer has the time to in a normal story. Because I already know the way the original story went, exposition for the world where the story takes place is not necessary, and the writer of the fanfiction can focus entirely on exploring a character's motivations, or the interactions between two characters that got little screen time together int he original. + +This helps me to understand why I enjoy the fanfiction I do, although it does not affect my view that it is distinctly a bad/shameful thing. For that, I award one &#8710; to /u/Crayshack. Thank you. + +I can see that there are certain kinds of fanfiction that would not be inherently shameful (""What if the fake-Voyager crew had made it back to earth?"", for example, if you get that reference). However, I view the exploration of other things as inherently shameful. To offer a more vague example, say Characters A and B had a hinted romance, but later in the canon, it is explicitly shown that Characters A and C share a long-term romance together. It is strange for me to then experience: 1. Disappointment at Characters A and B not having a similar romance, 2. The desire to search out fanfiction where Characters A and B pursue a similar romance, because as delineated by the canon, clearly Character A and B do not have romantic involvement. + +Overall, I do not like these feelings. I am constantly at odds with myself to either accept or rid myself of them...and ridding myself of them has not seemed to do much for me." +"RickAstleyletmedown: I eat meat and care very much for morality. I was a vegetarian for many years for the usual reasons: not approving of the horrible ways the animals are often treated in industrial meat production, wanting to avoid the environmental impact of industrial farming, etc. + +Although there were other factors involved as well, I started eating meat again because I accepted that: + +1) By choosing to eat meat that is hunted by myself or someone I know, raised by someone I know, or raised free-range on grass from a company I trust, I take ownership of how the animal is being treated and help create a market for ethically-raised meat. + +2) Many of the protein alternatives that vegetarians consume are actually as destructive to the environment as ethically-raised meat or worse. Soy production, for example, is extremely problematic. + +So, yes, I care very much, but came to the conclusion that becoming a total vegetarian was not necessary within my morals. +shayzfordays: >1) By choosing to eat meat that is hunted by myself or someone I know, raised by someone I know, or raised free-range on grass from a company I trust, I take ownership of how the animal is being treated and help create a market for ethically-raised meat. + +But you're still killing for no reason arent you? + +>2) Many of the protein alternatives that vegetarians consume are actually as destructive to the environment as ethically-raised meat or worse. Soy production, for example, is extremely problematic. + +Beans? Nuts? Grains? Whats wrong with soy production anyway?" +"jmsolerm: > They can not reproduce and some I know don't even care for that fact. + +Are sterile and those who just have decided not to have children a cancer, too? + +Homosexuals can in fact reproduce, and many do gamete donations. Gay women can get a sperm donation, and gay men a surrogate mother. Slightly worse IMHO than getting a unique zygote with chromosomes from both parents and using an artificial womb, but that's my opinion. + +> Summary, if you can't contribute to future generations + +Who says they can't? If the only way to contribute was to have more children, it'd be pretty disastrous. + +> why are you allowed to fool around influencing them and destroying morals because you ""only live once"". + +What morals do you mean? Also, you're wrong on the ""motivations"". Homosexual people can go with their lives in almost the same way heterosexual people do, just dating/marrying with someone of their same sex. +Bomboozled: You make some good points, which is what this is about. Can you answer what the kids turn out like seeing only one gender at home? I mean without the father to explain to the son, or the mother to explain to the daughter... I just am not that positive. Mind you yes, a LOT I learned wasn't specifically from my dad or step dad. More from my brother and a little from my friends. " +"RustyRook: The short answer: Be selective about who you talk with about controversial topics. + +Some of your closer friends are probably already aware that you don't share their political views. So choose the ones among them who you think you could have a conversation with and roll with it. If you're sure you do want to discuss it it's a good idea to lay the groundwork and then talk about it in person. I've seen many facebook conversations that get very heated and completely unreasonable when controversial topics are discussed. Discussing it in person gets ideas across very well because tone and body language can be used to guide the direction of the conversation, which is often impossible on facebook. +SwordWolf: ∆ Thanks! I think this is the best way to approach it. Body language bit is especially good." +"dtiftw: What do you define as a ""GMO"" that needs to be labeled, and what information would you like to see on the label? + +Secondly, what testing would you like to see that isn't currently being done? + +And I will challenge specifically the idea that anyone has said that GMOs are ""completely safe"" or that we should accept them ""no questions asked."" I can't think of any organization, company, or scientist who has made those claims. +MagicSpaceMan: I did a bit of research and found this page: +http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/08/27/glp-infographic-international-science-organizations-on-crop-biotechnology-safety/#.UlQecCRJNOE +which pretty much changes my view on it's own, but since I went looking because of your comment, I'll give it a ∆" +"DHCKris: Sex is an act partaken by two (or more) human adults fully capable of making their own decisions and taking their own risks. It is not immoral to mutually decide to participate in a natural function of the body with another individual in a non-physically harmful way. + +Even though you don't personally understand how people can feel that way about sex, the fact is that people DO feel that way, and you should not label their activities and feelings as immoral simply because you don't understand them. +allissasquestions: Thank you for your comment.. I agree that it's not fair to label it way, but I have difficulty agreeing that it isn't immoral. The problem is I can't understand how people can view it the way you do. I don't see how casual sex, for example, can be beneficial and not just unhealthy. Maybe that's a question of how much intimacy is involved? +∆" +"cde458: By leader do you only the president or prime minister should possess this privilege. If so, we are dealing with a very small sample size so we have to be willing to accept that there aren't many examples. + +> The threat of prosecution undermines peaceful transition of power. Peaceful transition of power between political adversaries is the defining feature of a democracy governed by the rule of law. + +Depends on the system in place. In the US the prosecution of presidents would lead to the same party maintaining power. So it wouldn't necessarily have to transfer between adversaries. + + +> Egypt's recent history is indicative of this to me. + +Egypt wasn't exactly stable to begin with. +huadpe: >By leader do you only the president or prime minister should possess this privilege. If so, we are dealing with a very small sample size so we have to be willing to accept that there aren't many examples. + +I would say any elected official acting in an executive capacity. Not sure how I feel about cabinet ministers in a parliamentary system. + +I agree we have a small sample size to work with for examples. + +>Depends on the system in place. In the US the prosecution of presidents would lead to the same party maintaining power. So it wouldn't necessarily have to transfer between adversaries. + +A one party state is not a democracy. That's exactly the sort of result I'm worried about. If you can't transition to another party, you don't have democracy. Power *has* to be able to transfer to an adversary to be meaningful. + +>Egypt wasn't exactly stable to begin with. + +They were stable, but undemocratic. Their experiment with democracy failed I think in part due to the prosecutions of Mubarak and Morsi. Now they're back to military rule." +"A_Mirror: >I believe that a woman will never be able to go topless without causing a stir unless women's boobs, and more importantly, their nipples are no longer considered objects of sex + +What better way to accomplish this than by de-sexualizing them via not censoring them anymore? If women everywhere in the US (And I say US because in a large number of other countries in the world women going topless is fairly normal and non-controversial) started going topless it would become normal. People would just get used to it. +keanex: That's a good point that you make, but I don't think that the women should make their stands in public streets where even men don't regularly go topless. If you want to make a stand then why not do it at a place where it's common to go topless?" +"carasci: A big reason the situation in the US has gotten to where it has is not simply the existence of for-profit (private) prisons, it's the lobbying power they wield. Why do they wield that power? Because there are many of them, they are large, and they have lots and lots of money. + +It's perfectly possible that there's nothing wrong with the existing private prisons in the UK, at least not today. However, the moment they see an opportunity, or the moment they become prevalent enough that simply returning them (*all* of them, at once) to public management on a relative moment's notice becomes impossible, it's quite literally their *job* to milk that opportunity for all it's worth. When that happens, suddenly you start seeing regulatory ""reforms"" that look a lot like lowered standards, rating systems start to disappear or become stratified, and standards start to drift between public and private prisons....all things that, incidentally, seem to increase profitability while making it more and more costly and difficult to reinstate public control. + +It's sort of like keeping an aggressive baby bear in your house on a dog leash. Sure, it's safe so long as it stays the size it is and you don't get too close, noting to worry about really. The moment it gets big enough to break the leash, though, or the moment you let your guard down when feeding it, it's going to take a chunk out of you with no hesitation whatsoever. There are some cases where that kind of thing isn't a huge problem, because the stakes or consequences are relatively low. However, prisons, policing, and a number of other government areas are government areas in part because they *aren't* such cases. +Arryk: Normally I'm not amenable to slippery slope arguments but I do see that in this case any progress down this slope would be irreversible. &#8710;" +"cwenham: Consider the Panopticon: + +http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon + +It's based on a reliable observation about human behavior: that we act differently when we think we're being watched, even if we aren't. A dummy camera can often be equally effective as a real one. + +People restrain themselves when they think they're being watched, but the problem is that it's their own imagination of what the spy will do which governs their behavior. + +There is no policeman as effective as the one inside our own minds. +Dooey: I won't say that this has changed my view, but it has made me waver a little, so I'll give you a ∆. + +BUT: I think that the reason people retrain themselves when they are getting watched is because they would otherwise do something that they believe is wrong. This leads to 5 possibilities that I can see: + +1. They believe they would do something wrong, and they are correct. In this case, I think the spying was a good thing: it prevented a crime! + +2. They believe they would do something wrong, but it is not actually wrong. Although this is unfortunate, I think that this attitude will be common in the long run. I believe that eventually, what people believe to be wrong and what is wrong will be the same thing. + +3. They believe that what they would do is not wrong, but they still don't want other people seeing it. This applies to things like having sex. I think that having a person that has never interacted with you and never will interact with you see you have sex is not a bad thing, and I think that any discomfort from that would disappear once people learn that no one of importance to them will ever see the footage. + +4. Not they think that they are doing something wrong, but they think they are being evaluated. Again, I think that once they realize they are not being evaluated, they will return to their original behaviour. + +Also: even if people do change their behaviour because they are being watched, this does not mean they are no longer free to do something that they would be free to do if they weren't being watched. I do think that it's very close to having their freedom restricted, which is why I gave you the delta, but my view is not completely changed yet." +"scottevil110: From the perspective of climate change, you're largely correct. The meat industry is a *massive* contributor to greenhouse gases, and science backs you up on that. Granted, some meats are far better than others. The ""chicken industry"" for example is far less impactful than the beef industry, and fishing is mostly inconsequential as far as environmental impact if you don't accidentally fish something into extinction. + +From a suffering standpoint, though, this is where I try to remember that just because we're cognizant doesn't mean we aren't animals. We're not somehow separate from the rest of the animal kingdom. We evolved just like everything else did, and we evolved to be omnivores. We have our place in the food chain just as every other animal does, and ecology has adapted to the fact that we DO eat meat. Just as a certain ecosystem relies on lions killing a certain number of gazelles for ecological balance, so has the system adapted to the fact that we're part of that. Raising animals for food is a different story, but as far as hunting, fishing, and scavenging, we're just another animal. +Rachm0on: Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your argument but are there two prongs: that it might lead to ecosystem collapse, and that we have also evolved to eat meat just as any another animal? +I'm afraid I cant satisfactorily answer the first point; I would either hope that the ecosystem adapts after a bit or that our contribution is not sufficiently dreadful to completely destroy the eco-chain...excellent point though. Equally I wonder what your objection would be to an ecosystem collapse (bad ramifications leading to suffering?). If it is a concern that ultimately is a moral, suffering argument, I would hope that the prevention of hunting would outweigh the collapse in terms of pain, but it would be hard to be sure. (sorry if I've completely skewed the argument!) +As for the second point, just because we are animals does not mean we cannot raise ourselves above them. Simply because it is natural, to my mind, does not mean it is morally correct. Animals brutally gore competitors to death, I hope this does not mean it is fine to repeatedly spear a suitor of my girlfriend..." +"vl99: Literally no one is going to disagree that programs that give people jobs will be better at finding people jobs than programs which don't focus on finding people jobs. It's a tautology. The reason we have safety net programs is because we want the right people in the right jobs. + +The types of jobs that publicize position vacancies to programs that focus on job placement are usually minimum wage and temp positions, bottom of the barrel type jobs where the employer isn't concerned so much with finding the right person for the position as a body to fill a hole. + +If an accomplished accountant has a really unfortunate layoff when his company goes belly up, and can't find a comparable job for some time, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to give him a little cash to hold him over until he does find an equivalent position than to place him in meal assembly at Burger King where his skills will be completely wasted. + +Also, if safety net programs were defunded to provide for job placement and education programs, what would the really unfortunate people who don't have a cent to there name do to feed and house themselves and their families while attending daily classes or waiting for job placement? +red62_dank_memer: I see what you are saying with your first three paragraphs, and agree with you ∆. I am going to attempt to reply to your fourth one. + +That is why I said certain welfare programs, and not all welfare programs, because someone is obviously going to need assistance with food and shelter while they are being trained or the like" +"sheep74: I'm not American but I would just like something cleared up; + +Isn't freedom of speech the ability to convey ideas and opinions freely? so the thing itself doesn't cover things like lying. You don't have complete freedom in misrepresenting information (lying) but you have the right to believe and express your beliefs freely? + +You seem to be confusing two things; freedom of speech as a thing, and the ability to say whatever you want. They're not the same thing. No, you shouldn't be able to say whatever you want because then yes, banks can lie to you. But you should have complete freedom of speech. +fur_tea_tree: I'm not American either. I suppose I was making an argument based on past smaller arguments with people who wouldn't budge on the definition of free and continually refused to accept that it didn't mean they could say whatever they wanted. + +I think my original view then was that this was how people saw the definition of freedom of speech, but I suppose it was just a few individuals. + +So although my view on the definition of freedom of speech hasn't been changed as it pretty much lines up with what you and others were saying, I suppose that my view on other peoples opinions of it has been changed... if that makes any sense. + +So +1 &#8710; for changing my view of other peoples views on this matter." +"pepsiguy24: If you want to save lives, you can always donate organs that don't involve you dying. Donate a kidney. There are millions of people on kidney waiting lists suffering through dialysis. Donate part of your liver. It regenerates itself over time. Once again there are a ton of people waiting for a liver transplant. The point is you can save lives without giving your own. +0826: Yes, I think this is a big part it. Maybe eventually when I'm older there will be a time where this concept would be more useful. But at the moment I'm young. I can live for quite a long time helping people, and still make sure my organs are put to good use someday. No hurry lol + +I think it would still be beneficial though... just not the *most* beneficial thing one could choose to do, by far. However I think that if I did kill myself (and managed to save a few other people in the process), I still would have accomplished more good than many people have throughout their entire lives." +"Omega037: The United Nations is, foremost, a safe and central place for nations to deliberate, negotiate, and discuss issues between states. It may not solve those issues, but at least provides a platform for people to try. + +In order to make this successful, the UN has tried to be as inclusive as possible. The only way it can have legitimacy as the place for all nations to discuss matters of state is to have nearly universal inclusion regardless of what members do. For example: + +1. Syria was using chemical weapons on its people recently. It is still a member. + +2. North Korea has horrible labor/reeducation camps where children and other family members of ""traitors"" are sent to die. It is still a member. + +3. Rwanda committed genocide of the Tutsi people. It is still a member. + +At many points of time in its history, countries that were actively at war with each other were still at the UN. This might not seem like a big deal, but it really is. During the fiercest, most hated moments of a conflict, the UN still exists as the one place that representatives from both sides are together without arms. +Partha23: Just to clarify, you're saying that the purpose of the United Nations isn't only that of a peacekeeping and humanitarian coalition, but also a tool through which countries, even when at war, can find solutions to international problems and work towards their resolving, correct?" +"eggy_mule: It would probably be more correct to say that religion is an attempt to explain the unknown. + +This would of course include death as well as the huge number of natural occurrences that mankind did not (or still does not) understand. ie causes of natural disasters, evolution, weather etc etc +TheMagBastard: &#8710;= +Valid point. I still believe though, that the fear of death itself is the greatest weakness that religion exploits in establishing itself within a culture." +"Mavericgamer: Addressing ~~a few~~ all: + +Quality: + +Netflix streams in HD when it can. There are current *ahem* issues with certain ISPs in that regard, but for someone like me who needs glasses to see in SD, HD is barely a noticeable improvement to my eyes. As for Audio quality... I've never cared much; Spotify is good enough for background noise. + +Buffering: + +Annoying, but I don't ever deal with it; it's a matter of internet speed and connectivity; it has issues, sure, but it's generally fine. + +""Support the creators"" + +That is why I am using Netflix rather than torrenting; I unfortunately can't afford to buy every single movie I might want to watch; it is similar to renting in that regard; before Netflix we had Blockbuster, and as you might remember before Netflix was a streaming service primarily, its benefit was namely a more convenient way to rent DVDs + +Ads + +This is annoying but also why I don't use Hulu+ + +Physical Niceties: + +I never understood it. I have precious small living space, I'd rather use as much of it for things I actually use (servers, lockpicks, more viewing space) than some little booklet that cost $0.50 to make and adds another $5.00 to the sticker price. + +Selection + +The selection sucks based on quantity, but it is rare for me to run across a movie on netflix that sucked so badly I wanted to just not watch it. Further, it sucks only as a function of how much it has vs every film in existence. It blows my collection of DVDs away, and it stomps the selection of my local theater that has 22 screens playing 8-15 movies. + +Ownership/DRM + +This is the main thing for me: If I like a movie enough to want to own it, I will go buy it after having seen it. As I write this, I'm finishing up The Avengers on Netflix, and I pre-ordered that on DVD. I use Netflix because it is simply more convenient than getting up and finding that DVD. + +But I agree, on principle; DRM for paid content is just annoying. +alexskc95: Streaming in HD isn't going to fix how bitrate starved the thing is. Banding is banding is banding, whether that's 360p banding, 1080p banding, or 8k banding. + +I rarely deal with buffering myself... But yeah. + +I guess I just thought of it as shoddy because I was comparing it to complete-bought-and-payed-for-content. Thinking of it as a rental service, it's solid. + +Have a &#8710;." +"Hq3473: When I buy a new car, it can come with a long LONG warranty. + +This way, I can be sure it keeps me on the road. + +If you buy a used luxury car, god knows what kind of repair you will need. Also, luxury cars are more expensive and more difficult to fix. +BrawndoTTM: ∆ + +Longer available warranty. Didn't think about that. I guess that counts as an advantage so enjoy your delta. I'm not sure if it's enough to get me personally to buy a new car, but it's a definite advantage for a lot of people." +"TheBeatlesLiveOn: It's just not the case that most people know what they want to do in life by the time they graduate high school. If you don't have a profession in mind, how do you advance your education? Say you're good at math, and you enjoy it - exactly the same mindset as someone who would major in math in college now. Which profession's training camp/classes should you go to? And then what if you decided you didn't want to do that profession after all? Wouldn't it be easier if you could just reflect on your strengths and weaknesses and further your education accordingly, rather than being forced into immediately viewing it in the context of a specific job? + +Also, there are the problems of money and practicality. Say I've decided I want to be a Data Analyst and the nearest Data Analyst ""training camp/class"" is thousands of miles away. Would I live at the Data Analyst training camp? Also, there would have to be many more separate facilities spread throughout the country in order for this to work, which essentially means more money and resources funneled into very narrow services. +JustAGreekGuy: Speaking from my experience only, of the graduating class in my school this year, probably 2 or 3 applied to college undecided for every 30 kids, so I just assumed that's what it is like for most schools. + +The second point you made is true though, I didn't consider that. ∆" +"RustyRook: You've formed this view based on less than a quarter of how long you're probably going to live. And you hadn't even reached puberty for at least ten of those years. + +You're likely to be well off, financially. You're recently taken steps to reduce your weight. These are very attractive things, and women do value them very much. + +You really shouldn't let your height (or lack of experience) dictate your views on this /u/ShortieMS1. +ShortieMS1: ∆ Yes I actually think right now I look good. I feel good about my appearance in a way I haven't felt ever before. Yet the evidence is staggering that guys short as me have it very rough. One study found that a 5ft 4 man would need to make 229K more than a 6ft guy to have equal chances (in online dating I grant you). One day I frankly would be able to make that much but med school ,residency ,etc I won't be rolling in it. It would be nice to be with someone who likes me genuinely but I realize my future income and profession are part of me. + +I do think I'm at the age where not having any experience is very very strange." +"hacksoncode: An interesting point about this is that, if it's irrational to view races as having any scientific basis, that doesn't mean that people haven't done a lot of damage in the past by having this incorrect view. + +I.e. If it's true, then all of the racism that has occurred has been *doubly* stupid and unjustified, and it makes sense to level the racist playing field. + +The problem with your view is that irrational people not only exist, they are probably close to a majority. The harm they cause by believing in race is irrational and wrong, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. + +By targeting these programs at the same sort of mistaken categories these irrational people do, we can reverse the harm done by their irrationality. + +Therefore I don't think it's hypocritical, but sometimes it might be considered ironic (in the real sense). +controversialideas: ∆ + +This is a plausible defense of holding both views at once - race as a biological construct does not exist, but racism as a social construct should be compensated." +"[deleted]: The value of faith is inherently going to be tied to what you have faith in and what conclusions you draw from that faith. For instance, you seem to have an enormous amount of faith in inductive reasoning. If pressed, however, I am confident you would not be able to justify why you have faith in inductive reasoning without resorting to more inductive reasoning. Nevertheless you have faith in this form of epistemology. + +Another thing you appear to have faith in is some form of non-relative ethics. You suggest that certain other values are a benefit to those around them. What does it mean to be a benefit to others? Presumably you have something of a fixed understanding of what behaviors are beneficial if you are asserting that there is a positive correlation between value x and benefit y. This is also a based in faith. If pressed you would almost certainly be unable to justify your faith in this specific ethical system without recourse to tautologies. + +Faith is an inevitable part of epistemology. All of our ""rational"" or deductive reasoning rests on the basis of starting assumptions, which at their very core amount to arguments taken on faith. You might imagine you could use something like Occam's Razor to justify having the fewest and least expansive assumptions possible, but essentially there is no way to escape the fact that all of your beliefs are built off of first principles taken on faith. + +PossumMan93: I hope you don't think that I'm arguing that I have never utilized faith throughout my life or even that I don't believe faith exists. You are absolutely right that I utilize faith in inductive reasoning, and it's efficacy and obtaining a desired outcome for myself and others. And you are absolutely right that I have faith in the belief that an ethical system in which ""good actions"" are those that duly benefit those around you, and ""bad actions"" are those that unduly harm those around you. + +But you're not really addressing my concern. I don't believe that faith should be something to strive for. I don't think we should stop at ""I believe that inductive reasoning is the best way to go about solving problems and I don't need any other reasons to believe so"" I think we should be constantly striving to overcome reliance on faith. I don't think faith should be something to be proud of. I am not proud of the fact that faith is the only thing I can use to back up my reliance on inductive reasoning and I don't think anyone should be. I think we should be constantly looking to find a better way to justify it's use (if it's efficacy is not already enough). + +And by the way, my claim that inductive reasoning is the best way to solve problems is not based solely on faith. I'm not just saying ""inductive reasoning is the best way to solve problems because I believe so,"" I'm using verifiable evidence collected throughout my entire life. I reasoned, based on my experiences, that drinking water will quench my thirst feeling whenever I have it. And every time it works. That problem gets solved by inductive reasoning. So I continue to use it. I'm not taking on faith that it works and is useful. I'm using it because it's useful. I'm sure you'll say that I can't know for sure whether it will continue to work, and you're right I can't, but I have *mountains* of evidence that it has worked in the past, *mountains* of evidence that not using it in the past has lead to problems, and doing nothing is not an option, so I'll continue to use it in the future, and if things turn out differently in the future than they have in the past I will alter my views." +"BenIncognito: When African Americans started converting to Islam, there was a strong anti-establishment sentiment among those who did so. They didn't want to be like ""White America"" so they developed a counter-culture. + +> But those who move to Islam because 'the white man uses Christianity to bring the black man down' are misguided and don't know the historical influence of Islam and the Arab invasion on Africa or even the modern day slavery of sub saharan Africans still going on in some Islamic states. + +They aren't misguided, they are responding to the culture they were forced into. It isn't like they sat around and said, ""okay which religion has the least involvement with slavery historically, ah it's Islam! Lets go with that one."" Christianity had been introduced specifically to their ancestors by the white Americans that enslaved them. And during the Civil Rights Era many African Americans did things to counter the years of forced acceptance of white culture by naming their children with African names, or dressing in traditional African clothing, or changing their last names, or for some converting to a ""non-white"" religion. + +It allowed them to be religious and keep a separate cultural identity. +termitered: So you're saying a big chunk of the reason why they followed islam is because of a 'hipster-like' mentality?" +"McKoijion: If people on your health insurance plan are overweight, you'll have to pay higher premiums to cover their inevitable medical care. If people in your society are overweight, you'll have to contribute more money and effort to cover the cost of their choices. That's the fundamental argument behind why anyone else's concerns are your business. You can apply it to obesity, gun control, taxes, drug use or pretty much any other issue. As for whether this is a good argument or not, you can argue it both ways. Political philosophers from Aristotle to Plato to Hobbes have debated this point for centuries. +hey_hey_you_you: If a problem is endemic, that means there are widespread causes of that issue which need to be addressed. Shouting at an individual fat person is like yelling at someone who's unemployed in a recession. It's pointless. Systemic changes need to be made and public health campaigns must be mounted. Bullying or fat shaming just doesn't help." +"forestfly1234: If a cop pulls you over because you were speeding, are you really saying that you ignore the authority of the vehicle with the flashing lights behind you and just keep on driving. + +Or, when they ask you to show lis. and registration are you just going to ignore what they say? +Kryeiszkhazek: >If a cop pulls you over because you were speeding, are you really saying that you ignore the authority of the vehicle with the flashing lights behind you and just keep on driving. + +I recognize and submit to that. I fully realize the duty of a police officer is to uphold and enforce the law. + +I guess what my feelings are, is that we as a society grant cops the authority to police but if they are abusing that authority then we should also reserve the right to revoke it. + +I also know that there can be consequences, legal or otherwise, for lack of compliance in the wrong setting but I feel like if we don't actively contest unjust behavior from those in power at every possible opportunity then things will only get worse + +>Or, when they ask you to show lis. and registration are you just going to ignore what they say? + +If he is within the scope of the law to legally require me to do so then absolutely. If he is not, then yes I would ignore him." +"riconoir28: Mortality for drivers in the US is roughly 50 per millions. Death while working in construction in 2006 was 108 per millions. Driving is not the most dangerous thing these workers do in their everyday life. (edit. The more i'm looking into it the more I find that stats regarding this subject varies a lot.) +einmaliger: &#8710; There are certainly dangerous jobs where litte mistakes can easily mean death. I was thinking about the average office worker who has no particularly dangerous hobbies (like mountain climbing or extreme sports). + +So yes, the second part of the title is a bit too generic." +"nikoberg: We should certainly invest in future generations. But if you think mature adults can't change their opinions, how do you explain the massive shift in gay marriage over the course of about 10 years? [This news article](http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/05/07/wsjnbc-poll-on-gay-marriage-2012-vs-2009-vs-2004/) documents a shift in opinion of about 20% to ""in favor"" of gay marriage. Over the course of 8 years, this is larger than the percentage of the population that can be accounted for by old people dying and young adults taking their place. So people definitely do change their views over their lifetime; most people who are racist, bigoted, or otherwise are so not because they are inherently bad people, but because they haven't been exposed to the correct kind of experience that makes them understand why their actions are wrong. +seventh_deathstroke: Out of those 20%, there'd be small percentage that is accounted for by old people dying and young adults taking their place. (admittedly, not much. probably about 4-5%). +So, even if we agree that adults are capable of changing their views, out of the remaining, there're also a class of people whose opinion changes based on popular opinion. If people were by and large against homosexuality in 2004, there'd be a lot of people who would be against homosexuality too, just to fit in with their peer. And I'm not talking about just pretending to agree. People actually believe in the things that appears to be the popular opinion. + +And even if we keep that aside, it's not these moderates, or 'flip-floppers' that are the problem. +> they haven't been exposed to the correct kind of experience that makes them understand why their actions are wrong. + +I accept that. I do. But the problem lies with the extremists. The ones who will vehemently argue the color of the sky to be grey on a bright sunny day, just because that's what they've grown up believing. That's what they've been rationalizing. And it's toxic. It's toxic to the extent that it casts doubt on the others too. On someone who's just beginning to start thinking about the color of the sky. And before he/she can decide objectively or fairly, there's this loud blaring voice proclaiming it to be 'grey!' . Those are the kinds of people, who I think cannot change. And those are the kinds of people who enable the existence of such traits in our society. The kind of people who're at the forefront and have a voice that influences less critical people. +" +"RustyRook: > My point is the more that people in developed countries accumulate wealth, the less wealth there will be for developing and undeveloped countries to accumulate. + +A tiny little econ metaphor should clear this up for you. + +Let's say that the global GDP (or income, if you prefer) is a shepherd's pie. Your'e under the impression that the size of the pie remains the same. This isn't true at all. Throughout history, the pie has increased in size. + +That's how we've been able to support a larger population on Earth, because there's more income to distribute than before. And global GDP is still rising. Africa is projected to grow rapidly during this century - both income and population. + +Did that help? +The_Irish_Sea: I meant resource wealth. The world's resources are finite, right? Even if $s can increase, what you can buy with it can not." +"Windyo: News is TERRIBLE for the general public, for the reasons you cited, and also because of herd mentality. You only need to look at reddit sometimes to see how people tend to flock to some news, disregard others, and then validate their views based on each other's pats on the back. + +However, you said ""News is bad for you"", with the ""you"" being interchangeable with anyone. the problem is that News are GREAT for some people : analytic-minded people, scientists... and historians. + +Let's pretend for 5 seconds that news don't exist. We the people live in blissful ignorance, and our leaders still get informed of everything through their secret service and intelligence bureaus. For the sake of this discussion, let's imagine that no leaks have ever happened. + +Every major scientific discovery has gone unnoticed by 99% of the population. With no media outlet to turn to, scientists have to resort to peddling to show off their wares. When they get noticed by someone powerful, their invention gets stolen - it's much easier to apss it off as your own than it is to pay royalties. And without big news agencies to bring the public eye to that sort of thing, who's going to argue ? + +Let's imagine that everything up to WWII went along like it did in the real world. Nobody knows about the concentraiton camps. Jewish people get killed off on a larger scale, the culprits don't really get hunted down, and no-one really cares : we're all blissfully ignorant. +Let's pop forward thousands of years : no textbook ever mentions WWII, or if they do, they give a propagandist view of it, and America is glorified. why ? because with the media outlet, no-one has any experience t share to the world, no-one has a story that sticks, and veterans die with their memories. also, why would the american government publish a true account of the thing when they could make it seem like they were heroes ? any government would do the same. + +Another situation : missing kid. No media outlets : no amber alert, etc. + +So all in all, I think news are useful. (not feeling particularly motivated for a great closing sentence) +Rhiokai: ∆ Although the reply to this by u/moldovainverona is valid, your points have changed my view." +"iamblegion: Sure, no one should be judged for it, but that doesn't justify sharing it with others. You reference this with ""not disturb the other person by telling them about it."" And really, that's where any judgement comes from. People are usually disturbed by unwanted, intimate details about other people. Everyone poops, but not everyone wants to hear about your poops, and you'd be judged for thinking it's wanted to share that information. + +You, for the most part, have a right to fap to what pleases you. But others have a right not to hear about you fapping. +Cow_Power: Well, yes, that would fall under ""distressing others"". I'm not saying you have a right to share your masturbation habits with everyone else, I'm saying that they shouldn't feel shame." +"scottevil110: You have two points here to be addressed separately. + +1) They are a rubber-stamp court. + +I disagree that the high rate of indictments means that they're just a rubber stamp. Prosecutors know what the burden of evidence is that's required to get an indictment, so that's what they bring to a grand jury. Yes, the result is that the grand jury passes it on to trial, but that's simply because prosecutors aren't going to bother showing up without what they know is required to get the indictment. + +Doing away with them would enable prosecutors to just take whatever they wanted to trial, with or without convincing evidence. + +2) Protecting government agents. + +There is nothing to back this up. Darren Wilson wasn't on trial as a police officer. He was on trial as a citizen. The prosecutor isn't ""playing for the same team"" in any official sense. You could say that on a personal level, maybe he didn't try as hard, but the grand jury has nothing to do with that. If the prosecutor is corrupt and protecting the cops from legal action, then it doesn't matter how it gets brought to trial, they simply won't put forth a case that will win. +SnacksOnAPlane: >Prosecutors know what the burden of evidence is that's required to get an indictment, so that's what they bring to a grand jury. + +You would need to prove this to me to get a delta. I found [this source that seems to argue the opposite](http://www.wisenberglaw.com/White-Collar-Criminal-Defense/Grand-Jury-Investigations.shtml): + +>""As a practical matter, a federal grand jury will almost always return an indictment presented to it by a prosecutor. This is the basis for Judge Sol Wachtler's famous saying that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to 'indict a ham sandwich.'"" — Solomon L. Wisenberg + +As for this: +>Darren Wilson wasn't on trial as a police officer. He was on trial as a citizen. The prosecutor isn't ""playing for the same team"" in any official sense. + +If that's the case, why would the prosecutor bring up things like Mike Brown holding marijuana? The prosecutor is supposed to make the best case he can for prosecuting, right? I wouldn't say that he's ""corrupt"" because that would make him seem like an outlier. He simply has no reason to aggressively pursue a police officer. It's a flaw in the system." +"turtleintegral: > real harassment + +[Sexual harassment](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm). Sexual harassment includes unwanted sexual advances, which is what the cat-callers are doing. + +> It is not respectful to real victims of harassment, because it trivializes the issue. + +Many women do not take what you are calling ""compliments"" and ""greetings"" as genuine compliments or greetings and are very well able to differentiate the difference between a compliment and some stranger basically saying they want sex. The people in the NYC video that are catcalling the women most likely would not use ""compliments"" and ""greetings"" on men, which exhibits the sexual nature of them. [Sexual harassment](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm) includes unwanted sexual advances, which is what the cat-callers are doing, so there is really no need to trivialize the victims of street harassment by claiming that they are not victims of ""real harassment."" It also reeks of a ""there are starving kids in Africa"" type of argument. + +> It disrupts normal social dynamics between people. + +Yelling shit at strangers on the street does not seem like a normal social dynamic. In fact, it seems rather rude. Personally, I think it is more polite to not try to stop strangers to have a conversation with them. You have no idea if they are busy or not in the mood for casual conversation. + +> It is not in the interest of women that want to meet somebody that men are being discouraged to approach them. + +There's a time and a place for that. Shouting sexual compliments at strangers on the street is neither the time, nor the place. + +> It will not deter creepy guys from harassing women, because apparently they don’t have any problem even with real harassment. + +It will tell well-meaning guys that think catcalling is acceptable that it isn't. Furthermore, it will encourage guys to call out other guys that are catcalling and tell them to stop. And yes, there are obviously going to be many guys who don't give a fuck and will still catcall, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to lower the amounts of catcalling. + +The point of the NYC video is to show that many women do not enjoy what you are labeling as ""compliments"" or ""greetings"" and that it makes them feel extremely uncomfortable. I think it's best to accept and respect that, and therefore work to discourage such behavior, rather than argue semantics and try to deny and trivialize the experiences that many women have. + +> Radical feminists think that approaching a woman you don’t know should automatically be characterized as harassment. + +This is a total strawman argument. Feminists are not trying to label male interactions with women they do not know as harassment. Also, I would like to hear what your definition of ""radical feminist"" is, because it is a way larger group than radical feminists that are complaining about street harassment. +TheChangingWays: > Sexual harassment includes unwanted sexual advances, which is what the cat-callers are doing. + +> Yelling shit at strangers on the street does not seem like a normal social dynamic. In fact, it seems rather rude. + +Personally, I think that cat-calling is a rather stupid way of approaching a woman, but that’s not the point here. The only question is, whether it is harassment or not. + +> Sexual harassment includes unwanted sexual advances + +How are men suppose to know in advance that they are unwanted? They cannot, they only can guess by the clues that her appearance is giving them. She was dressed specifically to give the impression that she wants attention (make-up, tight clothes, the brand logo on her butt, pink shoelaces contrasted by her black outfit). If you give off nonverbal signals that you want attention, you will get it. + +And even with her attention seeking attire, in 10 hours of filming they couldn’t get enough footage so they desperately had to include these comments: + +“How you doing” +“Have a nice evening” +“How are you this morning” +“What’s up miss” + +If you call that cat-calling, then you are crazy. The ones that said these things were not yelling and they were not being rude. And that is the MAIN problem with this video. They could have included just stalking and cat-calling, but the fact that they included these polite conversation starters totally discredits their video and their message. + +> This is a total strawman argument. Feminists are not trying to label male interactions with women they do not know as harassment. Also, I would like to hear what your definition of ""radical feminist"" is, because it is a way larger group than radical feminists that are complaining about street harassment. + +Ok, you got me here. I take back that part. +" +"gaviidae: The case didn't go to trial because Rice entered an intervention program which typically is done to remove criminal charges. It in no way says he is innocent and if anything implies he is guilty it's just a way to make the situation better without putting the spouse in jail. Rice also [apologized for his actions](http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/5/23/5744964/ray-rice-arrest-assault-statement-apology-ravens) which makes it pretty clear he behaved badly in some way. So it's completely false to imply the court considers him not guilty. + +As for the NFL they have been coming down hard on other behaviors. Ben Roethlisberger was initially suspended for 6 games for sexual harassment that he wasn't even formally charged with (Rice was not only charged but the charges were upgraded), Josh Gordon for an entire season for marijuana, and [A.J. Jefferson](http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2013/12/2/5167870/aj-jefferson-suspended-nfl-arrest) was suspended for 4 games for domestic assault. So a 2 game suspension seems pretty weak when compared to other suspensions and when Goodell is supposed to be getting tough on outside problems then it really seems weak. + +Domestic assault is a problem in the NFL. You have aggressive men with huge egos and there are going to be problems. It should be important for them to take the issue seriously. A two game suspension shows they do not [take it seriously](http://www.tmz.com/videos/0_c5nk3w3n) and deserves to be criticized by people who oppose domestic violence. +TheChosenJuan99: &#8710; + +Thank you for clarifying upon the legal ramifications involved in the entire situation. The first paragraph really helped to clarify the whole ordeal. My stance was mainly based upon the assumption that Rice was assumedly not guilty, so you've definitely changed my opinion." +"[deleted]: it just doesn't work: Children literally don't have the critical thinking skills adults do. A second grader is 7 years old: they literally can't do philosophy in any meaningful way. you actually need to wait until their brains have developed enough to grasp abstract thought. + +piaget's developement system. +http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/piaget/ + + +on the other hand young people learning a second language is a really really good idea since learning it at this stage is much easier. + +IT: coding has the same abstract thought problems that philosophy shares and you really don't need to teach tech to them so early. waiting until kids are say even 5th grade works just as well. + +also reading is incredibly important for child development at early stages so your plan to de-emphasize that by implication is problematic. + +tl;dr/ELI5: there are concrete reasons grounded in brain science why our educational system exists in it's current form as opposed to your suggestions. +jedidreyfus: I understand for the brain development but in no way I was de-emphasizing reading, I even think that those 4 disciplines implicate 4 different kinds of reading (literary, mathematical, rational and normal everyday life). For IT, I was more thinking about how to do a google search efficiently, how to interpret what you can see on the internet and ultimately how to share and use actively the telecommunications services without falling for every scam; maybe I used the wrong term. + +∆" +"turole: I'm kind of confused and would like some clarification. Are you saying the statement ""There was no one behind the creation and spread of Christianity and the Jesus character did not exist in any form"" is plausible or ""The mythical aspects of Jesus are unconfirmed while it is likely that there was a man behind the myths in some aspect."" My understanding is that Carrier says the former and I thought that was what you were saying. The last statement ""Abe Lincoln vs vampie hunter"" suggests the latter. + +Which exactly are you arguing as plausible? +grimwalker: Hypothesis: No such person as an historical ""Yeshua ben Josef"" ever existed. + +It's plausible to me--the records, such as they are, originate mostly from the beliefs of a tiny cult. There's no historical record that doesn't ultimately tie back to the preachings of that community. That this character was originally wholly mythical, a demigod figure partaking of numerous mythological tropes, which in the first and second century, acquired historical encrustations which purport that certain events took place in the real world." +"RandomhouseMD: Because sometimes you cannot quite find the word you are looking for. You know that the word kinda means style, but without having a reference, you don't remember that the word you are looking for is panache. You cannot blindly use a thesaurus to pick random synonyms, but it can be a great tool when you cannot put your finger on the word you want, but know the things that are close. +GnosticTemplar: Learn to improvise! Maybe rewrite the sentence so you don't have to dig through a thesaurus in the first place? Most of the time it's bloody obvious when a desperate writer cracked one open. Less is more." +"comfortablyANONYMOUS: Well, you're argument has a logical flaw: They can believe they are in the wrong. An alcoholic can believe that what he is wrong, but still be a stuck as an alcoholic trying to improve. Similarly, a Christian that believes in the bible and is a homosexual would think he is wrong. So he could identify as a christian partaking in sin and would have to try to change from homosexuality. I would given a parallel but i don't know much about the bible. + +Based on your assumptions, that christians have to accept every word written in the bible (which I believe is incorrect), you would not be able to believe that homosexuality is good if you were a christian (and assuming that is how you interpreted the phrase) and hence couldn't decide to stay as a christian and a homosexual. + +Disclaimer: I am neither a homosexual or a christian. +SayOuch: In my explanation I said that I believe it is unjustifiable. I do not believe that what you pointed out is a flaw. A Christian who is identifies as homosexual would not be justified in believing what he believes because he would be sentencing himself to a life in hell. + +I should have clarified that I meant a person who believes they are a 'good' Christian who abides by the laws of Christianity." +"CatRelatedUsername: In a vacuum, getting rid of CoonTown is undeniably a good thing. + +*However*, nothing occurs in a vacuum. CoonTown played by reddit's rules. They were obviously on a short leash, but the reddit admins could never find a ""legitimate"" reason to ban them or their associated subs that was in line with the existing policies (i.e. no harassment). Ultimately, they were banned for their content, and that makes quite a few people uncomfortable. In effect, no one knows what the rules concerning acceptable content are anymore. More troublingly, it marks an immense change in reddit's policy; just a few years ago, during spez's last time in charge, he unequivocally stated that content would never be banned. Now? That's quite obviously changed. + +Most redditors concerned with speech issues are on a hair-trigger at the moment. They're not going to leave just because CoonTown was banned, but the way in which they were banned is making quite a few of us uncomfortable about the future of this site. + +reddit is dead. Long live Reddit. +Virtuallyalive: >He unequivocally said that content would never be banned. + +Where did he say this? Besides, /r/blackladies would say that Coontown wasn't only banned for content. + + + Redditors concerned with free speech doesn't include me, and quite frankly, I would be happier if they all went to voat." +"McKoijion: 1. ADHD is very treatable, and a lot of otherwise healthy people have it. +2. Almost every family has some history of depression and mental illness. Almost all families histories have heart disease or cancer too. +3. Your boyfriend may have dropped out of high school, but that could have been tied to his ADHD or his family life/environment. Intelligence is mostly practice/effort rather than innate genetic skill. If you put a lot of love and effort into raising your child, there is no reason he or she shouldn't grow up into a success. +4. If you don't approve of your own gene pool, it is possible that any children you adopt won't come from a ""better"" gene pool either. + +That being said, adoption is a very admirable choice. I wouldn't do it because you are scared of your own genes though. Genes are like a hand in a card game-what works for poker might not work in bridge (or whatever card game would make this analogy work.) There is no such thing as perfect genes, and you shouldn't discount yourself because of them. +_s0cks: &#8710; You make a great analogy with the card games and it's true that the disadvantages with which my own child could be born with could be equal to/lesser/greater than those of an adopted child and there is no way to really know. " +"McKoijion: That's only based on the strictest definition of the word. [Modern dictionaries](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/natural) have definitions of natural that separate it from ""artificial"" ingredients. Furthermore, they also have definitions that separate it from the unusual or unexpected (As in something is only natural or is unnatural.) + +Furthermore, even if you use the strictest definition of the word, it's still useful to distinguish it from the supernatural. Lots of concepts involve the supernatural from the vampire shows on the CW to the entire concept of God. Given how much time and energy human society devotes to religion, the natural and supernatural distinction comes in handy often. +pistolpierre: But even these artificial ingredients are derived from nature (via people, who synthesize them). And the unusual and unexpected are also a part of nature. I see your point though. + +As a distinction from the supernatural though, I would have to concede. Have a triangle thing. ∆" +"convoces: The idea that high death rate, such as one caused by a ""big Plague"" will curb population growth is false. + +In fact, the opposite is true, as a country addresses and *reduces* their death rate; their population growth actually *falls* as a result of societal and cultural decisions to have less children. This has been demonstrated cross-culturally and worldwide. + +If anything, a big Plague will *cause* greater rates of population growth. + +For more info, see Bill Gates debunking the myth of overpopulation here: http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=myth-three +elderstahl: &#8710; Sorry, I forgot to add delta while replying previously. +This comment certainly clarifies one aspect of the problem. that is, the possible post-""Plague"" effects. the post calamity growth of ""life is short"" psyche, people will tend to reproduce at higher rate, which - in due time - will nullify the effects of this so called ""Plague"". + +Although, another aspect of the question was this reduced population will provide us with possibly enough time to either explore other sustainability options or come together as a humanity to strive for a balanced future. " +"PrefersDigg: A few pros for oranges: + +- Easier to travel with. Throw an orange into a dirty bag, the part you eat stays clean. Don't have a plate to put it on? The peel suffices. + +- An orange is cleaner to eat. Both because of the peel, and because it naturally segments. Very hard to eat an apple without getting sticky juice all over you. I hate the feeling of sticky face and hands after eating an apple. + +- Hard to make an argument about taste as preferences differ, but personally I find apples pretty boring. Citrus is more interesting to me. + +To a few of your points: + +> Alcohol + +Not really a pro for apples themselves. There are also orange liqueurs. I'd say that apples are used for alcohol more for convenience historically, and now tradition, rather than any inherent advantage. Somewhere in Africa there is liquor made by the tribe's women all chewing up some plant matter and spitting it into a big pot to ferment (really, I swear, I saw it on an odd food show). That's not really a benefit to spit. + +> Food + +An orange pie seems possible, it's just that other citrus works slightly better for it (key lime pie...) + +> Diversity + +Perhaps the original form of the orange is better to begin with, so there's less need to create many variations. Also, if wide variations are allowed, I'd get to include many other types of citrus as benefits to oranges. A lemon, lime, grapefruit, pomelo etc are likely about as similar to oranges as the many breeds of apples are to each other, right? (cue biologist to tell me how wrong we are) + +> Pop culture + +Apple benefited from a recognizable icon, but given their neat technology, probably could have been just as successful as ""orange."" Unfortunately that wouldn't roll off the tongue quite so well, and the Macintosh pun would be lost... But blame whoever wrote the dictionary, not the noble orange. +keanex: 1: travel - I don't see an advantage here for either. I wouldn't put either in a compromising situation to get dirty and if my hands are dirty from hiking then an apple is easier to ear without getting dirt on the actual fruit. + +2: mess - I personally find oranges to be much juicier and prone to dripping, my personal experiences don't match up to yours. + +3: taste - I prefer citrus in some cases, but the acidity can lead to palate fatigue much quicker than a variety of a sweeter apple like a Fiji Apple. + +4: alcohol - apples are used for making wine and cider because they have enough sugar to ferment a liquid down to a decent alcohol level while having a wide variety of apples to mix and developed a cider for many different palates. Apples are also available in a variety of liquers, apple brandy for instance, with a much larger variety of apple based liquors that serve as a main beverage. Orange liquers tend to not be drank straight, with some exceptions. As an aside, look up chi cha. + +5: food - even if there were common orange pies other citrus, lemon/lime, already do a great job at that. Apple pie can also be enjoyed hot or room temp! I also forgot apple sauce, that stuff is awesome. + +6: diversity - the variety of apples you see as a weakness, but I see it as a strength to evolve! Not sure how similar other citrus is to oranges." +"culturedrobot: > Children do not enjoy handwriting in the slightest! + +Most children don't seem to enjoy school in general, so I'm not sure that point counts. I'm also tempted to call out the claim that ""children actually enjoy typing,"" because there was a severe lack of excited kids in my keyboarding class way back in eight grade. + +Anyway, penmanship is still important, just maybe not as important to some positions these days. A major reason to keep teaching children how to write legibly is because it helps improve basic motor skills like hand-eye coordination. + +Constantly writing actually made me a better speller, too. I'm not sure if this is true for everyone, but if we're comparing writing to simply reading, it seems like it'd be easier to remember how to spell a word correctly after writing it. + +Writing (or penmanship, whatever term you want to use) has a lot of benefits when it comes to literacy that may not always be immediately noticeable. And also, I really hate to be ""that guy,"" but I have to point out that four of your points are essentially saying ""kids don't enjoy this but like that, so let's just do what they enjoy."" + +Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure programming is going to be beneficial to a lot of those kids when they get older. As beneficial as learning good handwriting skills? I'm not so sure, especially if handwriting does have benefits when it comes literacy. +tf2manu994: ∆ i still believe that it shouldnt be compulsory, but you have still changed my view to ""it is neccessary till year 2"" +" +"MonkeyButlers: I think your mistake is assuming that protagonists are the drivers of the plot. Take two classic examples: First, Star Wars. I think we can agree that Luke Skywalker is the protagonist, but he hardly is the main driver of the plot. He doesn't really know what is going on and only reacts to the situations in which he is placed. Second, The Hobbit. Again, I think we can agree that Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist, but he's obviously just caught up in a situation which he doesn't really control. Gandalf and Thorin have much more to do with deciding what happens, Bilbo just reacts to situations. +sooneday: Even though they lack control over events, both Luke and Baggins are on the side opposing the status quo. + +Being in control isn't essential to being the protagonist, but if a character directs the plot, is in many scenes, and is opposing the status quo, that character is a protagonist. Cersei meets all those criteria. " +"Dick_Harrington: I can't actually disagree that an autocratic system can make decisions faster than a democratic one; it's honestly one of the downfalls of democracy. + +Let's talk about the long run though, as you state: + +>In the long run, a country that can't make intelligent decisions will never be able to compete with a country that does. + +Firstly, I think the assumption that a country like the US doesn't make intelligent decisions is false, it wouldn't be where it is if it didn't. Politicians obviously advise business, think tanks and academics before making choices, it would be undemocratic to do otherwise - that is termed 'making a decision in a vacuum' and is considered a dumb thing to do. + +Secondly, I was actually quite disappointed by the recent plenum of the communist party primarily because it failed to address several issues that will effect the economic success of China in the long run. When China decided to open its economy up to market forces decades ago, it made sense to be an export driven player in what was becoming a globalized market. However for China to succeed in the future it needs to modernize and focus on growing the domestic market by empowering its consumers. + +You talked about granting more property rights to farmers/rural folk which is good, the government also decided to deregulate some investment vehicles (because quite frankly all those ghost towns are embarrassing), strengthen social security and create a more independent judiciary (as an aside: does that sound very technocratic to you?). What they didn't touch on however were the biggest problems, quoting from an article here made this morning: + +>There was no clear promise to reform China’s bloated, subsidized and over-protected state-owned enterprises, which are crowding out the more competitive private sector. Nor was there any serious discussion of reforming a financial system badly in need of more commercially oriented banks and liberalization. The fact is that Xi has dodged, at least so far, most of the reforms that require the political will to take on entrenched interests in the public sector. “The leaders still seem to emphasize stability over decisive actions,” wrote BofA Merrill Lynch strategist David Cui. “This has strengthened our opinion that many of the tough reforms…may prove difficult to implement.” + +They also refused to talk about government debt has practically doubled over the last 4 years. + +My point is this. To compete with the USA and Europe, China needs to modernize, this is incredibly difficult to do because of the technocratic system, tendency to promote unity instead of innovation and rampant corruption (compare: http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/). Also, part of modernization of the economy will ultimately mean moving away from the nationalized economic model, thus reducing the power of government in the long run. + + + + + + + + + + +TheSkyPirate: ∆ + +Damn. Sounds like you're right. I read an article that said the CPC was focusing on liberalizing state enterprises and the financial system, but it turns out it was written last week. I guess they're not pushing through the important reforms after all. + +However + +>Firstly, I think the assumption that a country like the US doesn't make intelligent decisions is false, it wouldn't be where it is if it didn't. Politicians obviously advise business, think tanks and academics before making choices, it would be undemocratic to do otherwise - that is termed 'making a decision in a vacuum' and is considered a dumb thing to do. + +This is not true. Any radical economic policy change in a democratic country that requires an act of Congress/Parliament will simply not happen except in the chaos following a severe crisis. Institutions like the fed which are run by appointees are another matter. Europe is moving in the Japan direction because the governments of Europe answer to the people of the individual countries, and are unwilling to implement a more effective union. " +"BrownEggz: It depends, (in the US) if you aren't in the left most lane, then you're right. If you're in the left-most lane, however, you should move over, even if you are passing yourself. Or move over once you finish passing. + +Edit: + +> I was going at or over the speed limit and when there was no other traffic besides us (literally in one instance) + +If you were in the left lane, you shouldn't have been. If right, then the other driver was an asshat. + +> when the traffic was busy and it wasn't quite so easy to merge. + +This is more of a gray area. My answer is that you should merge over when safe to do so. + +> The burden should be on you to get around me since I'm going at or above the speed limit. + +Yes, but there is also common courtesy if someone wants to go faster than you and you are in the left lane already. + + +CKitch26: &#8710; + +I decided to come back and give you a delta because you were the top-rated comment. Since this post, I've taken 2 road trips and have and have kept to the right lane except when passing. It's been less bothersome for me to have to worry about people behind me and those in the left lane can just keep moving right past me. I may have also gotten over myself just a little bit. + +Thanks for making me a better driver" +"Yxoque: > I can't help feeling that it is a rather useless cause. + +I don't think it is. Every field that is dominantly one gender over another is going to miss out on talented people with novel insights. We shouldn't miss out on a qualified nurse because some bloke was told it wasn't a manly profession. Neither should we miss out on a qualified scientists because some girl was told science was for boys. + +Unless you have a good argument as for why certain genders are almost universally better at certain professions any sort of gender imbalance is going to cause society missing out on qualified people in the right place. + +And I think the police force is a special case, in this regard. I've seen firsthand how some people react to both male and female police officers and having a good gender balance is going to help civilians a lot. A lot of people are more comfortable discussing certain things with people from their own gender. Children will gravitate towards female police officers (and yes, this is also due to harmful gender roles in society, but we need a police that functions in the society we live in, not in the society we'd like to live in). + +> They involve so-called ""positive discrimination"", which leads to cases where a candidate gets ahead of a fitter one only because the former is a woman. + +People often say this when talking about this, but I don't think this is completely true. We know from several studies that when applying for, well, anything, people are discriminated against based on their gender, skin color, sexuality, etc. Even if the resumes are completely identical, this still happens. So if a woman wants to enter a male dominated field, there's a good chance she's going to have to be **more** qualified than a man. Positive discrimination is intended to get (in this case) women accepted when they are ""merely"" equally qualified. + +> They don't solve the real issue, which is the discrimination that would have stopped the women from getting the job. They may be able to overcome it thanks to external help, but even if we have solved the symptoms the problem is still there. + +And as soon as we have good, viable way to stop the discrimination from happening at all, we should implement that. Unfortunately, we don't have one and we'll have to make do with measures we can actually implement. +quietandproud: > I don't think it is. Every field that is dominantly one gender over another is going to miss out on talented people with novel insights. We shouldn't miss out on a qualified nurse because some bloke was told it wasn't a manly profession. Neither should we miss out on a qualified scientists because some girl was told science was for boys. + +And won't we, by means of hiring a woman instead of a man, ~~loose~~ lose as many talented people as we win? + +> And I think the police force is a special case, in this regard. I've seen firsthand how some people react to both male and female police officers and having a good gender balance is going to help civilians a lot. A lot of people are more comfortable discussing certain things with people from their own gender. Children will gravitate towards female police officers (and yes, this is also due to harmful gender roles in society, but we need a police that functions in the society we live in, not in the society we'd like to live in). + +Here you are, sir: ∆. + +That's a very solid point. I was very adamant on the police force case, but now I see there's some logic behind making sure there are female cops, as there surely is with female firefighters. I still feel (although less strongly than before) that the method is misguided: it feels absurd that a woman would have an advantage against and equally physically fit man. + +> And as soon as we have good, viable way to stop the discrimination from happening at all, we should implement that. Unfortunately, we don't have one and we'll have to make do with measures we can actually implement. + +But doing this we are ""masking"" the discrimination. If we ever achieve equal gender representation, how will we know whether there's still discrimination against women or we are ""unfairly"" heling women? (I know this is very simplistic: I don't know how to state it better) +" +"gbdallin: I used to work at the state mental hospital here in Utah. A lot of our ""forensics"" patients (those that were there for criminal charges) were there for very violent offenses. There were several people who were there for murder. These people had been diagnosed with things like schizophrenia, severe bipolar disorder, and brain trauma. Their offenses were almost never premeditated, which is the big part. The idea that sometimes people just ""snap"" is actually not that far from the realm of possibility. + +The main part of this is that these are permanent, debilitating disorders, that can be helped or managed with proper medications. Legislation that bars those with mental illnesses do so to keep those kinds of events from escalating even further. Depression, PTSD, ADHD, are all ailments that do not frequently result in violent acts, and thus, aren't blocked. +rap_mein: >The main part of this is that [schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, etc.] are permanent, debilitating disorders, that can be helped or managed with proper medications. + +Exactly. So why should the government pass legislation which discourages people from seeking them help (and medication) that they need? To me, that's what this type of legislation would do; it would have no effect on people who are already **not** seeking help and medication, and would reduce the number of people with mental illnesses well controlled with medication and other forms of aid by encouraging them to keep their conditions a secret. + +" +"sloggz: I agree in a very broad sense with your view, however I'd like to challenge something I think you've overlooked. + + +When a peice of entertainment is extremly broad, to the point where everyone over the age of 12, of almost any language or culture can experience some sort of enjoyment in it, it can become a cultural phenomenon. For example, take the movies the Avengers, and Under the Skin. I enjoyed both of these films immensely, however, one is a deeply challenging artistic film that was hauntingly beautiful, and the other one featured the Hulk. + +Now, if I could only see one of those films over again, I would hands down choose the Avengers every time. Why? Because these days (and in all days) experiencing a piece of entertainment is more than just the two and a half hours of time I spent taking it in, it's experiencing everyone else taking it in as well. The reddit threads, the discussions in real life, the jokes, the interviews, the memes, the gifs. All of these are a part of that experience. + + +Entertainment with widespread appeal leads to many more instances of sharing that experience with the world around me, which I greatly value. +Smooth_McDouglette: ∆ although in changing one of my views, you've confirmed a different suspicion of mine. That people choose to consume mainstream media more not because they enjoy it more, but to better fit in. So there is considerable fuel to the argument that these people don't actually enjoy this content as much as they claim to. + +But you have a point. It's not like we are machines. Everything we do has to be considered in many other contexts. It may then be advantageous to decide to indulge in more popular media simply to facilitate socialization later on. But again it seems to strengthen my main argument rather than diminish it. I'm glad you brought this point up either way." +"gaviidae: I don't think anyone believes that CGI is always a bad thing in movies. The issue is the over reliance on it. Movies are going for bigger and ""better"" and that often means CGI rather than live actors. This makes movies even less realistic not just that they look cartoony but that the reason they use CGI is to do stuff that simply isn't realistic. + +Can you really [watch these clips](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZlOn9V_MmE) and think the movies were better because of these CGI sequences? +universaladaptoid: ∆ + +> Movies are going for bigger and ""better"" and that often means CGI rather than live actors. + +Okay, that's an excellent point. Here's a ∆. + +On a related note, I don't think that the movies in the Youtube link were better because of the CGI sequences, but I don't think they were any worse off because of them, but that's mostly just personal Apathy, I suppose. Thank you! + +EDIT: Added the ∆" +"McKoijion: Google has traditionally been an amazing company, but it has lost some its friendly start-up character as it's gotten older. It used to be that engineers ran the place. They made cool stuff and gave it away for cheap, because Google's search engine made so much money that they could afford to try out random stuff. + +Now as the company is older, they had to start promoting those engineers to management positions, and not all of them took to their new roles very well. On top of that, Google started hiring a lot more consulting/banking business types. They are starting to expect returns on their investments on their fun stuff, and are finding ways to squeeze every dollar out of their ads. Finally, many of the truly creative developer types are leaving/have left to get involved with new start-ups. As a result, the culture has started to seriously decline. + +A good example is the recent fiasco with Youtube. In the guise of improving the site, they put in more ads, reduced the download speeds, and forced people to sign up for their failed Google+ product to register for the site. You can tell that those decisions were made by executive types rather than engineers that are truly trying to make the best experience for their users. This isn't really Google's fault. It happens to all companies. Remember that Microsoft was the most prestigious/profitable/innovative company in the world for a while too. + +So Google is pretty good, but they are on the decline. I don't mean that you should sell your stock or anything, but they aren't the company we used to love anymore. +eblue: After some more thought, and after reviewing additional links provided by other commenters evidencing the shift you describe, I'm going to award you a Δ here. (Posts that provided the best of those additional links will receive deltas, too). + +Your narrative makes sense to me, comports with my business experience, and reconciles Google's early bountiful generosity -- and its initially considerate treatment of its users -- with more recent developments raised in this thread of which I'd been largely unaware, such as: + +* [The inability of Android users to opt out of, or exercise fine-grained control over, sign-in integration](http://en-us.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1vz63d/i_love_google_cmv/cexmwe1) + +* [Obnoxious attempts](http://en-us.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1vz63d/i_love_google_cmv/cex7khq) at getting people to sign up for G+ (I had been dimly aware of this, but before I read the remainder of this thread I viewed it as an out-of-character aberration; now, it seems like part of a disturbing trend) + +* Explicit industry collusion and internal compensation-flattening policies [designed to prevent](http://en-us.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1vz63d/i_love_google_cmv/cexcbhz) the most talented engineers from drawing ""outsize"" pay + +These things are frankly not as bad as what many companies do, but they suggest that Google's exceptionalism has seriously begun to wane. For awhile, Google was unique because it was a small start-up with industry and cultural prominence rivaling the largest tech and media corporations. So, of course Google's culture and ideals made it stand out from the behemoths that were its ""peers."" My affection for Google grew in part from my incredulity that a firm of its size and with its dominant market position would pass up easy, massively profitable but philosophically compromising moves such as...well...cross-referencing users' data across platforms without their permission. As it turns out, Google *is* doing these things with increasing frequency. It just so happens that their policy changes haven't affected me. Yet. + +Maybe I will buy stock though. Ugh. +" +"steveob42: it is all very hypothetical, but who maintains the technology? When we automate that task (i.e. self-awareness and self-development in machines) who keeps tabs on it? When does it become self-preserving? + +If everyone else is out screwing around at the beach with their robot drinks, who is gonna want to be a technologist and do that crap? Who is gonna want to govern/enforce humans for that matter? + +There are no guarantees, you are making a leap of faith in human nature (and the nature of technology). There is a wider and long term view to consider, and consider how fast technology already is evolving (and evolving outside the influence of the US government). I don't see how anyone can assume it'll all be fine without being proactive about the future. +Morgan_Freeman1: I'm not sure you read my entire post. I'm not saying that automation will make our lives better. I'm actually arguing that widespread automation will cause economic collapse. Because of such a large consequence, automation will never reach the sci-fi/fantasy levels everybody is dreading right now. I say automation won't be a problem in the future because it won't be as prevalent as everybody believes it will be. Maybe I should have changed my CMV to say that automation won't take our jobs on the widespread scale people believe it will." +"tweetypi: My sister tried breastfeeding for months, but no matter how hard she tried she could not give her enough, she would try and try until her breasts started pussing. She switched to formula and it dramatically improved her stress levels and allowed my niece to get the nutrition she needed. If she was forced to get a prescription only a few things would have changed, for one my niece would not have been able to switch to formula as easily, as it is my sister simply had to go to the store to get formula, of she had needed a prescription then there would have been a larger gap between when she could not give breatmilk and giving her formula, she would have starved until a doctors appointment could be made. +tweetiebryd: anecdotal evidence aside, i find it hard to believe that you can literally spend months not giving a baby enough. + +We'll assume it's true for the time being; There is no reason whatsoever that a new mother would have to wait for months before they can see an IBCLC. Most hospitals have consultants on staff, but these tend to be privatized consultants. When my wife saw her IBCLC, we got in contact, made an appointment, and saw her the next day. baby was 3 days old. after one hour with the IBCLC, she mostly told my wife that we were doing well, it would be a little uncomfortable, the milk is going to change over the first few days, and several other tiny truths that more-or-less just reassured my wife that she wasn't starving her baby. Mothers, particularly first-time mothers just aren't experienced enough to understand what they need to be doing, or if they're doing something wrong. + +we saw 3 different consultants at the hospital on the day of the birth. 2 said that the baby wasn't getting enough, and one doctor said it wasn't worth worrying about. Babies don't need much milk, they're tiny creatures. my wife insisted on getting a 4th opinion, and it's no surprise to me that the consultant that wasn't attached to the hospital was the most helpful, informative and assuring. + +You can't be sure that the baby wasn't getting enough: Babies don't know how to do anything but cry, poop and sleep. Just because a baby is crying doesn't mean it's not getting enough food. This is something that an outside consultant can know better than you, that they can reassure you about, or correct your latch, or if neccesary, tell you that you do in fact need to buy formula." +"[deleted]: Let me start by saying that I don't agree with the ""war on terror"". As a result don't mistake this counterpoint as a moral justification. It's more of a technical one. + +You might have a misunderstanding of the ""job"". The ""job"" of the armed forces, homeland security, etc. is to protect *American* lives. That's what their mission is, that's what they are paid to do. The inequality isn't viewed by the actors as a moral justification. They don't get paid to mitigate losses to other countries citizens or make moral determinations about the value of life. An American life is ""worth"" more because America spends more money to protect it. If the conflict country did / could spend as much; fewer of their civilians would die. + +Foreign citizens die more often because they don't have sufficient advocates internal to our system or sufficient advocacy from their governments. They will likely never gain advocacy from the US since doing so essentially takes time, money, and resources away from the job of saving Americans. Failing to save Americans results in political and budget loss. +Commie_Fascist: Excellent realpolitik explanation. I actually don't disagree at all with the definition of the government's job. The moral superiority that we so often imply in the face of all evidence is my real contention. " +"scottevil110: I agree with you in the case of beef, but all meat is not created equal. Chicken, for example, has a much lower carbon footprint as a result of production. They require less feed, they cost less to transport, and they emit less as animals. + +Here's a possibly credible thing that I just found on the internet: +http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet + +As you can see there, a ""no beef"" diet is scarcely more impactful than a vegetarian diet, as meats that aren't beef are fairly carbon-friendly. Obviously a vegetarian diet isn't carbon-free, as it still takes a great deal to farm and transport all of those vegetables. It's really livestock that's so inefficient. + +As to eggs and dairy, again these are fairly low compared to the consumption of beef. A single cow can produce thousands of gallons of milk over her life, compared to the one-off steak frenzy that we get from slaughtering one. And chickens (again very low carbon footprint) can pump out many times their weight in eggs with fairly little impact on the environment. + +if you truly want to help out the environment, I believe you could make a bigger difference by always eating locally-produced food, thus greatly reducing the transportation footprint. + +As to the cruelty aspect, that's up to your own personal opinion. Personally, the concept of getting milk and eggs from animals does not bother me, since both of these things are produced with or without our interference, and aren't causing additional harm to the animal. +seriyes: Thanks for your well-reasoned response. That's the same article I linked to in my post. :) First google result for both of us I guess. + + +I guess I came to a different conclusion than you after reading the article. While the reduction in carbon emissions from a normal diet to a beef-free diet is largest, the further reductions when continuing to vegetarian and vegan diets are by no means insignificant. + + +While you are mostly right about milk, cheese has a massive carbon footprint and the impact from eggs is relatively large as well. Relevant article: http://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/a-meat-eaters-guide-to-climate-change-health-what-you-eat-matters/climate-and-environmental-impacts/ + + +I agree wholeheartedly about buying local produce and food. I do so whenever possible. + + +I mostly agree with you about the cruelty to animals. Farming practices bother me, but not enough to make me change my diet." +"dekuscrub: MEGA SPOILERS, NON READERS BEWARE! + +>Cersei - In the first three novels, Cersei was portrayed as a conniving, scheming, evil mastermind. + +Was she? Things went her way, but generally she had little hand in it. + +Jon Arryn? She and Jaime got lucky. + +Bran? She didn't even send the failed assassin. + +King Bob? It was a long shot and may even come back to bite her (Lancel). + +Eddard Stark? Himself/Littlefinger. + +Saving KL from Stan? Tyrion/Grandpa Lannister. + +Plus, remember she is very much unhinged by at the end of Storm. Murderous imp ( you think) takes out your eldest son and your father in what should be the safest place in Westeros, perhaps in concert with your master spy. Paranoia seems appropriate. + +Also, if the last Dorne chapter didn't build suspense, shit son your standards are too high. + +But I agree, least favorite of the series. +A_Mirror: She killed the king and got away with it. + +No matter how you slice it, that's an incredible feat. Jaime only got away with it because the king had gone mad, and even then he is one of the most reviled men in the seven kingdoms." +"complete_misanthrope: your first three points are the problem with ONLY teaching hands on. we need that kind of teaching to show how scientific experiments are done. there isn't enough money to fund all schools doing full scale advanced experiments and they wouldn't understand it anyway. we have to show them how experiments are done some way and hands on experiments are the best way. the difference is you also teach them ACTUAL research and how to interpret it rather than jsut saying ""here's what happens when you mix two chemicals, now go use that to make all science decisions"" + +as for real world consequences. 3 is religion caused mainly. people that dont see logic in the first place. 2 is because we can't afford our own medicine. if you can't afford a doctor people turn to other things out of necessity. number 1 is because we don't teach people how to do critical thinking and read scientific papers. this is in part because of the huge disconnect with the scientific community and popular writing as well as a failure of either the education system of the people in it to successfully teach how to read scientific papers. + +all in all you can't blame it all on hands on experiments. its like saying teaching 1+1=2 is oversimplifying and causing people to make mistakes when they get to multiplication. teaching basics isn't to blame for them getting overconfident with higher material. there are a billion other factors more to blame than basic experimentation. +antidense: regarding point 2 - that would indeed be predictable that people seek out alternatives due to expense of medical care. It would be interesting to see if people seek out less alternative care if obamacare does what it sets out to do. ∆. 1 - I would be happy if more people learned how to critique scientific papers. " +"ReallyLegitAccount: > I find it infuriating the the government has essentially created a needless job for people via a tax. + +Well, you can look at it as an upfront fee to generate jobs and income for some people. Without it, you'd still be paying for the welfare of the poor indirectly, through your taxes that support programs like food stamps and supplemental income. + +More importantly though, you said yourself that these people pick out the recyclables from the trash bins to sell. If you threw out recyclable materials instead of putting them in proper bins, the result would be the same. So I'm not sure how that would make any real difference. If you want to change the law, contact your representatives and join with like-minded people to do so, but I don't see how passive-aggressive action will cause any changes. +Youknowlikemagnets: Ok, I will admit that I do SOME recycling, because I'm not a complete asshole. + +I will also agree with your sentiment that at least they are doing *something*, instead of just taking a handout (can we award half deltas? I'm new to this). My mind isn't completely changed, however, because this falls in line with the ""digging holes"" ideology. Why are we paying people to dig holes if they are just going to be filled back in. + +People already recycle, so why are we charging them extra to have someone else recycle?" +"themcos: It depends on what exactly your job is. There are places where working the hours you describe is totally fine and accepted. But just because you have no morning meetings doesn't mean you aren't expected to be available to interact with coworkers, managers or customers. If you're part of a team, its important that your working hours at least mostly overlap with those of your teammates. +agbortol: It's obviously important that there be time for everyone to have meetings and also have the informal interactions that necessitate offices in the first place. If somebody wants to work from 6-3 and I want to work from 11-8, there are still four hours - half a work day - for those interactions to happen. + +Responsiveness to customers is certainly a big issue. I work in consulting and that a always a top priority for us. If my client calls me or wants to have a meeting at 7:00 AM or at 8:00 PM, that's when I'll take the call or have the meeting. + +The logistics truly are not that complicated, as most organizations on flex time can attest. What bothers me is the dirty look I get from my 55 year old manager when I come in at 8:45 and he was there at 8:00. That guy hasn't seen the other side of midnight since the first Bush administration, whereas I have no problem banging on a spreadsheet until 2 AM. The prevalent attitude, at least as it comes across to me, is one of judgement or superiority rather than concern for lines of communication." +"selfproclaimed: > I can't remember where all 50 states are + +[Clearly, you were not watching the right cartoons.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSvJ9SN8THE) + +You can't pin the blame on television for your own personal inability to know certain things. You remember a catchy or notable Sears commercial, but that's just an isolated advertisement. It did not ""take up"" space in your mind. [No amount of television within a human lifespan could fill your mind, leaving no room for facts](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/). + +Hell, quite the contrary, television can actually help with learning in young children. I've already listed the states example from Animaniacs, but even today I still recall the months and the order they go in thanks to the song from Blue's Clues. Heck, that show even taught me the planets long before a High School Science class attempted to teach it to me. + +Like with all entertainment, moderation is key, and it is the job of the parent to enforce that moderation to a healthy degree. By teaching children how to moderate their television input on their own, they can learn to apply those moderation skills to other things such as dietary habits. + +By ignoring the TV, you can't flee from advertisements. They're on the radio, they're on billboards, they're in movie theaters, magazines, heck even books will advertise other works by the author. +workaccountoftoday: I do agree there are good examples, yes. Now with things like the internet I believe the options are far superior as well. Back when I grew up, we couldn't watch the same Animaniacs example over and over again, which would have been perfect. Repetition is a very helpful tool in memorization. + +I don't believe regular advertisements have as much of an effect though, since they are typically shorter and can be ignored. With television, it IS your distraction, and you can't skip the commercials unless you have a device to fast forward through them. In a magazine the pages can be skipped, and even then there's the lack of repetition that is what really ingrains the idea in someone's mind. + +The thought that your mind can't ever be filled up is very good to know, but at the same time do you not agree that if television was designed for children in the sense that it was all about learning and not selling people products that it would be better?" +"Amablue: > If a person has sought help, therapy, or honestly believes/knows that their situation will never improve, why is it we advocate they continue in their suffering. + +As you say, there are basically 3 responses - ""do it"", ""don't do it"", probe for more information. + +There often is probing for more information, but that has limited effectiveness over an online forum like reddit. There are also lots of people not responding. Of the two remaining responses, ""don't do it"" is a much, much better default. Even with any context provided by the user, we have no way of verifying any of it. The situation *may* actually be hopeless and unfixable, but we have no way of knowing that. The problem is compounded by the fact that oftentimes people who are mentally ill and may not be capable of reliably or accurately speaking about their situation in an objective way. + +Advocating for these people to kill themselves may result in them doing it even though their situation may have improved. And it's permanent. + +On the other hand, if they really are in a situation which can't and won't improve, the harm done by telling them to keep on living is much less severe. They may live a little longer in pain, but they still always have the option to commit suicide if they choose to. A dead person cannot reverse their decision. +drdrink: >On the other hand, if they really are in a situation which can't and won't improve, the harm done by telling them to keep on living is much less severe. They may live a little longer in pain, but they still always have the option to commit suicide if they choose to + +How is this less severe than the person no longer living? the only real argument I can see is to say that any experience is better than no experience. To me, an experience of ongoing suffering with little or no hope of improvement (or one that will get worse) is worse than no experience at all, and I guess that is the basis of my whole argument. and if a person finds themselves in such a situation, how is it okay to say to them, after they have come to the conclusion of suicide, that continuing to suffer is somehow less severe than no experience at all? " +"jtfl: Why be good, when you can be great? Why not set your life up as an example for your children to follow? Do you want your children to accomplish great things, or simply get through life being unnoticed? Why would you ever choose to strive for mediocracy? + +Sure, the pain of loss is real, and it hurts. But how does that compare to looking back at someone's life and realizing what they missed out on, because they wanted to avoid pain? “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.” +nerak33: &#8710;" +"Russian_Surrender: You're confusing the *charitable* act of willingly sharing your own money with those less fortunate than you and the non-charitable act of forcing others to share their money with those less fortunate than them. + +If we are walking down the street and see a homeless man and I give him $5.00 from my pocket, that is charitable and, generally, in line with the teachings of Christ that you discussed in your post. If I take $5.00 from you and give it to the homeless man, that is *not* charitable and is *not* in line with the teachings of Christ. Taking it a step further, if you refuse to give me the $5.00 to give to the homeless guy, and my response is to threaten you with a gun to convince you to give me your money, that is quite a far cry from the teachings of Christ. + +[Studies](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html) [consistently](http://www.ethicsdaily.com/republican-states-give-more-to-charity-than-democratic-states-cms-19923) [show](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/20/religion-politics-affect-americans-philanthropy/?page=all) [that](http://news.rice.edu/2012/05/31/liberals-versus-conservatives-how-politics-affects-charitable-giving/) Republicans are more charitable givers than Democrats. +sugly_fluck: > sharing your own money with those less fortunate than you + +Hm, maybe I should elaborate slightly on my characterization of political conservatives (at least those in America). + +The most devout ones, who also seem to be the most devout ""Christians"", try to propogate this idea that the ""less fortunate"" don't really exist. If you're poor, it's supposedly your own fault. The playing field doesn't need to be leveled out because everyone should just deal with what they are given. + +Correct me if I'm wrong, but Jesus seems to assert that it doesn't matter why someone is poor. Less fortunate or not, it's just not okay to withhold a lot of wealth and refuse to offer it to those who have less. The actual internal human feeling of ""greed"" is the ultimate evil here, and political conservatives contradict this by pining for a system that can't really function at all without some greed. + +I believe I understand your point, but there is still a mindset among political conservatives that it's okay for wealth to exist alongside poverty, and my understanding is that *that's* what Jesus had a fundamental problem with -- the existence of wealth whilst some are left to worry about basic sustenance. + +Perhaps Jesus isn't a perfect example of a liberal democrat either, but he is certainly closer to that than conservative. He supposedly viewed greed and wealth as problems in themselves, while conservatives don't." +"____Matt____: [""Junk food costs as little as $1.76 per 1,000 calories, whereas fresh veggies and the like cost more than 10 times as much, found a 2007 University of Washington survey for the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.""](http://nypost.com/2013/07/28/the-greatest-food-in-human-history/) -- NY Post + +[""The survey found that higher-calorie, energy-dense foods are the better bargain for cash-strapped shoppers. Energy-dense munchies cost on average $1.76 per 1,000 calories, compared with $18.16 per 1,000 calories for low-energy but nutritious foods.](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/) -- NY Times + +[The survey also showed that low-calorie foods were more likely to increase in price, surging 19.5 percent over the two-year study period. High-calorie foods remained a relative bargain, dropping in price by 1.8 percent.""](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/) -- NY Times + +Both talking about the same study. + +It's not about absolute price. It's about price per calorie. Junk food is much cheaper per calorie. +digitalx3r0: Fair enough argument if you've an underweight family to feed - but many of the arguments I've heard are from obese people claiming that they're obese because natural, nutritious, low-to-moderate-calorie food is too expensive! This is simply untrue." +"cdb03b: The fact of the matter is that the US obtained our military objectives and got the surrender of the Axis powers. That means we won. + +We also came out of the war with a booming economy and new military strength that catapulted us from the status of a World Power to that of Super Power. That means we won. + +Also much of Japan's and Germany's stability and safety nets were established because of direct US interaction in aiding them rebuild after the war. That means we have great influence and that we won. + +So do explain to me how we lost when we still enjoy the strongest economy on the planet and are currently the last super power standing? +HoodieAndGlasses: ∆ for the US aid to Germany/Japan and for booming economy, but I think it's clear from the past fifty years of US foreign policy that the US gets dragged into an absurd number of military quagmires, where lots of time, money and lives are lost, resources that could be used for the betterment of the country itself. Sure, global dominance has it's benefits, but I say it's not worth the price. Do you disagree?" +"sheep74: So i'm going to completely ignore the abortion issue, because let's face it, that's never going to be resolved on here. Needless to say some people, including those in power, aren't happy about abortion being an option, let alone the 'preferred' choice. + +You also have the issue that you're essentially saying 'no kids for poor people' which has all sorts of issues. + +At the end of the day people and contraception aren't perfect. So you're going to get babies from people who don't have insurance. If it's not covered you're going to get women and children who end up with even more healthcare requirements that could have been avoided if the prenatal care and labor went smoothly with medical intervention. It's probably not cost effective to exclude maternity care - you'll end up with babies with chronic conditions that need paying for their whole lives that could have been avoided. +krausyaoj: ∆ poor parents care more about having children for their own selfish benefit than the welfare of their children, so instead of being responsible and getting an abortion they will have the child without proper medical care often resulting in a damaged child." +"elvish_visionary: So while I agree with you that overall, the arguments in favor of legalizing prostitution are better than the ones against it, maybe I can at least offer a couple of points. + +1) Legalizing prostitution might have a negative affect on poor women (or men, let's keep this gender neutral). With such a readily available income source, people who are struggling to pay the bills might become prostitutes instead of pursuing their actual goals. Similarly to how children in developing countries could be ""forced"" into child labor if it is legal, people can be economically ""forced"" into prostitution. I believe people should have a right to their own body etc, but when economics are involved, it becomes a little fuzzy. For example, we do not allow people to sell body organs, because those who are desperate for money would feel compelled to. + +2) Prostitution is far harder to regulate than you seem to think, and it's tough to protect men or women who are putting themselves in a vulnerable situation where they are alone with a ""customer"". Sexual assault and other forms of violence are not uncommon in these situations. +shredlord1234: While I agree that it would be difficult to regulate, I'm not convinced that is strong enough to warrant it's illegalization. + +However, the disproportionate targeting of poor people is a strong enough argument to warrant my switching to a more neutral position on this issue. I believe major economic reform is needed to avoid scenarios like this but in our current economic environment...you make a good point. Is it that much different than stripping though? It seems like many women in poverty turn to stripping for the reasons listed above and while sex is obviously far more extreme, I'm not seeing the clear difference from a legal perspective. + +Edit: Also porn. Doesn't porn already target the poor? + +&#8710;" +"Madplato: > He said he felt betrayed, violated, slutty. + +How he react to this (extremely weird) situation is entirely up to him. If he feels like this, I think it's normal he'd be depressed about it. He feels betrayed by a close friend, which isn't an easy thing to live. You shouldn't try to grade his feelings regarding the events, as nothing productive will come out of this. It doesn't matter the scale of the events. He seems to be in a bad state of mind and that the important thing to consider. + +You have a choice to either support a friend in need, or judge their situation and decide they're not worth your empathy for some reason. That's up to you. +morbidlyobeseT-rex: &#8710; +You make a good point. I actually never downplayed his feelings and story to him. and the fact that he's feeling so devastated about it is the main reason I'm trying to be as supportive I can. But... Maybe, if he understands that it's really not as horrific as he thinks, it will make him feel better?" +"littlegreenalien: Apparently you don't have kids. Doing the dishes for a 4 person household takes about an hour, so, using a dishwasher saves you approximately an hour a day which is a lot of time considering what else has to be done between going to bed and coming home from work. (cooking, eating, cleaning up, homework, some after school activities, kids bedtime, some free time to read/watch TV/game/reddit) + +> dishes needs to be pre-cleaned. + +Just the big scraps of leftover food. You don't have to rinse plates as some people do, in fact, it's better if you don't. + +> dishwashers rarely removed ingrained or dried gunk. + +true. But with a family of 4 the dishwasher is always full every evening, so there is very seldom 'dried gunk'. Occasionally (lets say once every 2 weeks in my experience) there is an item which needs manual washing since it didn't got clean. + +> dishwashers don't properly dry ""deep"" items like Tupperware and pots, + +True, this is the case with most plastics. It's irritating and makes unloading the dishwasher a bit more time consuming. + +In short. It saves people 'time'. A commodity which is very valuable for many families. +elejota50: Wait. No rinsing? Really? What about rice and stuff.. Can I just leave it if it is just a little bit?. + +You are right i don't have children (yet) and so it takes us two days (4-6 meals) to fill up the dishwasher..." +"down42roads: You're wrong. Not an opinion, a statement of fact. + +The purpose and responsibilities of the federal government are clearly laid out in the [text of the Constitution.](http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html) + +Murder, rape, and theft are specifically NOT the purview of the federal government, while things like guns (to some extent) clearly are, and things like marriage equality, abortion and the minimum wage are inferred from the powers listed in Article 1, section 8. + + +loxxyhasmoxxy: Let me clarify: violations of human rights such as murder, rape, and theft should be universally recognized as illegal by the federal government, while everything else should be up to states. The states would still handle the murder, theft, and rape cases, I'm not for changing the judicial system. My bad, I'll edit, that was poor clarity. " +"haikuandhoney: This doesn't address all of your reasoning, but it's important to remember that one of the ""good will"" things that the United States does IS its military. We provide military support to many European countries (with many bases in countries like Germany) and to Latin America. The presence of American forces is this region, unlike our presence in the Middle East, is a stabilizing and pacifying force. The American military is one of the primary reasons for the long period of relative peace in the Western Hemisphere. Basically, our hegemonic power as *the* military power in the world is good for the world so long as we use it properly, which we have not done in the Middle East. + +The other problem I see with this idea (and I don't necessarily believe this, just playing Devil's advocate) is a lot of Americans, especially the far right, think that the United States has no obligation to other nations to create good will. The purpose of a nation and its government is to better the position/lives of its people, first by protecting them from external threats, then by protecting them from internal threats, then by giving them greater/cheaper access to the things they need/want. By this logic, creating good will in the world is only useful to us as long as we are benefiting more than we are spending. In a lot of cases it is easier and cheaper to go in and destabilize a country, take what we want, and leave than it is to make the majority of that country like us. Why would we pursue the less efficient option? +Glares: You make a really good point that I haven't considered before; I figured something like this would never happen but never really had a foundation on why and I think you do a great job explaining. Even so I'm still wondering if it *could work* if, in a crazy situation, it is given a chance." +"RichardPerle: First of all, the creation of Israel in the early 20th century was the original spark of conflict. The British brutally conquered the native inhabitants in the [first](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Gaza) and [second](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Gaza) Battles of Gaza. + +The land was then simply handed over to the Rothschilds with the [Balfour Declaration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration), which many strongly suspect was in exchange for bringing the U.S. into The Great War. + +After winning the Six Day War, Israel has occupied the [Golan Heights](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights) and has established 41 Israeli civilian settlements. + +As for Palestine, Israel has occupied it, planted many civilian settlements, [established checkpoints](http://imgur.com/eliPyNH) and travel restrictions for the [native population](http://imgur.com/lHd1ZKF), abused control of the [water supplies](http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.574554), attempted to [starve](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/17/us-palestinians-israel-gaza-idUSBRE89G0NM20121017) them, and essentially [turned their country into a prison](http://imgur.com/FvIchIY). + +Oh, and sometimes Israel will use [white phosphorus](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46061000/jpg/_46061574_007651442-1.jpg) on civilians when they get tired of just randomly shooting them. +morvis343: ∆ Thanks. You know, it feels good to be a little bit angry at Israel after being angry at the Palestinians my whole life." +"mr-agdgdgwngo: We have found a way to prevent skin cancer. Not only skin cancer but highly irritating sun burns as well. It's a simple as rubbing cream all over your skin before stepping out into the sun for extended periods of time. Why should we not put on sunscreen? Just because animals don't? If animals with exposed skin and could understand that sun exposure leads to an increase in skin cancer, would they not want to wear sun screen too? We have the tools to improve our own lives that animals don't. Why should we avoid using these tools simply because animals don't have the advantage of having them? + +We also lived for thousands of years without dental hygene, clothes, professionally constructed houses, cars, computers, etc. Should we toss away those as well? +commakzlm: (The first half of this comment is really fucking stupid, I'm just leaving it there for posterity. no more downvotes plz) + +>Why should we avoid using these tools simply because animals don't have the advantage of having them? + +That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, animals don't really seem to be bothered by the sun at all. It's not like with vaccinations, where we're using a tool to keep something that wants to harm us from doing so. The sun has been here for life's entire history, and it seems very unlikely that evolution would make something that dies simply by being around it unless that thing spends its entire life underground. + +>We also lived for thousands of years without dental hygene, clothes, professionally constructed houses, cars, computers, etc. Should we toss away those as well? + +Of course not. I just think that we shouldn't put so much importance on wearing something that hurts the environment and causes a vitamin D deficiency. I'm not even saying we should stop using sunscreen altogether, just that we should stop being so neurotic about it. + +EDIT: accidentally a word" +"Mavericgamer: Unlike other drugs, alcohol is ingrained into our very culture on a pretty deep level. Wine has been a thing since times BC. Religious rituals use wine, we pair our foods with wines and beers. For a long time it was the best way to make sure you weren't drinking harmful bacteria, as it wouldn't grow in alcohol. Even tobacco, the second most ingrained thing in Western culture, only goes back about 2-300 years. + +But I disagree that you are an outcast if you don't drink; I understand that it feels like this now. These are long-term friends who you've known for a good portion of your life. But at that age, a lot of people develop contradictory interests. I had a few friends then who I had known since I was 9 or 10. We don't talk anymore, and I'm 27. And it hurt at the time. But time heals. And I realized that I didn't want to be the friend of this person, I wanted to be the friend of someone who didn't exist, to be friends with a phantom. As of today, I am the only person in my closest group of friends who drinks even fairly often. Of the 6 other people, 4 don't drink at all, and 1 drinks very rarely, closer to being completely sober. To be fair, 2 of those are under the drinking age, but still. + +Also, I don't want to sound like I'm trying to convince you, but when I was 18, I hated the taste of alcohol. Beer was disgusting and hard liquor was awful. Then I found particularly fruity cocktails. Then, as I aged, I found those too sweet. A few months after I stopped with cocktails, I was at a business function where people were drinking beer, and the CEO handed me a beer. I figured that you don't not drink a beer your CEO hands you, so I drank it, and found that it wasn't as repulsive as I once found it. + +I also understand the revulsion towards heavy drinking culture. I had it too, and (oh god I can't believe I'm saying this) when I was your age, I swore I'd never drink. And then I started career building, and I realized that after a certain point (and I can't point to the exact moment), you aren't seeing a bunch of people who just hit the drinking age going hard-bodied, you end up finding people who drink occasionally and socially, and not to excess. Today, I don't drink often, but every month or so, I will go out with some co-workers for happy hour and have a few beers, or a couple margaritas, or whatever. +Sheinar: Your point about the religious significance of alcohol is something I hadn't actually considered when writing my original post. I'm not one to go against religions, I'd rather not tangle with that :P and you're very right that many religions have it deeply ingrained. And the idea of harmful bacteria not growing in it is a really interesting point I hadn't considered either. + +But I don't think that really explains why (well, it explains why, but doesn't explain why we haven't rebelled against it) the ""drinking culture"" of binge drinking, going out to ""get smashed"" and that is so acceptable in our society. Maybe that's just my particular age group, but I feel that everywhere I go in the 'social-scape' of my age group, it revolves around alcohol at every turn, to the point where people specifically make events just to get drunk. + +You raise some good points, and I know I didn't really make it that clear in my original post, but I don't really have any issue with people having a drink or two when hanging out with their friends socially. I don't have any issue with people using drugs in their own privacy either. It's the fact that the more dangerous (to the person, and the people around them) levels of drinking are socially acceptable. The wish I talked about in my post is for it to be looked down upon to be done in the public capacity it is now, like Marijuana is, where it's unacceptable to be stoned in public, but fine to do so where you don't affect other people." +"scottevil110: > I feel that posting armed guards at schools would directly deincentivize any individual from going to violent crimes at schools. + +Not if the person has no intention of staying alive throughout the ordeal. + +> And if the individual wanting to commit is suicidal than the armed guards would directly solve the problem and stop the would-be gunmen before the tragedy even starts. + +How do you figure? They're not going to know whom to stop until there's a reason to stop them. + +I understand the desire to keep schools safe, but let's be honest with ourselves here. School shootings, even in the US, are pretty damn rare. School is meant to be an environment of learning, broadening one's horizons, and feeling free to pursue knowledge. How are we ever supposed to convince kids that school is worth anything positive if they have to start every day by going through a metal detector and dodging police in riot gear? +swagnetron: Even if they get involved after the violence occurs doesn't mean they can't reduce casualties. And I understand that school should be a place of learning but it's important to realize that, like airports and sports venues, these are heavily trafficked establishments that, because of there frequent density, are prime targets for attacks. You can't teach a class full of corpses. " +"DHCKris: It doesn't follow logically that, because we are all human beings, we cannot reasonably acquire all of the knowledge necessary to make a judgment. What if I'm an American with a doctorate in Russian history? I think that makes my opinion ""more valid"" than even the average Russian. But what even IS a more valid opinion? I have a right to form a stance based on facts as much as they do. And I'd like to think I have access to the same facts, possibly more facts in some cases, when the native population is media suppressed and kept in ignorance. + +Also, people of a country are more likely to be biased than me, an outsider. So maybe the opposite of what you say is true. +anusoffire: Having access to facts is one thing, experiencing somethign another. I'm pretty sure that Ukrainians/Afghanis/whoever know better what's best for them than any American with all his facts. + +>Also, people of a country are more likely to be biased than me, an outsider. So maybe the opposite of what you say is true. + +This makes a lot of sense and is very close to changing my view. I'll consider awarding you a delta " +"hacksoncode: I don't think most people have *that* much of a problem with the ""my grandpa stole your grandpa's axe, I still have it in my garage, so morally I should give it back"" unless it goes back so far that there's really no legitimate way to determine who it goes to, etc., etc. + +However, that's not really what's going on here. As typically presented, a better analogy would be ""My great-great-grandfather raped your great-great-grandmother, so I should pay child support to you"" or ""My grandfather beat up your grandfather and kept him from starting his own business, so I owe you a restaurant"". + +Or even more often, ""some people completely unrelated to me or my ancestors, who happen to have also lived in the same country I live in now screwed up your country, so now I'm obligated to help fix it"". That seems like a pretty morally questionable stance to me. + +Many people in the U.S. today didn't even *have* ancestors in the U.S. when slavery happened, should they have to pay taxes to pay reparations because we once had slaveowners? +guysnake: Your analogies have clear some stuff up. I think the problem was that my analogy wasn't relevant enough. +∆ +My first time here, I'm not sure that if thats how you correctly award deltas. " +"skacey: While I agree that the net level of abuse has likely not changed, our acceptance of it has. As society progresses and expects that more and more of our problems are not solved through violence, the police force has not kept up with that progress to the same degree. + +In short, just because the violence hasn't decreased, doesn't mean that it shouldn't have. That makes it an increasingly important issue. +itroitnyah: &#8710; + +Thanks for saying this. While it hasn't of course changed my view, even you said you agree with it, it has made me realize just why people are making a big deal out of it. But I don't really understand why the police force hasn't kept up with the progress to the same degree, considering they're made up of people from society." +"fnredditacct: I don't disagree with this: + +> If it were up to nature and there were no doctors, medicine, or anything like that, people like me would have likely died before we ever got the chance to bear children. + +or this either: + +> If people voluntarily chose to not reproduce like I am doing, there would be far less people with genetic disorders. + +And, of course, I don't want to go around convincing anyone to have children because I say it is okay. + +But I don't agree that it is necessarily morally wrong, nor would I discourage it, and this is why: + +We, as human beings have more to offer than can be singled down to any one trait, or possibly even set of traits. + +Someone who is horribly unhealthy, and in great pain and misery because of it, isn't necessarily someone that has nothing to contribute to society. Stephen Hawking and ALS, for example. *And any other ""great"" person that had any other genetic disorder for however many examples you like* + +It isn't possible to know, (at least now, and quite likely ever), everything a person can possibly contribute based on their genes. + +In my own modest bad health experience, I have taken away that the pain and suffering I've experienced have in fact enhanced some of my positive characteristics, and help me contribute more to others. I think similar things could be said for pain and suffering of many kinds. + +Now, if I happen to pass on my condition, (which, admittedly, I would think differently of, if it were known to be fully genetic and not a combination of environmental and genetic influences) I won't be happy about it. I'm sure I'll feel horrible when I see them in pain the way I am. + +But I believe suffering is a part of the human condition. I believe it is meant to be. I believe we suffer for reasons, and learn from suffering. And I firmly believe people suffer in one way or another. When it isn't health, it's something else. + +And I believe that my husband and I have many positive traits, and that we offer quite a bit to society around us. And I believe that our child would be a good contribution for us to make, and have good things to offer, even if they also have health issues. + +Now, I could be wrong, we might have crap kids that do nothing at all for society, and keep more bad health genes around. + +But I don't believe that bad health and bad health genes or good health and good health genes are all people contribute to society and to future generations. + +I don't know what all the traits are, or what order I might rank them in, but I know there is more than just health. + +edit: sorry, I quoted more than I meant to +josh1727: I'm not saying people with genetic disorders have nothing to contribute, i'm just questioning the ethics of knowingly passing on a genetic problem to a child. + +I do believe that suffering builds character, though. My experience has made me a lot more humble and I don't see myself as invincible like most people my age. I don't do drugs, smoke, or drink and don't take life for granted. I don't know if these traits that I have outweigh what I went through, but it is definitely something to think about. + +I like the response overall. I will wait for more comments before I award a delta, though to be fair. + +" +"RustyRook: You aren't totally wrong about it. Anecdotal advice is the reason Amazon values its reviews so highly. People do find a lot of value in reading another person's experience. I'm one of them: I bought the watch that I'm currently wearing after reading over a dozen user reviews on Amazon. + +However, unlike with scientific evidence, you should be much more skeptical about relying on anecdotes. There are plenty of fake reviews on Amazon. In fact, there are so any that Amazon has [had to take action](http://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-files-first-ever-suit-over-fake-reviews-alleging-calif-man-sold-fraudulent-praise-for-products/). So proceed with caution and try to get a LOT of feedback so that you aren't influenced by false or misleading reviews. +strategic_expert: That's a good point to bring up. There are people that are paid to give anecdotes (infomercials, fake reviews). Those should always be read or listened to with caution." +"m0ddem: Let's step outside the car scenario for a moment. + +You deface my property; let's say you destroy some rather valuable rosebushes. It can be accidental or intentional, all that really matters is that the property was destroyed. They're insured for a certain amount. + +Why do you get to dictate what I do with the money, which is a replacement for the property you defaced or destroyed? The way that insurance works is that the damages are a monetary equivalent of said property. Essentially, you're now capable of telling me what I can and cannot do with said property. +ArgueAccount: My point was mainly focused about vehicles, but I will still try to respond. + +I don't get to dictate what you get to do with the money. If my view was that I get to choose what new types of flowers you get to plant (or what kinds of repairs you receive), then I'm sure you'd be more correct. I'm saying that you had something taken away from you, and you should be able to get whatever was taken replaced. You should not, however, be allowed to use that money on something completely unrelated to the incident." +"JEWISHPIGFARMER: Coming from a chemical engineer: + +Without sociologists to study populations, how could engineers know how a certain group would react to a product? Without gender/racial studies, who would find out if there is discrimination going on and propose solutions from a view of expertise? Without literature/English, who would become experts in analyzing texts to determine their meanings that aren't science reports, to be more specific, who would be able to teach children how to properly read analytically if there aren't experts in the field? + +There is more to the world than building things that are efficient and cheap. Everything ties together in some sort or fashion. Just because something doesn't always have empirical research doesn't mean it is failing. All theoretical physics aren't empirical yet, so should those not be funded until they are? + +There is more than advancing knowledge, having experts in the base of knowledge that we've pushed nearly to its limits so that we don't lose it is just as important. Just because we know pretty much all there is to know about a field doesn't mean we should just stop teaching it. +primalchaos: On sociologists: If they limited themselves to statistical studies and asking pertinent practical questions to guide serious projects, I'd have little quibble with it. But, when they start pushing pet theories of the mind without much basis besides self-referencing theories, I start having a problem. + +On gender/racial studies: Once again, bad standards and bad research. People talking mostly to each other without accountability. A good statistician should be able to do their work without all the garbage and moral indignation. + +On English: Understanding and writing English could stop being taught after high school, and can be handled by an degree in Education, not English. As a subject, it does not require a four year degree to perform the practicals on. In-depth study should be the province of scholars who can find private support, rather than supported by the public. + +**EDIT:** Perhaps these departments wouldn't be an issue if they were under serious pressure to seem productive and useful rather than producing treatises on the population density of angels on pinheads. But as they stand, they seem like an expensive luxury that everyone has to pay for, and are bloated and unproductive." +"zardeh: Your issue isn't with islam, it is with fundamentalism. I'm jewish. Two of my closest friends are practicing muslims, both attend mosques in my area, one is a hijabi, the other is male. We've discussed religion, we hold different views on Israel, they are fully pro-palestinian, I'm in a more centrist on the issue. We get along fine. No one attempts to convert me, they don't shove the Koran down my throat. Realize that the Bible has laws that people don't follow now, so does the torah. Every religious text has laws that most people don't follow now, that's what happens when you try to deal with a 1, 2, 3000 year old book. The issue you have isn't with islam specifically, but with people who feel the need to do, literally, what the book said, instead of applying its teachings to modern time. + + +On another note, thank you Firefox for trying to correct hijabi to hijack, made my day. +Xarthok: You are right, the problem I have is the same with all fundamentalism. I think with time the fundamentalism will die out. But is there no other solution other than time? Education could be one if in problematic countries women would not be in grave danger for attending a school. ∆" +"ReOsIr10: >One can´t think about WWII (the strong nationalism back then can easily be considered as a sort of religion in my opinion) without the genocide of the jews, homosexuals and mentally handicapped or anyone who disagreed with them. + +That's being completely unfair to religion. If you include every ideology with bad consequences under religion, then of course it's going to make religion look bad. + +> Or for example the Islamic State. + +Which Islamic State? Sure, there is quite a bit of disorder in some Islamic nations in the middle east right now, but there are plenty of Islamic nations which are doing quite well too. + +>Especially as a gay man I can´t talk to a religious person without having a tenfolded fear of how they will respond when they know I´m gay. + +I'm gay too, and I can't say that my personal experiences particularly support this. Sure, I've had a couple crappy experiences coming out to religious people, but I've also had crappy experiences with all the ""brogressives"" who pay lip service to the idea of equality, yet aren't accepting of people who don't happen to be like them - and this is almost always completely separate from religious influence. +LightDrago: >That's being completely unfair to religion. If you include every ideology with bad consequences under religion, then of course it's going to make religion look bad. + +You have a point, however where does one draw the line between an ideology and religion? Isn´t religion a form of ideology? Wouldn´t extreme nationalism be just as ideological as religion? In some of those cases their consider their leader a deity, which gets really close to religion. + +>Which Islamic State? Sure, there is quite a bit of disorder in some Islamic nations in the middle east right now, but there are plenty of Islamic nations which are doing quite well too. + +Sorry I didn´t clarify this enough. I meant the current extremist groups that have been all over the news. Their main drive is religion it seems to me. + +>I'm gay too, and I can't say that my personal experiences particularly support this. Sure, I've had a couple crappy experiences coming out to religious people, but I've also had crappy experiences with all the ""brogressives"" who pay lip service to the idea of equality, yet aren't accepting of people who don't happen to be like them - and this is almost always completely separate from religious influence. + +I have to confess I didn´t come out to that many people yet. It seems my fear on that part is better marked as paranoia. However it does seem more likely for me that a religious person dissaproves homosexuality. Or is this just a prejudgement form my part? +" +"NaturalSelectorX: > I don't understand why locking someone up for life is beneficial to anyone. + +It gives you time to appeal if you are innocent. It's beneficial for the people who didn't commit the crime. + +> If someone does a crime so atrocious that society deems them unable to return from it, then I believe the death penalty is justified. + +It may be justified if we have 100% certainty they are guilty, but we never have 100% certainty. How many innocent people are you ready to kill just to save a bit of money? +srlehi68: &#8710; + +This makes sense. I think our system is really complex and we still don't have a perfect solution. Thanks for your comments!" +"not_jamesfranco: How about acts of altruism? For example, consider firefighters that run into a burning, collapsing building in order to save people. You could say that they want the 'good feeling' of rescuing people, but they do it with the understanding that there's a substantial chance they could be killed. I feel like feelings are pretty irrelevant where death is involved- you don't get a good feeling (or a bad one) when you're dead. +like_the_boss: Thanks for your reply. + +I know that when I have done things for people, it's made me feel really good. I once encountered a girl who had been slipped a rape drug and I drove her home and made sure she was ok. It felt really nice to have saved her from a potentially dangerous situation. I've no doubt that fire-fighters must feel a massive high when they rescue people. To say nothing of the feelings of pride they must experience telling people what they do, the adulation and admiration by men and women, the extra sex they get from girls who are turned on by their bravery (assuming a male fireman). Is it possible that if you put all that in one side of the balance, it outweighs the risk of death? To my mind yes. Especially when you look at these figures from U.S. Bureau of Labor: (you are more likely to die as a taxi driver than as a firefighter) + +The figures below are the number of (2006) on-the-job deaths annually per 100,000 workers, by occupation: + +Policemen: 16.8 + +Firefighters: 16.6 + +Men: 6.9 + +Women: 0.7 + +Farmers and Ranchers: 37.2 + +Grounds Maintenance Workers: 13.5 + +Fishers and related Fishing Workers: 147.2 + +Construction Laborers: 21.4 + +Roofers: 33.5 + +Structural Iron and Steel Workers: 61 + +Operating Engineers and other Equipment Operators: 18.2 + +Aircraft Pilots and Flight Engineers: 90.4 + +Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors: 40.7 + +Logging: 87.4 + +Mining: 28.1 + +Taxi and limousine drivers: 22.1 + +Truck Transportation: 27.2 + + +I know this makes me sound really callous as if I'm saying that firefighters 'only' do what they do to feel good. I'm not saying that. But I suspect that if being a firefighter made them feel bad, they wouldn't do it, even if they were saving lives. + +In my original post, I said, ""examples of times when people do things, and they don't expect to get a good feeling out of it or avoid a bad feeling"". I think firefighters probably do expect to feel good doing their work, so I don't feel like your example contradicts this. But I do think your example is an interesting one, am grateful for your input and would be interested to discuss it further.. + + +" +"km89: >Shouldn't we instead be incentivizing jobs that need more skill and education. I think the best way to incentivize would be to remove or reduce the minimum wage. If someone knows that they can't live based on their pay from a fast-food joint then they'll have even more incentive to get an education and a better job. + +I live in the USA, so I'll focus my argument there. + +People who have minimum wage jobs aren't there because they're lazy. +Education is expensive. Obtaining skill and obtaining education, therefore, requires either help from someone who does have the money, or a way to earn the money by yourself. Normally, the parents of college-age people are expected to pay or to help, but with the crap economy, that can't happen the way it used to happen. + +So you have a whole generation of people who are left to pay for college nearly entirely by themselves, in a time when wages are low and costs are high. Put simply, low-skill jobs pay so little that it's almost impossible to go to school full-time. Therefore, people are taking longer and longer to enter the workforce at a high level, and are spending more and more time in low-wage jobs. In the meantime, they're paying for part-time school, they're paying for housing, for food, for bills, for the costs of owning a car... and frankly, you cannot expect them not to have a social life until they're well-established in a job after four to to seven years of education--they wouldn't have a life until they're 40, which precludes a lot of family-starting. + +In essence, the longer you wait to get an education, the more bills you'll end up accumulating, and that's unavoidable. In addition, the lower your wage, the longer you'll have to wait to get your education. Following that, the lower your wage, the longer you'll need to stay in a low-wage position. + +It's a vicious cycle--low wages lead to lack of opportunity, which leads to low wages. Reducing or eliminating the minimum wage will only make that *worse,* not better. + +While yeah, there's probably a percentage of people who have the opportunity and are just too lazy, that doesn't describe most people who just *can't* get a better education. Giving them incentives to move upward won't work when they already have all the incentive they need, but no opportunity to do so. +MyNameDontAsk: &#8710; I overlooked the fact that it education is expensive and by dropping the minimum wage it will only get harder. The incentives are already there and people don't need anymore " +"kepold: >I don't understand how definitively discriminatory actions cannot be considered racist + +you are missing the point of racism. the issue is that ""racism"" has a negative connotation because a specific attribute of a person has been used to oppress such people, black people (for example) have been subject to very harsh treatment because they were black. it is because of that fact (and other cases like it) that racism is considered problematic. The history of an oppressor using their position of power to oppress on the basis of a small characteristic is what makes racism racism. + +if this history wasn't involved, and people simply used race as a way to describe people (even if poorly), no one would care about racism. If it wasn't used to degrade, it would just be a form of random classification, not racism. + +So in the case of someone from an oppressed class stating that they can not be racist, they recognize that their status as an oppressed class means that they do not have the power to oppress in the way someone from a powerful class would. and to someone from the oppressed class, the concept of racism is not just about classifying by race, but about classifying by race with the intent to oppress. since the oppressed can't systematically oppresses the powerful, they can't be reverse racist in the true sense of the term racist. + +kezzic: This is what I'm getting at, and what I don't understand. Why is there this underlying influence of the term ""oppression"" on the definition? Racism is degrading, yes, and can most definitely be harmful if used by an oppressor. But what makes being a minority and the use of racism mutually exclusive? In the example I gave from /r/nottheonion, the subject was denying white males access to a social activist meeting. + + +You are lumping the term oppression into the definition of racism, and that's where we are disagreeing. Yes, the two can both exist, but in some cases I feel like they can exist without one another. In the example, a minority was discriminating against another race, and prohibiting social cooperation from an entire demographic. I understand that the magnitude between this example and black oppression as a whole is distinctly different, but I feel like this is a prime example of racism/predjudice/discrimination on behalf of a minority. + + +In this instance, I see this as racist, but I don't see it as oppressive, because it doesn't carry as much weight as a racist societal/political system would be. So aren't oppression and racism seperate terms? Why are you defining them as synonymous. And wouldn't that invalidate the idea that minorities can't be racist?" +"matthewrozon: So you would have been able to do this if you had a child, no spouse, no family support system and had to work 60 plus hours a week just to feed, house and get care for your child and yourself? Because that's what the debate is about, not the healthy 26 year old that has the time to learn programming on the side +brad--: ∆ + +I don't know if I could have done it with many children, perhaps it would have taken longer." +"Account9726: Economic viability is important for businesses, and these plans won't provide the outcomes people want once that is taken into consideration. + +The trees in tree plantations are often a monoculture instead of a mixed ecosystem, so they all grow at the same rate. They may not even be from the area, as things like ""growing quickly"" will be favored over ""local type."" They are not allowed to become old growth forest with the associated ecosystem, often being cut down after only a handful of decades (which may seem like a long time, but isn't for a forest). Finally, the easiest land to build one is an existing forest which could be cut down to make space if it was economical to do so, which increased paper demand would do. The net effect would likely be maybe a few additional trees, but less forests. + +Eating endangered animals, on the other hand, has totally different issues. Most animals are wildly unsuited for mass production. For example, anything that is endangered because it doesn't breed well in captivity is a no-go. Similarly many take far too long to grow to a useable size, or require more expensive food (for example, predators and meat), will fight if kept together, or are extremely dangerous. You could theoretically try to start a farm for McBengal meat, but unless everyone is cool with paying $10,000 a burger and you can sell enough of them it isn't going to be economically viable. +BayronDotOrg: ∆ Good point about the McBengal costing $10k. I really didn't think about the fact that not all animals are suited for breeding in captivity, much less being mass produced." +"GnosticGnome: How is volunteering incompatible with narcissism? There are plenty of narcissistic [voluntourists](http://www.utne.com/Politics/The-Dark-Side-of-Volunteer-Tourism-Voluntourism.aspx) helping out in all sorts of worthy endeavors. A selfie picking up trash can be far smugger than a selfie dancing and celebrating. + +By all means, volunteer - good deeds are good. And by all means, be humble and modest. But I don't think that volunteering inherently creates modesty. Finding a way to modestly show solidarity is a very tricky needle to thread. It's certainly compatible with volunteering, but I don't see the two as linked. +n_5: This is a good argument, but I don't think avoiding narcissism will ever be possible and I think that modestly showing solidarity is a hard concept for many people (myself included) to fully embody. I don't deny that people are still going to be voluntourists at pride parades - but better to be a narcissist and do necessary work than to be a narcissist and not do that work, right?" +"Snorple: Not sure how you are thinking that a shock collar is used, but it may be far more humane than you think. When I was a kid, we had many dogs chase cats off of our property. We had two dogs killed by cars. We don't think tethering a dog is humane (in fact, it's illegal now where we live). We can't walk the dogs all day long, either. + +We never think of our dogs as sacks of meat. They are beloved members of our family, and we want to keep them safe without keeping them on a chain or in a crate. + +Therefore, as a supplement to walking dogs with a leash and occasionally visits to a dog park, we have used an ""invisible fence"" for our dogs for 23 years now. This is simply a wire loop buried a few inches all around our property. This wire loop creates an antenna that activates a collar when it comes within a few feet. + +To train the dog, we first mark the fence line with flags. We train the dog to avoid the fence line using a traditional leash with no shock collar. We teach her that the fence line is a no-go area, but that the rest of the property is her domain. + +Then we use the shock collar in combination with the leash. If the dog approaches the fence, a warning tone sounds and we tug the dog back away from the fence line, reminding her that this is a no-go zone. She associates the flags, the tone, the tug, and our commands as a reminder that she can't go there. + +The final step in training is to remove the traditional leash and use only the shock collar. If the unleashed dog continues toward the fence, the familiar tone sounds and the dog is reminded to move back. + +If, however, some temptation is too great and the dog continues toward the fence line despite the warning tone, a brief shock is delivered. The dog then scampers back to us for comfort and reassurance. + +Once we're sure the dog understands the relationship of the property line, the tone, the shock, and the no-go status, we removed the flags gradually: first every third one, then a few more, then a few more until they are all gone. The lesson, however, remains. + +Our current dog has received exactly ONE shock so far in her entire life, and this was during the final stage of training. In exchange for this ONE shock, she has been completely free in our yard her whole life, and she unfailingly respects our property line as though it were a concrete wall. She's safe from road hazards or from running away, but she runs, jumps, and explores our whole property to her heart's content. + +We think this is a humane way to cope with the conflicting needs of living with a companion animal in a world full of arbitrary property lines and road hazards. +MacDHD: I completely understand the training method you have employed. This behavioural reinforcement method is effective. + +The one problem I have is when you say ""The dog then scampers back to us for comfort and reassurance."" This says to me the dog is scared and confused. I don't believe the shock is enough to debilitate the animal but It clearly causes stress. + +I appreciate that this is a counter measure due to rules put in place but surely there are ways to reinforce the idea of the boundary without doing this?" +"DickButtSlamson: The idea of corporate tax cuts isn't necessarily intended to help the business directly. The ecconomic liberation that it brings to the upper class is supposed to ""trickle down"" to everyone else.The idea of trickle-down economics was used to much success during [Reagan's](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics) administration. The basic idea is not that cutting taxes will create jobs. The idea is that the wealthy will be able to invest more; It's not necessarily about the business itself. It's kind of an abstract concept and I'm not explaining it too well. If we make the top class more successful, they won't have to be as frugal, per-say. They can take their profits and invest them rather than hoard their heavily-taxed income. The aid is not intended to go directly into the company, but rather trickle down. + +To me, the idea of cutting taxes on big business is not really about helping that business directly, but rather increase economic freedom to allow the surplus to trickle down. It worked well for Reagan's years even with his enormous Cold War spending, although I'm ill-equipped to argue that it'd work for us now. +WildlifeAndrew: &#8710; I knew I had to be missing something. This does make at least a little sense. But then I have to ask, what if instead of providing tax cuts to a corporation and wait for it to trickle down, we take that money and directly provide it to people in need? In theory, they are going to take that money and spend it on things like food/clothes, pay off loans/credit cards, or in some unfortunate cases take adavantage of it and waste it on something they don't need. Even if all it does is end up in a savings account at a bank, the money still ends up going to corporations (potentially faster than a tax cut might actually be able to). At that point, the trickle down effect can occur and help everyone, but in the meantime, some direct assistance was provided to the people that needed it most, potentially easing their situation to the point where they need less assistance in the future." +"KuulGryphun: > If the definition of ""cis"" is basically people acting within the confines of their gender, why can't they just be called women and men? + +Because the terms ""woman"" and ""man"" got overloaded. The word ""woman"" can refer to either a ""trans-woman"" (a person who was male at birth but has reassigned to female) or a ""cis-woman"" (a person who was and still is female). You can be annoyed about it, but ""cis"" definitely has a meaning. + +Depending on context, its probably safe to assume that when someone says ""woman"" what they mean is ""cis-woman"", but that doesn't mean there is no ambiguity. +SighEops: ~~Can I put half of a delta for this comment? Hehe.~~ ∆ + +I see where you're coming from, but if someone is a trans-woman (which I assume means *male-to-female*) then why would it matter if you're saying ""woman"" anyway? If they're MtF, then wouldn't they want to be called a woman regardless? " +"FallingSnowAngel: Actually, it was the kinksters, transvestites/transgender, and the prostitutes who fired the first shots in the modern gay rights struggle, back when respectable gays would hide in the closet and attack their own. [Go team!](https://www.google.com/search?q=stonewall+riots&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a) + +Without the so-called freaks raising awareness in so blatant a way, you'd still have more of [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing) kind of horror story. + +Although, seriously, [that was nothing.](http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/07/lgbt-history-the-decade-of-lobotomies-castration-and-institutions.html) + +Today, the wild parts of gay pride parades exist, as a small minority paying tribute to the courage of those who have lived before, and because nobody should have the right to silence those who are different, whether or not you approve of all that evil sex they're having. It's just that the media is obsessed with just one thing - but then, they have a shitty record of covering anything when they want to pretend they're ignorant prudes... +JizzOnRainbows: ∆. Pardon my ignorance but I thought all gay pride parades were lewd. Now I see why the ones that are lewd are lewd." +"britainfan234: Selfish means lacking in consideration of others. *The suicide person might not be thinking of others. The person whos calling the suicider selfish though is probably thinking of other people who will be harmed by this. + +Now if it was only a family of 2 though and 1 sister wanted to commit suicide I can see how both would be selfish but that usually isnt the case. + +So, whether or not someone is selfish is really about whether or not their actions/advice only benefit themselves. *Suicide people might be only thinking about themselves and therefore might be selfish. + +EDIT: I realized while in discussion I cant assume the majority of suicide peoples motives. Therefore, I will simply stick with the accuser's, who are more reliable. +fetalalcoholsyndrome: I dunno.. I feel like a lot of people who commit suicide do it because they feel they are a burden on others hence the feelings of total worthlessness." +"c-herms: Here are a couple points I can think of off the top of my head. The first one is nuanced, but the second one is what I consider the absolute fundamental rule for any road occupant to follow. + +1. Road size: Living in a fairly dense urban area, the physical size of the road is often not conducive to a cyclist (or a motorist for that matter) being able to always be more than a door length away from all parked cars while still being a safe distance from oncoming traffic. On most of the roads on my daily commute, riding in the exact center of my direction lane still puts me in danger of coming in contact with an open door. + +2. Responsibility of driver to ensure safety when changing the status quo of the road: Anytime a road occupant does something to make a change in their movement pattern, it is *always* their responsibility to ensure the action is safe, *not* the responsibility of other drivers to adjust their movement pattern to accommodate. This is true whether it be a lane change, a left turn, proceeding through an intersection at a stop sign, or opening a door. When a driver opens his/her door, *they* are *actively creating* a situation that could be dangerous to themselves, cyclists, and other motorists. As such, it most definitely is the responsibility of a driver to do a quick mirror check for any traffic before throwing their door open. It takes two seconds to do, and it could save both your car door and someone from serious injury. +ZanzaraEE: 1. I couldn't imagine a road being that thin and still allow bidirectional traffic. If you couldn't make the fit (safely) between oncoming traffic and the door lane, how could a car be expected to? + +2. That's a good point. However, I think a road occupant must first must ensure their movement pattern is safe, then we can worry about *changes* in movement pattern. I feel that riding next to parked cars is something fundamentally wrong with a cyclist's movement pattern that make it so that no reasonable driver can be expected to see them all the time. +Also, and not the strongest argument against you: it is not *always* the responsibility of someone to making a change in movement pattern to ensure that said change in movement pattern is safe. Someone can slam on the brakes and it is not their responsibility at all if the person behind them was following too closely and rear-ends them. So sometimes we say ""Person A is free to make *blank* change in movement and Person B needs to drive/ride in a fashion that ensures they can do so safely at any time."" + +> quick mirror check + +given the speed of cyclists and the manner that they sometimes dart around vehicles I do not believe this is always sufficient" +"joshh1727: The point isn't that there are plenty of followers of Islam who don't kill people. That is pretty much a smokescreen argument that people like Rezla Azlan and other PC liberals use to smear and misrepresent the true argument that people like Sam Harris and Bill Maher make. + +There are good Muslims out there, most of them are, but they are good because they are moderates who don't take their religion literally. The ones who do take their religion literally have much more direct verses of violence, hatred and oppression they can look to to justify their hate. The Quran has [109](http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm) of verses that can turn one to violence. The Bible by comparison only has [one](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2013:6-10), and it is in a section of the bible that Christians don't strictly follow. + +I don't think pointing this out, and pointing out that places that operate under the laws of this book are more oppressive, violent, and sexist is bigoted at all. It's actually fair criticism. What is dangerous however is what people who cry ""islamophobe"" are doing because by saying that fair criticism is bigotry, they are censoring it, and letting these disgusting human rights violations continue. +FabricatedByMan: The Bible, from my reading of it, seems abhorrent has far as violence is concerned. + +You are correct that many theocracies based off of Sharia law are abhorrent. The same could be said of the female castrating African countries who are majority Christian. + +A spade should be called a spade. But damning an entire religion because of some people's interpretation of a young religion that hasn't had time to develop like Christianity and Judaism has, doesn't seem entirely fair. + +I believe Indonesia is a great example of a country with an Islamic majority where polls show very few Muslims there think that the penalty for apostasy should be death. I think the answer isn't yelling about how terrible Islam is, which I do think it is terrible, but education. + +If we can teach religious people why child genital mutilation is bad and make them question their family's religion, I think Islam will be forced to adapt, as the other religions have. + +I see this as a problem of education, not of theology." +"anotherdean: The ""long run"" doesn't exist. It's an expanse of time in which nothing will be around to experience anything, and ""mattering"" is a function of the capacity of beings to value conscious experience. You might imagine a bleak universe experiencing heat death and feel that everything you've ever done has never mattered, but that's an experience that will only ever be had by you, right now, as you imagine it. + +Nothing is going to be around to see everything ""cease to matter,"" which effectively means that there's a significant problem with the notion that ""mattering"" is dependent on the infinitely continuing experience of conscious creatures. + +That said, what matters only occurs in the span of individual consciousnesses and personal preferences. The sort of mattering you're talking about is really your subjective feeling about the worth of the whole of human experience. In that sense, maybe it's true that you'll never feel that anything has mattered. But maybe you're depressed and this is just your subjective feeling. + +Maybe lots of things are mattering all the time, presently, for a lot of people, and that's the only way mattering can occur. Maybe civilization, plumbing, electricity, and civil rights are all worthwhile goals and successes of humanity. Maybe it's entirely a function of your perspective. +effervescence1: Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I read through your post several times in order to best understand it. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the basic premise of your argument is that living beings can bestow significance upon experiences, which makes those experiences matter. Therefore, if humans consider civilization, civil rights, or anything else important, they make that thing matter. + +That's an interesting view, but it seems to me that you've failed to fundamentally challenge my position. Your post has just altered the definition of 'mattering,' so that humans have the ability to make something matter. Of course I've experienced that ability as well- I work hard towards getting good marks in school, and therefore, to me, good marks matter. I value my relationships with my friends, and so those relationships matter. + +That's all fine and dandy, but it doesn't tackle the fundamental belief of existential nihilism, which is that life has no intrinsic meaning or purpose. I can convince myself that good marks or friends matter, without believing that my life has a real meaning to it. Those good marks or friends are just the most comfortable means to an inevitable end. + +As for the second part of my post, I said that I believe nothing will matter in the long run. The examples you've cited - civilization, plumbing, electricity, etc. - only matter in the short term. You yourself admitted this by saying that ""what matters only occurs in the span of individual consciousnesses."" Since what matters is limited to occuring during consciousness, anything that matters will ultimately lose its importance, when the consciousness that bestowed significance upon it dies. So while humans may be able to make electricity matter in the short term, we can't do that in the long term because we're limited by our inevitable death- both the death of our person and the death of our species. To re-iterate this point, it is possible for humans to bestow meaning upon something without that something 'mattering' in the long term. You support this by saying that ""mattering"" is limited to the existence of consciousness, and as consciousness will ultimately end, so too will anything's ''mattering.'' This actually supports my argument, as nothing can matter in the long term." +"Mavericgamer: The problem that poor people have against rich people, is that while the poor person might be an asshole, and the rich person might be a dick, even in the worst case of both of those scenarios, it's the dick that fucks the asshole, and not the other way around. + +That is to say: It isn't *you*, the rich person, that poor people are mad at. It is the system that benefits the rich people seemingly unjustly because they have money. I could launch into a long drawn-out economics discussion, but the short of it is that trickle-down economics isn't working and hasn't worked in a while; to paraphrase the new Pope (and I'm atheist, it's just a good quote): the promise was that the cup shall overflow, and and that the overflow shall nourish the needy, but the reality is that the cup keeps growing so that there is never any overflow. + +So, seeing that nice car is a reminder that the poor are going to have to toil to get something half that nice when they're twice your age. And yeah, if you're a cool person, I can see how that would sting. But you have to realize, too, that to every poor person taking the bus, this sounds incredibly self-absorbed. ""I get a little bit of ill will because I can afford a sports car."" is about as ""first world problem"" as it gets, man. +johnsonysu: Very interesting points. Please do not take anything I say below personally: + +So just because the dick *could* fuck the asshole, the dick is therefore condemned even if he had no intentions whatsoever of doing so? So in essence, in times of depression because most people now live poorly, the rich are therefore dicks for continually being able to live well because they *could*? + +I'll rephrase. +So lets say an asshole wants to be a dick so that he could also buy nice cars and homes, (c'mon, everybody wants to be rich), why is it that we aren't mad at them? Is it essentially *wrong* to want to provide more and to improve the quality of life of your family? And is it essentially *wrong* to improve the quality of life of your family if you already have the means? And if it isn't fundamentally wrong, then why are wealthy people being persecuted solely based on their wealth? + +I mean why does it matter that the rich person lives well? You focusing on condemning his wealth is NOT going to alleviate your situation. Otherwise shouldn't all people living in third world countries essentially *detest* everyone fortunate enough to live in first world countries? + +The trickle-down economics is a terrible idea, yet people still inherently *expect* it to work. The inheritance ideology which it propagates is essentially why poor people (no offence meant at all, just for simplicity of argument) think that they simply just deserve better and thus think/behave aggressively when they do not receive that they were promised? + +Also aren't you just assuming that rich people were born in the cup? Perhaps they could have worked very hard to get there but just because they decide not to share their hard earned wealth, does not mean they are dicks. + +So you are saying that I should expect unjust prejudice and should just learn to live with this bias because I benefit from other aspects of life since I am wealthy? I don't like being called a prick for being rich but because I can afford a sports car therefore I am self absorbed? How does one make a connection that a rich person is self absorbed because he does not like being called a prick just because he can afford a sports car. It's is like making the connection that a homeless person is self absorbed because he doesnt like people calling him useless because he pleads for money. Should I now feel compassionate towards those who call me pricks? I reminding them of their inability to purchase a better life with my sports car makes me a well-deserved prick? Heavens help me if I actually do make a mistake... I'd be devoured by criticism...? + +My ambition is to leverage the wealth I earn in the future to better help those who are in financial needs and just desperately need an opportunity. Wouldn't be pissed on on a daily basis by poor people (again, just for simplicity of argument, NO OFFENCE MEANT) mean that I start having second thoughts on helping them because I just don't think they deserve it? I mean if third world countries start shit on us for donating too little or for not sharing more of our resources with them, wouldn't we be less inclined to give? + +Then again, does anyone truly *deserve* anything? I certainly do not believe that I *deserved* my car, but I was fortunate enough to be able to drive one. But then again, just because I drive one, and that I remind you of the fact that you don't have one, do you then *deserve* to also have one? And then lets say someone gives you that car you *deserve.* Should you then also *deserve* to be hated by those who are yet to receive theirs? By extension of this logic, shouldn't everyone just *deserve* a better life in general without working? And isn't this ideology essentially what Communism tried to encapsulate and manifest but failed?" +"[deleted]: If the world wasn't threatening, it wouldn't be rude. However, as a young woman, you have to be constantly on-guard. On guard for many people who want to hurt you. + +I know many men will have trouble with this perspective, proceeding under the mentality that if a woman made a sexual reference to them, they would feel flattered. + +Let me explain why this is a different scenario entirely: +Firstly, it is an unwanted comment on your sexuality. You are walking down the street, not really doing anything, and someone is basically saying to you: I find you sexually appealing. You have just been marked as a sexual object in the eyes of another person. You have just been commented on in an uncomfortable way. + +If a woman makes a sexual gesture to you on the street, and you are a male, you are not threatened by that woman (generalization). She is not stronger, she is not going to hurt you (generally). + +Now imagine, if a larger male, a more threatening figure were to make the same sexual gesture to you. How would you feel then? Frightened? Threatened? Weird? Violated? Creeped out? + +The catcalling is even more frightening when men are threatening looking, oftentimes leering at you or following you. If you were walking down the street, and a larger, more frightening, threatening male followed you, making sexual comments? +clamsterdam: &#8710; Thank you! + +[Earlier comment I made stating how you managed to CMV, but I had the delta in the wrong spot.](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1cq2e6/i_believe_that_catcalling_should_be_considered/c9j1zi4)" +"Val5: It can signal condescension towards the person you are replying to, but it can also be a part of a joke where it is directed towards something or someone else your comment is talking about. Occasionally it is neither, but an understandable emphasis or intonation. It should be pretty easy to figure out based on the context. +scopelessjay: ∆ + +I agree that the context does matter, it's just sometimes I'll see a reply and read it and go 'wow that's actually a great point, why did they have to italicise particular words, the emphasis seemed a bit self-righteous'. + + As a result, it *causes* an irritable reaction in me. + +I think I've kind of figured it out, from my sentence above (which was to illustrate what I mean, I don't actually mean to condescend). It's particular emphasis on verbs and a way of speaking which just seems high-horse like. + +I just don't understand why someone would choose that way of communicating vs a more earnest approach when attempting to debate something." +"Ray_adverb12: Usually cultural appropriation is harmful when people choose to utilize, or ""appropriate"", positive elements while ignoring or leaving behind more unpleasant elements. For example, white suburban kids listening to Gansta Rap and wearing do-rags while not having ever (or will ever) experience the specific circumstances that led to those becoming relevant icons in the Black community. Or, more recently, white people wearing headdresses to music festivals (or getting them tattooed on them). Headdresses are, in many Native American cultures, a very sacred and symbolic motif used for specific practices and people. White people who wear them are choosing to ignore the negative parts of Native life and cherry-pick aesthetics. I can go more in depth but that's not the point. + +You are interested in ""appropriating"" from a culture that hasn't had a lot of presence since the 16th century. Though I'm sure you could find an Incan descendent somewhere with an issue there, I doubt you will run into many of them. However, I wanted to address two points: + +1. Aesthetics + +This is the primary argument used by people who want to utilize symbols or costumes from other cultures. You understand this is not generally considered a way of ""honoring"" the culture, but picking pieces you think are ""pretty"" with very little regard for their weight or history? Usually, when discussing cultural appropriation in an academic string, this has no weight. + +2. ""I may possibly incorporate their symbols for the sun, their main focus of focus worship. Although nonreligious myself, I respect that worshiping the material sun and nature around us is an important trait more of us should take note of."" + +Let's say it wasn't the Incan culture, and it was Hindu. You admit to not being religious, but like certain aspects of their religion, which they probably take very seriously and personally. Do you see how this could be seen as trivializing, white-washing, and ""appropriating"" something that you admittedly don't follow in your own life? It's like saying ""Native Americans worship nature"". + +3. I hold a lot of respect for what their civilization accomplished, and would like to ""advertise"" them more through body art + +Do you think people don't know about the Incan civilization? Or are you attempting to create solidarity between you and those of Incan descent? Sorry, I don't really understand this point. +Tself: You partially changed my view and I don't see myself wanting religious symbolism represented, so I'll give a &#8710; for that. + +>Do you think people don't know about the Incan civilization? Or are you attempting to create solidarity between you and those of Incan descent? + +Neither of those. Well, maybe something similar to the former. Tattoos can often be a conversation starter, and I think any conversation that can lead to enlightenment is a good one to have. In this case, it could enlighten people about Incan history and art. And by means of getting the ink, I consider a form of respect for that culture and specifically artform. " +"down42roads: The reason that warnings shots are not legal is that they are, quite possibly, the most dangerous thing you can do with a firearm. + +Normally, when shooting at a target, your primary focus is on what the bullet will hit: your target. + +In a warning shot, your primary focus is on what your bullet will NOT it. There is a high likelihood that the shooter has not properly evaluated the are where they are shooting to determine if it is safe to fire in that direction. + +Even aerial warning shots (shooting into the air) pose a real danger to other people. Here are [two cases](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356851/Seven-year-old-boy-dies-hit-stray-bullet-fired-air-walked-July-4-fireworks-display.html) from [the same day](http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/accidents/falling-bullets-strike-man-pierce-roof-on-july-fourth-in-st-pete/2130200) last year where people miles away were struck by bullets from such gunshots, including the death of a child. +thefonztm: > Normally, when shooting at a target, your primary focus is on what the bullet will hit: + +*the thigh.* + +It's not like I'm going to look at the places I don't want to shoot. I'm aiming, and I require a higher degree of precision than shooting center of mass. + +I'm not insane enough to shoot into the air, but I can see that people might. Shooting the ground between myself and the target would be the ideal case since I can keep my gun in a ready position." +"cmvplease: It's not just personal safety, though. It's also other people's liability. + +Say you don't wear your seatbelt. What if another car accidentally hits your car from behind. If wearing a seatbelt, you would have survived, but instead you hit the windshield and, with the harsh impact, die. Instead of a smaller insurance issue, it now becomes manslaughter. + +I think it's similar to why police (technically are supposed to) enforce jaywalking laws. It makes you a liability to someone else. +justforfunds: This is a very good point. Ironically I used this exact same example when discussing with another Redditor why I think it is good that vehicular manslaughter carries short sentences in most states in the US. It's the best argument against my position I've heard and I'm surprised none of the people I've talked to about this irl have brought this up. + +That was short, you win ∆. + +Would still like to see more discussion on this if people have varied views." +"[deleted]: Eh, I don't think you need to be taking pictures of every meal you have, or constantly posting selfies, or changing your profile picture every month. But I used to feel like I never wanted to look back on pictures, and now I sometimes wish I had more. I ended up leaving my home country and gradually losing contact with people who had once been very close to me (my bad, but it happens). Some more pictures of them and fun things we did together would be nice. + +So yeah, the only real reason is, you might not feel like you want them now, but you might want them in the future. And having them causes no harm (put them on a memory stick instead of facebook if you're not into that). +akkronym: What sorts of things do you wish you had documented? Part of my situation and being in a digital age is that if my friends tend to take pictures and post them, I get to keep up with them that way in addition to our conversations. Assuming you had kept in contact with those people, what sort of stuff would you still wished you had pictures of that wouldn't be on their profiles? Seems like keeping in contact with them does double duty maintaining friendships and preserving memories." +"Scribbles_: Academia has always been like that. Mind you, a lot of ""SJW's"" are college students, they're used to this style of talk about social issues and mimic it on tumblr. The way it's always been with social activism is that there's a sort of ""ivory tower"" side and a more ""hands on"" side to it. + +The latter organizes youth groups, teaches people about racism on their local school or community center, it organizes things like pride parades and history month celebrations. + +The former is deliberately all talk, its efforts go towards identifying and naming the phenomenons that surround the injustice and discussing solutions. + +This is not a new thing at all, take socialism for example, you had the academic elite discussing about concepts with big words and citations to lofty philosophers, there was the side that came in contact with people and riled them up or informed them. Also take how sociology professors talk about microagressions and mental colonization, while black advocacy groups take those ideas and rather than preaching about them go into action to stop them. None of them does more than the other, they need each other to be effective and thorough. + +I think there are several problems with how ""SJW's"" are handling activism, but their academic or pseudo-academic approach is not it. Refusing to educate others is regressive and a problem, yes of course, but the fact that advocacy includes complicated concepts and words is a nonissue. + +catching_signals: ∆ Very good points; I can see how there are multiple sides to this movement, and admittedly, the only one I'm familiar with is the academic side that argues on the Internet. However, I do think that the movement as a whole is mostly bark, little bite. I'd compare it to OWS, a movement whose ideas I also agreed with. They knew what they wanted to achieve, but lacked leadership (a ""leaderless movement"" is doomed from the start, imo) and a clear plan, so it wasn't productive. However, at least they were getting out in the real world and engaging in activism. I'd like to hear more about education and hands-on activism among ""SJWs"" (again, for lack of a better term)." +"wanderlust712: Monogamy is meaningful to many people. It's a symbol of commitment to each other. I don't have sex with other people, not because my husband is controlling or possessive, but because I've promised not to have sex with anyone but him. If I did and he got upset, it would be because I've broken that promise. It would be the same in reverse. + +Relationships are frequently about commitments to each other. It makes me happy that my husband and I have something so special that we don't share it with anyone else. The fact that we don't have sex with other brings us closer together. It wouldn't make either of us happy to cheapen that. + +And ultimately, if people are happy being monogamous, who are you to tell them that they shouldn't be? +NotVeryAffective: &#8710; So the commitment to monogamy has value in itself. This was insightful to me. How would this be different if you had a commitment to, say, never go to the gym with anyone else, or never watch television with anyone else, or any other activity you can think of? How is sex a special activity with respect to the importance of commitment?" +"slf1452: I would like to think that you are correct in your expectations of the Chief Technology Officer route. One important aspect to consider is the sheer amount of time you have to develop your career. + +If you are trying to make your first million by age X, or be the youngest Y in the field of Z, then you don't But honestly, who cares? + +Unless you have an outrageously specific life goal in mind (like developing the cure for some disease, or going to Mars), then you really don't have to focus so intensely on the time component by itself. + +Consider the following scenario: + +You view time as equal to money, so wasting your time is wasting your earning potential. This has prevented you from socializing, making friends, enjoying your existence. However, this mindset has also obscured potential opportunities for you that you may not normally be exposed to. + +You may find that by traveling to Nicaragua on a vacation, it strikes you that you can develop an easy solution to some problem you see there. Or perhaps after having some beers with some people in a hostel in Germany, you realize that the your niche expertise in your field of technology is underrepresented in the German market, and your efforts there could advance your career at a faster pace than what you can find in America. These are just examples. The main point is that you have arbitrarily chosen one limited route, and done the cost/benefit analysis on that choice alone, without taking the time to consider a wider array of options. + +Circling back to your time = money scenario, this expanded worldview allows you to retain your instilled sense of the value of time, but can show you that you are ""Wasting your time"" by only considering one life path, even if there are others that could lead to a higher earning potential and better enjoyment of life. + +Additionally, ask anyone in the business world about how EVERYTHING works, and they will all tell you that personal connections are hugely important. By not making personal connections and not building social and professional networks, you are pigeonholing your career potential. You may have the Ph.D, but what happens when you are going up for a position against another reasonably qualified person whom the recruiter gets along with better? You will miss it. + +So if you need to, you could actually recategorize your time spent socializing as ""job training"", because no one would argue that social skills are irrelevant in a leadership position. They are essential. So stop wasting your time and go have fun and socialize with people, you will need the skills later. +Ryien: You are so right. I did set my own imaginary timeline where I have to get my PhD by age X, and get this specific job by age Y. + +It may also be that I have a high competition mindset compared to my peers and what family and others expect out of me. This external pressure must be the driving factor, not necessarily my mindset then. + +I did actually try focusing on socializing for professional development, but I was unable to balance it. I started socializing with a few new friends and got attached to the point of dropping all of my work to see them and hang out with them. Another factor is my parents consistently bugging me that every time I go out and hang out, I am spending money, and i feel guilty of this. + +&#8710; " +"childfree2014: Improving the weakest, slowest, nodes of network is not the most cost effective method for improving the entire network. Investing in network upgrades depends on the function of the nodes. + +Take the connection between Netflix and your local ISP. This may be the fastest connection but increasing usage results in the connection not meeting demand. So investing in upgrading ths connection may be the most cost effective upgrade. + +Other network connections, between credit card terminals and credit card processing, may be the slowest but don't need to be any faster and don't need to be improved since they serve their function. +SolFreer: &#8710; Sorry for the delay. You have definitely convinced me that my analogy is an over-simplification, because, yes, upgrading a slow-node that isn't actually a bottle-neck isn't effective. + + However, I would adjust my view now to say that if a slow node isn't being bottle-necked it's because it's in an effective 'dead zone' and we have an earlier bottle-neck preventing demand in this region (say the individual lives in a poor area with bad education), and what needs to happen is to upgrade this whole region, removing bottlenecks. + +So, my view is essentially now that one needs to focus on upgrading the slowest 'zones' of the network and demand will follow. Bring education and services to the disadvantaged communities, bring jobs there and it will be an investment in that region that will pay off for the whole network. CMV" +"James_McNulty: It isn't the end of the song, but the end of the second verse on Kendrick Lamar's [Sing About Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WQV_cULobA) (second verse ends at ~3:45) is a great example of how to use fade outs artistically. Especially when juxtaposed with the abrupt end of the first verse. + +That song is off Kendrick's album, *Good Kid M.A.A.D. City*. It's a concept album exploring a coming of age in a dangerous environment. The album is very stream-of-consciousness, and uses fade-in/fade-out to move between songs and skits. In just the track above, there are several fades and cuts which help move between the different ""scenes"" of the song (and album). + +I'm not defending all fade-outs. But I think that's an example of them being used very stylistically, and to great effect. +minerva_qw: That was a skillfully used fade, but I'm still not sure that applies to this CMV, since it was used as a transition and not a way to wrap things up. Enjoyed the song, though!" +"[deleted]: The issue of acknowledgment of that level of responsibility does create issues of shifting blame in legal evaluation and in evaluation of laws and their merit. If they share responsibility, for creating a situation where the law could be broken, should only one of them have to shoulder the responsibility for being the actively aggressive party in the law being broken? It's just safer for society to view it the way it does. The potential for exploitation is too great. +yiman: &#8710; + +I like this argument. It is reasonable. I hasn't changed my mind because you can't argue that something should not be acknowledged because it has the **potential for exploitation**. + +By the same reasoning. You can argue that we should not invent the cure for cancer because it can be exploited by a large pharmaceutical company. +" +"GameboyPATH: >Firstly let me say that this is my first post in this sub, and I'm hoping that it's the correct place. + +You're in the right place. Welcome! + +Have you ever watched [the episode of South Park](http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s05e02-it-hits-the-fan) where everyone found it publicly acceptable to say ""shit"", and the result was everyone started saying it without a care? The message of the story was that swearing carries with it a significant emotional strength. Swearing is ""strong language"" because it's used only sparingly to express strong emotion or to reduce inflicted pain or stress. + +So when swearing is used commonly, the strong feelings associated with it are lost, since no one is going to infer strong emotion from a word that's commonly used. If you (and society around you) swear a lot from the minor inconveniences, what language would you use if you experienced tremendous injustice and felt significant rage and inner pain? + +What's this have to do with kids? We want to encourage kids to have an expansive vocabulary so that they can adequately express themselves and convey their thoughts and feelings. Teaching a kid to swear is akin to giving the kid the trump card. Why should they learn or use broader language to understand or express their negative feelings when they can just complain about the fucking bitch who can't do shit? + +In short, if you'd trust your children with ice cream in hopes that they'd eat it only in moderation (and in the context of a broader array of healthier foods), you could teach them swearing. Otherwise, give them time to understand moderation and the effects of language on others. +Kaleb1983: Wow.. that actually makes a lot of sense. I never really thought about it like that, thank you. + +I think I'm really going to like this sub. I just posted a controversial opinion and got a well thought out and logical response instead of a down vote :)." +"scottevil110: It is perfectly logical. This is true. Everyone has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex. + +However, the right that homosexuals are fighting for is the right to marry whomever they *choose*, not someone of the opposite sex. **That** is the right that they lack that heterosexual people are given. + + +razorbeamz: ∆ + +That makes sense. It's a logical argument, but it's not what the argument is about. I wonder if someone could come up with a similar argument about a different social issue to show how dumb the argument is." +"Glares: I've been told [this](http://i.imgur.com/ihTnzCw.jpg) is an accurate description of depression by [people here](http://www.reddit.com/r/MorbidReality/comments/1eo27d/a_letter_about_depression/). I know the style of it may be confirming to your ""over-dramatic"" feelings but just try to take it for the message. I felt the same way as you but reading this changed me. +andrwarrior: ∆ + +That picture teared me up. It's a beautiful analogy, and paints the feelings quite plainly to me. Thank you." +"[deleted]: >We were surprised to discover that **being within a few feet of a smoker outdoors may expose you to air pollution** levels that are comparable, on average, to indoor levels that we measured in previous studies of homes and taverns,"" said Wayne Ott, professor (consulting) of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford and co-author of the JAWMA study. ""For example, if you're at a sidewalk café, and you sit within 18 inches of a person who smokes two cigarettes over the course of an hour, your exposure to secondhand smoke could be the same as if you sat one hour inside a tavern with smokers. Based on our findings, a child in close proximity to adult smokers at a backyard party also could receive substantial exposure to secondhand smoke."" + +>**""Our data also show that if you move about six feet away from an outdoor smoker, your exposure levels are much lower,"" Klepeis added.** [link](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/may9/smoking-050907.html) + +All you have to do is be about six or more feet away and none of this matters. You seems to imply that no smoker should ever smoke in a public outdoor area, but if that smoker is say 10 feet away from all other people, then it is perfectly fine to smoke in that public area. +Timwi: ∆ + +I’m awarding you a delta because the source you provided helped in /u/garnteller’s argument which partly changed my view." +"dtiftw: What do you define as a ""GMO"" that needs to be labeled, and what information would you like to see on the label? + +Secondly, what testing would you like to see that isn't currently being done? + +And I will challenge specifically the idea that anyone has said that GMOs are ""completely safe"" or that we should accept them ""no questions asked."" I can't think of any organization, company, or scientist who has made those claims. +MagicSpaceMan: To be honest, I don't really know enough about it to really make an informed opinion on what specifically should be the threshold for labeling. + +Same goes for testing. I don't really know much about the degrees of testing that are being done, I just think that there should be solid evidence that we aren't doing significant harm to the public before we allow them to be distributed to the general public without any sort of warning or label. + +I may have used the wrong terms portraying how GMOs have entered the general food supply, but nonetheless, it seems to me like GMOs are extremely prevalent in today's food supply. I will do a bit of research to see if I can find any long term studies, or at least to gauge the general amount and consensus of studies." +"garnteller: Generally, when you are in a discriminated against minority, you've got two choices: try to blend in or take ownership of the stereotype. + +There's nothing wrong at all with you just being you, and wanting your sexual preference to be treated no different than being left handed - you're different than the majority, and you do things a little differently than they do, but no big deal. + +But the other approach is to say ""you think *that's* effeminate? I'll show you effeminate!"" (Not that I think gays are effeminate, but that that was the stereotype). + +I'm also enough that when I was young, when people would say, ""You know Bill? I just found out that *he's gay*"" - they made sure to whisper the last word. (Or giggle if they were assholes). Being ""out"" just wasn't done. + +But there were enclaves - Provincetown, Fire Island, San Francisco - where there were gay communities. Instead of having to hide who you were, you could delight in your identity, surrounded by others like you. And part of that was ""acting gay"", making sure that the midwestern tourists who stumbled in would be shocked that such godless behavior would be allowed. + +Things are a hell of a lot better than they were then, but I don't need to tell you there's still a long way to go. Being flamboyant is just a way to revel in being what the bigots hate - to say, ""I'm going to be incredibly gay, and you're just going to have to deal with it because we're here to stay"". + +Again, no value judgements about whether one way or the other is better, but I don't blame people for saying they are done with trying not to be noticed. +EmperorDuck: I totally agree with you that communities like that are absolutely beneficial, despite the abundance of the stereotype, for inclusiveness, for having a place that doesn't tell you it's wrong. + +That said, I still don't see how it's beneficial to be combative towards bigots like that. I don't see how it's beneficial to, again, act like a freak. It certainly doesn't show me that the consensus is to treat them like human beings. + +Sure, you're getting a chuckle on behalf of the bigots that would hate you anyways, but it makes the movement look petty. And others look at it -- even if they agree -- like someone's just making an immature dig, an immature response towards immaturity or a more conservative belief system. + +It flies in the face of humanism/equality to target people like that, to display this freakish treatment, too. It'd be much better to accept that they don't believe in what you do and just go with it, continuing to be the way you are respectfully. Show up for protests to get equal rights. Show numbers and (relatively) normal behavior. Be respectful and open. Display the sexuality as, like you said, being left handed, being something some people are rather than being a disrespectful, immature freak who rollerskates around in only neon shorts, being loud, obnoxious, and overly-sexual in response to people who are bigoted or hateful." +"jsmooth7: I would suggest you read these two posts, that describes Allie Brosh's experiences with depression. + +- http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.ca/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html + +- http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.ca/2013/05/depression-part-two.html + +I think the problem here is you are assuming people are depressed for a reason, but that is frequently not the case. Sometimes people just become depressed for absolutely no reason. + +For example you said you can ""follow your passion."" What if one day you found you just felt nothing, even when doing something you used to enjoy? What would you do then? +RANDOM_ASIAN_GIRL: Thanks for the links, I have read them already. + +>What if one day you found you just felt nothing, even when doing something you used to enjoy? + +That's just the nature of human beings. If you eat your favorite meal every day, you'll get bored of it after a while. There is no solution that fits everyone, but proactively trying to find something else to enjoy, preferably many things, seems like a good idea." +"garnteller: I think this is the crux of your post: + +>Although there may be a few exceptions to this, the majority of modern country is awful, redundant, and lacks any sort of meaning. + +Can you honestly say that this doesn't apply to mainstream pop, rock, rap or anything else? While we're at it, it also applies to movies, TV, books, subreddits, video games, etc, etc. + +I think the problem isn't that country is mostly crap - it's that it's mostly crap - and you don't personally like the stuff that isn't crap. + +Which is fine, but that's really about your personal taste, not the industry as a whole, as separate from any other artistic endeavor. + + +vTheCurrentEvent: > Can you honestly say that this doesn't apply to mainstream pop, rock, rap or anything else? While we're at it, it also applies to movies, TV, books, subreddits, video games, etc, etc. + +Yes, however, it may apply to contemporary country music the most relative to other genres of music. Though it is hard to debate such a matter, simply because of personal opinions. + +Regardless, after reading this comment I've concluded that this view is rather silly to debate, simply because of the lack of facts to back up either side. ∆" +"mizz_kittay: Well I *think* these people actually do feel humbled by their great experiences. They experience something amazing and great that the vast majority of human beings will never get to experience, and it makes them feel guilty. They don't feel like they are some extraordinary special person who deserves this experience while other humans don't deserve to experience it... rather, they think *all* humans deserve to experience it and they feel guilty that only they get to experience it. Coming to terms with this guilt and accepting that this is just the luck of the draw that is life and you aren't anything special even though you get to do this special thing *is* ""humbling."" If the people you refer to use it like that, then they're using it properly. +LiveBeef: &#8710; here and with superkamiokande's followup. See my reply on their comment for more" +"scottevil110: The silence itself does nothing, you're right, but peer pressure is a powerful force, especially at that age, and this is a case where it can be harnessed for some positive impact. + +Growing up where I did, disapproval of homosexuality was ""normal"". It was just expected that you thought gay people were bad, and no one reacted negatively at all if you went around saying it to anyone who would listen. + +Seeing that that's not the case, that a lot of people DO support gay rights, is a powerful piece of information. I was never religious, so I didn't get on board with the whole hating gay people thing, but that was a big shock when I got to college, realizing that it was okay to outwardly support gay rights, because *other* people supported it. + +So that's what the day of silence can accomplish. Whether it's more or less effective than any other method, I don't know, but the point is showing people that supporting gay rights IS the norm, and not the exception. +ebol4anthr4x: ∆ + +I misunderstood my own view, this post helped me clear up my thoughts. I agree that the Day of Silence demonstrates that many people support LGBT rights, which is beneficial for the movement. Delta awarded for making me realize that. + +My issue with the movement (which I did not realize when I posted this) is that it does nothing to combat bullying in general. If you make it unacceptable for kids to be bullied for being gay, bullies will switch back to one of the other timeless insults they've been using for as long as kids have been assholes to each other, like ""you're too fat,"" ""too skinny,"" ""too tall,"" ""too smart,"" etc. + +In other words, bullying will still exist, even if the LGBT movement is successful in attaining their goals. The Day of Silence fails to address why bullying exists, and the environmental factors that lead kids to attack each other. + +Peer pressuring each other into being nice all the time doesn't get to the root of the problem; it doesn't keep his alcoholic father from beating him. It just removes an outlet for the bully's pent up anger. That isn't to say that bullying is an appropriate outlet, but when you take away one outlet, they will just find another. + +To state my issue with the Day of Silence more succinctly... it is too single-minded. They're simply making bullying someone else's problem to deal with. If it's not a trans kids being bullied, then, as someone said below, it's ""the fat kids, nerds, kids with glasses, kids with red hair, kids with pimples, orphans, or kids with braces."" We need to address the root cause of bullying in general." +"mrrp: Why do you support the manufacturer > dealer > consumer model when you could support the manufacturer > wholesale dealer > retail dealer > consumer model? Wouldn't that create even more opportunities for profit? + +Why not mandate that each car pass through a dozen dealers before it can be sold to the consumer? Any why not support this ""dozen dealer"" model for every single product which is sold in the United States? Imagine how great that would be for the economy! Can you think of any products which shouldn't have to go through a dozen dealers? If so, what's your rationale? +jacksrdtt: That might but realistically speaking, somewhere along the line it would become unpractical and unprofitable. When you have a product with a msrp of 70,000$ there is good money to be made unless it goes through a bunch of middle men like that then nobody would make any profit especially since a products like this dont move in very high volumes." +"turtleintegral: > real harassment + +[Sexual harassment](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm). Sexual harassment includes unwanted sexual advances, which is what the cat-callers are doing. + +> It is not respectful to real victims of harassment, because it trivializes the issue. + +Many women do not take what you are calling ""compliments"" and ""greetings"" as genuine compliments or greetings and are very well able to differentiate the difference between a compliment and some stranger basically saying they want sex. The people in the NYC video that are catcalling the women most likely would not use ""compliments"" and ""greetings"" on men, which exhibits the sexual nature of them. [Sexual harassment](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm) includes unwanted sexual advances, which is what the cat-callers are doing, so there is really no need to trivialize the victims of street harassment by claiming that they are not victims of ""real harassment."" It also reeks of a ""there are starving kids in Africa"" type of argument. + +> It disrupts normal social dynamics between people. + +Yelling shit at strangers on the street does not seem like a normal social dynamic. In fact, it seems rather rude. Personally, I think it is more polite to not try to stop strangers to have a conversation with them. You have no idea if they are busy or not in the mood for casual conversation. + +> It is not in the interest of women that want to meet somebody that men are being discouraged to approach them. + +There's a time and a place for that. Shouting sexual compliments at strangers on the street is neither the time, nor the place. + +> It will not deter creepy guys from harassing women, because apparently they don’t have any problem even with real harassment. + +It will tell well-meaning guys that think catcalling is acceptable that it isn't. Furthermore, it will encourage guys to call out other guys that are catcalling and tell them to stop. And yes, there are obviously going to be many guys who don't give a fuck and will still catcall, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to lower the amounts of catcalling. + +The point of the NYC video is to show that many women do not enjoy what you are labeling as ""compliments"" or ""greetings"" and that it makes them feel extremely uncomfortable. I think it's best to accept and respect that, and therefore work to discourage such behavior, rather than argue semantics and try to deny and trivialize the experiences that many women have. + +> Radical feminists think that approaching a woman you don’t know should automatically be characterized as harassment. + +This is a total strawman argument. Feminists are not trying to label male interactions with women they do not know as harassment. Also, I would like to hear what your definition of ""radical feminist"" is, because it is a way larger group than radical feminists that are complaining about street harassment. +TheChangingWays: &#8710; + +> This is a total strawman argument. Feminists are not trying to label male interactions with women they do not know as harassment. Also, I would like to hear what your definition of ""radical feminist"" is, because it is a way larger group than radical feminists that are complaining about street harassment. + +I take back my statement that “radical feminists think that approaching a woman you don’t know should automatically be characterized as harassment”. + +I don’t know enough about feminism and feminists to make that statement. I award delta for that part of discussion. +" +"convoces: The idea that high death rate, such as one caused by a ""big Plague"" will curb population growth is false. + +In fact, the opposite is true, as a country addresses and *reduces* their death rate; their population growth actually *falls* as a result of societal and cultural decisions to have less children. This has been demonstrated cross-culturally and worldwide. + +If anything, a big Plague will *cause* greater rates of population growth. + +For more info, see Bill Gates debunking the myth of overpopulation here: http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=myth-three +elderstahl: Thanks for the link. really appreciate it. +I was looking for something like a statistical answer, which I got in the Hans Roslings video on the mentioned link. + +The last sentence of the video is kind of scary. the longer 4 or more children family situation persists, the longer entire world will live in the misery. + +My point for this post was there are very few attempts are being made to change this situation." +"IIIBlackhartIII: I think it's a very simplistic idea that solving our issues comes down to having a smaller population. Most of our issues in the modern world are very multi-dimensional, and population is but a single factor. Pair that with the fact that [most people in the world live in some kind of poverty](http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats), and the[ global population trend shows that there's more people in underdeveloped nations than first world countries](http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2012/world-population-data-sheet/fact-sheet-world-population.aspx), and I don't think your solution would be the perfect answer you think it is. +___ +#As direct responses to your categories, however: + +##Global Warming/Ecological Impact: + +The fact that most of the world is not highly developed shows that a lot of this pollution comes not from a bigger population, but from more developed regions with higher population density. There are plenty of ways to cut down on pollution without necessarily reducing population size. There are pushes for green energy, more efficient technologies, tighter regulations on corporate environmental practices, pushes for recycling, mass transit and carpooling, electric cars, etc... By reducing the population, you might potentially slow the rate of development, but the issue of global warming is a cumulative effect of emissions over time. We'd still have to deal with the environmental changes, but perhaps we'd have more time to deal with it. That's more a bandaid fix than a solution outright. + +##Global Energy/Food Shortage: + +In terms of energy production and food supplies... we actually aren't doing that bad in the world. The only issue is that [developed nations hoard their resources](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/19/global-wealth-oxfam-inequality-davos-economic-summit-switzerland), leading to starvation in regions like Africa and much of Asia. There was a great post over on /r/theydidthemath; and an [amazing comment](http://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/2qzts1/request_how_much_money_would_it_cost_the_citizens/cnb3apd) which calculated that first world countries only make up about 12% of the population, and even still it would only cost us 9¢ a day to end world hunger, or less than 5% of the United States annual military spending. + +For the energy part of this equation, we already have limitless resources for power (e.g. the sun, hydroelectrics, wind farms, etc...) we just need more pushes to actually pursue this technology, which is not going to make OPEC happy, but they do not represent the best interests of humanity in the long term. + +##War: + +Reducing population isn't going to end violence or war any time soon. We've had wars throughout the history of humanity, even when the distances were great between peoples. Population may increase the relative stress of resource distribution, but with how technology has offset that process, it really comes down to violence, diplomacy, and greed. And as above with the effects of global warming; we're going to use up our resources eventually. The issue is not to try and slow the bleed, it's to explore other options to keep our growth sustainable. Looking towards alternative materials, recycling, asteroid mining, etc... + +##Epidemic: + +We're already pursuing herd immunity and we've been able to destroy diseases like small pox in the past. Despite what the crazy anti-vaxxers might try to tell you, vaccinations are protecting our population from outbreaks. That said, increased population is a concern, but only if the health standards are affected by this increase in population. If living in sanitary conditions, the number of people is less important that the treatment received for illness. And, with the interconnection of the world, while you may reduce the overall population, the requirement for corporations, businesses, and interaction would lead to greater contact overall. The greatest threat in terms of epidemic and pandemic really is transportation, and how these diseases can ride on ships, planes, and trains to spread themselves rapidly. Population is only one factor. + +##Psychological issues: + +While there may be some stress from living in a big city, I don't think you can attribute all mental health issues, or indeed most, just to population side. Setting aside the fact that there are plenty of extroverts who would thrive in a more populous region, those who are under stresses that lead to depression and other mental illness are often driven there not by the number of people around them, but by the societal pressures that population brings. Competing for jobs, dealing with negative advertisements and peer pressure, feeling threatened by certain people, trying to support ones self. It's more about quality than quantity. +turboboob: Reading back through, your response and the response from /u/blackflag415 (after reading most of the night about Malthusian checks and mega fauna) have at least convinced me that I need to learn more about my opinion before my view can be changed. &#8710;" +"KuulGryphun: Why shouldn't a store be allowed to deny to sell anything to whomever they want? + +Lets say you started a lemonade stand on the street. Are you telling me you want to be legally bound to sell lemonade to anyone who walks up to your stand, no matter what? + +Note: I want an answer to this from OP, I know very well what a possible answer is. + +> I am still denied the right to buy the game + +Why do you believe you have such a right? +fiachraaa_: ∆ - I've realised that the business is not obliged to sell to me - they can make their own decision and do what they feel is right for their business." +"Aftercourse: The problem here is that sex and gender use the same terms. It is simple to come up with concrete terms for sex (pure biology, and what that OED definition covers), because it refers only to what reproductive system(s), if any, one possesses. + +Gender, which is what you seem to be concerned with, is based on internal awareness, and much harder to pin down. ""Male"" and ""Female"" aren't particularly useful as descriptors of gender, as it is a continuum, and these only represent two points. To use an analogy, it's like trying to define car parts as ""front wheels"" and ""rear wheels"". What is a door? A turbocharger? A chapman strut? + +So, male and female have a coherent meaning, but only in terms of sex. When used as gender descriptors, they are incoherent and mostly useless. +rowawat: >So, male and female have a coherent meaning, but only in terms of sex. When used as gender descriptors, they are incoherent and mostly useless. + +I'm not convinced it is socially acceptable to limit definitions of these terms to biological sex. A sentence like ""pregnancy is an issue that affects females [or women],"" for example, would be considered offensive. It is also considered offensive to say that a trans person was ""born (fe)male"" and later transitioned. " +"Nepene: There are many reasons why you might prefer the rectangular cut. + +You note that the triangular cut exposes more middle bread to the air, more food. This is also a downside. If you leave them for a while they will go slightly stale, dry out faster as they are more exposed. For a utilitarian mind which may want a sandwich at any time perpendicular is the way to go. + +The wide and varying width of the triangular cut makes it harder to avoid getting food on your mouth, wasted. As you slide it in it's easier for the edge to hit the corner of your mouth. This can be a big issue for a man in a rush- if you get mayo in your beard it's gonna be hard to get out. + +It's also easier to stack a lot of them. With a rectangle you just put them on top of each other. With a triangle? That's more of an issue. Their floppiness means you can soon have a mess of ugly looking sandwiches falling over one another. + +Triangle sandwiches can often actually lead to more damage. Because of the shape if you put it in a ziplock bad then you tend to draw it out through a corner. This can lead to tearage and slippage of food. + +Provides a consistent dip into soup. With a triangle the wideness often blocks you dipping it deep enough, meaning you have to scrunch it or dip it, eat it, and then dip it again and burn your fingers a bit. A square or rectangle shape which has a consistent width is easier to dip. +k9centipede: You present some interesting arguments for rectangular cuts. + +1) Long term storage: +Yes, I guess you are right that a rectangular cut would be preferable to a triangular cut if you are going a long time between cutting and eating, but it'd be much easier to just leave the sandwich whole and then cut it when you're ready to eat. + +2) Messy when eating: +I don't see how a triangular cut would be any messier than a rectangular cut since you'd still be burying your face is sandwichness as you eat. Unless you're eating the sandwich from one short edge to the other short edge, whole bites at a time, you'd get a messy eating experience either way. And if you're eating a sandwich that way, then you're just bad at eating sandwiches. Unless you have scientific antidotes of that being a standard way of eating sandwiches? + +3) Stacking: +I did some scientific research for that claim by googling 'Stacked Sandwiches' and [this triangular cut stack](http://www.acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_images_n300/0015-0603-1710-5953_food_stack_bologna_sandwiches.jpg) not only came up earlier on the page than [this rectangular cut stack](http://www.foodiecrush.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/stacked-sandwiches.jpg) but it has more in the stack. Also, any need to stack sandwiches would be greatly improved by simply putting the sandwiches in a [platter formation](http://www.bakenmo.co.za/wordpress/wp-content/themes/novocane/sandwich-platter.jpg) that best fits triangle cuts. + +4) Transportation: +Hmmmmmmmmm. This might be the strongest argument, as rectangular cuts placed vertically in a ziplock bag allow both halves to be easily removed, while the second triangle cut would have to be fished out. + +5) Dipping: +I think that the experience of dipping a triangle cut is much better than that of a rectangular cut, and the consistent dip the rectangle cut might provide is not enough to make it a better option there, but it would be an acceptable option for that. + +&#8710; you've changed my mind to see that rectangle cuts are ONLY preferable when transportation in a ziplock would be necessary, and that they are a valid option when dipping. " +"BrobaFett: Well the ""alcoholism is a disease"" paradigm is not an excuse for behavior, contrary to popular perception. The way we are taught in medicine to look at alcoholism and other lifestyle diseases is in terms of relative risk. Physiology is important to consider because a great deal of how you respond to even basic, daily routines will have to do with genetics. + +So, while it is fair to suggest (using another analogy) that a great deal of obesity is simply a matter of caloric intake there is a great deal of research to suggest the things that control everything from hormones such as insulin release, adiposity, basal metabolic rate, and other factors controlled by genetics contribute to a wide variety in [weight outcomes](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=9403316) + +So how does this apply to alcoholism? + +1. In terms of risk, you are 3-4 times more likely to suffer from alcohol abuse or dependance simply by [having a first degree relative who suffers from alcoholism](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=20148778) + +2. Twin studies are particularly powerful studies that compare outcomes between fraternal (twins from two different eggs) and identical (twins which come from the same zygote that has divided into two different embryos). These are important because it controls for things like *lifestyle* or *background* much more effectively. [These studies show that genetics may account for nearly 50% of the risk in developing alcohol abuse and dependence.](http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=173214) + +3. Are you ready for it to get *freaky*? Children of alcoholic parents who are *raised* by non alcoholic adoptive parents *still* retain a risk of developing alcoholism. [Yeah it surprised me, too](http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=490841) + +There's something *else* going on. It's not simply a matter of lifestyle choices. + +So how does it all work? At what point do genetics play a role? For one alcoholics tend to have a [diminished response to alcohol](http://www.jsad.com/jsad/article/Biological_Psychological_and_Environmental_Predictors_of_the_Alcoholism_Ri/540.html). This appears to precipitate tolerance as users must drink more in order to feel the same effect. Genetic differences in everything from [Alcohol Dehydrogenase](http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/9/1539.long), [Aldehyde dehydrogenase](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.1998.tb03683.x/abstract;jsessionid=A201F2EDF1AB85D1249779E895664FAA.d01t02), which all control how alcohol is metabolized all seem to comport this hypothesis. We even have working, if only partial, models for how alcohol may affect brain chemistry [[1](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=401541)] [[2](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=9545991)] down to how it effects [DNA after the fact](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00018-009-0135-y) (Contrary to popular belief, DNA can be, and is, altered throughout our lives). + +So are choices important? + +Of course, but there's good evidence to suggest that genetics also play a **major** hand in some people's risk of developing tolerance, abuse, and (eventually) dependance. But what do we really mean by ""choice"" and ""willpower""? Sure, but what we think is ""willpower"" may not [be all that it seems](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=finding-free-will). At the very least, the choices we make are certainly not *ex nihilo*. + +I hope this helps, if anything, shed some explanation on why some families seem to suffer *much more* than others with regards to alcohol. + +therobbo91: ∆. Seeing the studies you linked made quite a difference, especially when the genetics remained but the environment didn't in the adoptive study. I feel like a lot of this (diminished effect, for one) was something I learned once but forgot. " +"stjohnmccloskey: As one in a similar situation morally I feel similarly, though my concerns are purely hedonistic! I love me some bacon. For your economic concerns i can try to change your view! + +Essentially when you go to a restaurant and order a salad, the restaurant may not notice, but you have made a decision eith your money. If you do that more (or more people do it) the average amount of meat the restaurant buys will drop (probably minutely, but over time the price of meat will go up because demand is going down). + +The same goes for the supermarket. If you buy meat, then the supermarket will continue to buy meet in the same quantity. If you do not, then while the effect might be small, it's small in the right direction and will push the quantity of meat demanded down! + +So while your individual impact is small, it can be small in the right direction or the wrong direction. +I've decided to simply do the better thing, not the best thing, and eat less meat :p i just have such a strong taste for it that until eating vegetarian is a more affordable and *easy* solution, I wont be giving it up altogether! +ScotRead: ∆ Thanks! What was the one lingering doubt in my mind about vegetarianism, so now I'm glad I'll be able to commit when I make the switch. And a little bacon now and then's not the worst thing!" +"sillybonobo: >Theft: copying something can't possibly be theft because theft requires taking something away and copying doesn't do that. + +Thinking about IP violations as theft (defined as depriving someone of their rightfully owned property) is, in my mind, a wrong way to go about it. Ownership of something doesn't just mean you have possession of it, but that you have the right to *control its use.* We talk about violations of IP as ""theft"" when in reality, it is closer to a violation of the right to control the property. + +So if a person has a patent on a widget, he has the right to license and control the use of that widget. If he doesn't think it should be used in, say, weapons manufacturing- he has the right to deny the use of his IP in that field. + +Now say that a weapons company ignores this and uses the widget anyway. He has been wronged in two senses: first by loss of profits from the use of his widget (wherein the thing stolen is the *profit*, not the widget itself). Second, in the *control of the use* of the widget. The weapons manufacturer didn't deprive the inventor of *possession,* but he did deprive the inventor of *control.* + +So while it may not be theft of the property (on your definition of theft), it *is still a violation of property rights.* + +Edit- To the economic utility point: I'm not sure I get your point. The argument in favor of IP is that IP will not be developed without protection for use and profit. This seems clearly correct: say a corporation could steal any patent from any inventor and deprive the inventor of profit or control without fear of reprimand. What incentive would the inventor have to devote time to inventing? What incentive would any person have to do research, when they would not be able to profit from the research. + +>What we do know for sure, if a prohibition on commercial copying is implemented, is that individual rights will be violated. + +How? +RPrevolution: >Ownership of something doesn't just mean you have possession of it, but that you have the right to control its use. + +∆ That's a better way to look at it. + +However, can someone have the right to control the use of something that's not scarce? The whole purpose of property rights is to prevent conflict over scarce goods. + +>Now say that a weapons company ignores this and uses the widget anyway. He has been wronged in two senses: first by loss of profits from the use of his widget (wherein the thing stolen is the profit, not the widget itself). + +Can potential profit be stolen? That seems untenable because, for example, if competitor A takes market share away from B, the potential profit of B (compared to A never existing) is reduced. But that's just business." +"Namemedickles: > Or if you think it should be left for the next person's convenience it would actually make more sense to leave it up if you have more men in your house than women because we pee more often than we poop so the up position will be more necessary. + +Actually this isn't correct. If you have a mixture of women and men, you should include all of the women that need it down to pee, all of the times they need it down to poop *and* all of the times the men need it down to poop. If you do so you might find that it would be more respectful to leave it down on average. +Herpderp409: Okay depending on the proportion of males to females you could be right so I'll award a delta &#8710; because you changed my mind on it actually making more sense to leave it up in that situation. BUT I still think that it makes the most sense to just leave it as you leave it. It takes two seconds to change the position. " +"TOUCHER_OF_SHEEP: Obviously, you don't need to read books to add some fulfillment/enrichment to your life- there's just too many other ways of getting that enrichment these days. + +I'd argue that certain types of stimulus and enjoyment/escapism are only attainable through books, though- I wonder, do you agree with that, and that you're missing out on something due to the fact that you don't enjoy reading, or do you disagree? +owlsrule143: I have gone through all the thoughts you just said in my head. ""There are certain stimulus you can only achieve through reading"" + +Talk about this in more detail, that is the answer I am looking for. A compelling argument for why I should seek that particular stimulus, essentially " +"DHCKris: It objectively does not go against the scientific method. + +Atheism is not a hypothesis. You do not have to ""prove"" that God does not exist, as this is the base assumption. The burden of proof is on the religious to prove that God exists. Atheism rejects hypotheses related to the existence of God on the grounds that they have no evidence. + +Atheism does not have to provide evidence, as it is not making a claim, merely rejecting one. + +Science assumes that absolutely nothing is true unless it can be shown repeatedly in a laboratory through experiments. Show me an experiment that is evidence of a scientific method by which an omnipotent being can create life, and I will believe in God. Otherwise, I will not. I don't have to prove why not, just like I don't have to prove that there isn't a giant, flying toaster spinning around Mars. You and I both know there isn't one unless proven otherwise. +currytacos: But we can prove that there is not a giant toaster going around Mars because we have visual proof. there is no proof saying that God does not exist absence of proof from one party does != proof for another. If you are making absolute statement then you do need proof. + +" +"Seraphtheol: I'm assuming for this CMV you are talking about physician assisted suicide, many prisoners already commit suicide in prison by a variety of means. + +If you are talking about physician assisted suicide, why should prisoners have a right that the vast majority of the population does not? While you might be saving some money off prisoners choosing to end their own life, it seems you might also be incentivizing others looking to end their own life in such a manner to commit crimes to take advantage of this option. +SebasTheBass: I'll specify and try to answer your point. + +>If you are talking about physician assisted suicide, why should prisoners have a right that the vast majority of the population does not? + +Yea I think physician assisted suicide could be a way, they could also hang or shoot the prisoner. So not just that. I do think that in the US people should be able to end their own life via assisted suicide. Prisoners can't really fix the problems they are facing in prison. They have no real escape. + +>it seems you might also be incentivizing others looking to end their own life in such a manner to commit crimes to take advantage of this option. + +And what is the problem with that exactly? As long as they are adult, and not directly harming someone. Why shouldn't they be allowed to put themselves in prison so they can end their life? +" +"Scribbles_: One thing you should know is that virtually every Studio Ghibli film revolves around a coming-of-age plot. The plot throws challenges and quick change at immature characters that are unprepared for it, they must adapt and must be brave and show what's inside, their internal struggle is often emphasized. + +Also every character, good or bad, has motives and development. Yubaba the bathouse owner is not evil just because, she's got a business to run. The witch of the waste is heartbroken and proud, which leads to wrath. Lady Eboshi cared about her town, employing the marginalized lepers, starting nothing short of an industrial revolution, albeit forgetting the damage to the environment. + +The braveness of characters is also rarely your macho western protagonist willing to face and slice million monsters and then self-immolate. The braveness is often displayed by vulnerable characters that have much to lose and don't have the skills or the strength to chop their way to victory, they must be cunning, firm, and rely on their (often newly made) friends if they want to succeed. + +All this combined with the art and the music, like you mentioned, makes just about every Studio Ghibli film a masterpiece. +TheAbjectLol: I knew, boldly breaking this subreddit's rules, that I wouldn't be able to reply within 3 hours when I posted this (as I'm in Australia and I posted just before I went to sleep), so I'm not sure if me replying to this comment will be of much or any use. Nonetheless, I'll give it a shot: + +I have to say that reading through all of the comments that people took time to leave, a great deal has been done to sway my view on this topic. Naturally I'll need to re-watch the films in order to check the swayedness of my view. + +Some people mentioned that I didn't do much to explain what it is about the films that I don't like, or that I was being too technical in my proposition. I did deliberately not go into too much of why I like movies and so on, hoping to leave things more general and open to discussion. You'll also just have to take my words for it that I'm greatly emotionally affected by movies and believe in their gestaltness too as nicely worded by BolshevikMuppet. + +Reading through everyone points here, I look forward to the approaching re-watch. Perhaps finding the films so high on lists like the IMDB top 250 I watched them too technically or mistrustfully the first time, unlike how I'd watch something I stumbled across more organically. + +Almost everyone commented on things like analogy and interesting characters. While I usually watch films with things like this in mind, perhaps I didn't when I set about watching Ghibli for one of any number of reasons. Having a few things pointed out in this respect had been useful. + +If I get a chance I'll reply to these individually to thank you for your time. Things are pretty hectic for me at the moment (perhaps that's why I had the urge to ask this question; via some buried wont for fantasy) so if I don't post individual replies - know I've read everything here and that it's been helpful. + +∆" +"Methodless: I'm not sure what type of insurance you're specifically referring to. But insurance in general is used to cover losses - especially on things you cannot afford. + +I agree with you, that you would not insure something that is worth very little. However, something like auto insurance could lead to protecting you from claims that would otherwise bankrupt you. + +You're measuring a cost benefit analysis. Odds of using vs benefit from using. However, that is not the way it needs to be looked at. + +Let me demonstrate with a numerical example: + +Assume: +your net worth is $100000 +if you get into a car accident, the damages will be over $100000 +the probability of you getting into a car accident is .1% + +A car insurance company would charge you more than .1% * 100000 = $100 to insure you. Your implication (which I agree with) is that the more than $100 (let's assume $200 for the rest of my post) they will charge for insurance is higher than fair. + +Here is why I don't agree with you: +With Insurance: Net worth = $100000 - $200 = $99800 +No Accident (99.9% chance): Net worth = $99800 +Accident (.1% chance): Net worth = $99800 + +Without Insurance: Net worth = $100000 +No Accident (99.9% chance): Net worth = $100000 +Accident (.1% chance): Net worth = $0 + +Would you not rather have a guaranteed net worth of $99800 (instead of $100000) than risk the chance of being completely bankrupt? + + + + +That all having been said, if the numbers are the same and your net worth is 100 million instead of 100000 I can see your perspective as the worst case scenario would not put a large dent in your lifestyle +MeltingDog: ∆ Thanks! This has changed my mind. The maths makes sense. I wont get insurance on everything I have, ever (which I assumed was common practice for everyone) but I will insure things where the loss of it would perhaps send me bankrupt" +"[deleted]: Well, waste is one issue. Nuclear power plants still produce a pretty substantial amount of waste. This probably isn't relevant, since the ""waste"" (in the form of CO2) from fossil fuel power plants is pretty substantial, too. (EDIT: Though, honestly, this is still worth considering considering the nature of the waste. Originally, this read in a way that made the waste seem negligible, and I don't want it to!) + +To an extent, fear is a problem as well - cold war attitudes still make people think that ""nuclear"" means ""extremely dangerous"", even when the technology has gotten much safer. This is very prevalent in America, from what I've seen. People know very little about nuclear power, but they know nuclear bombs almost ended the world. + +A big reason that we're not switching to nuclear power is cost. It's very expensive to switch from the energy sources we're using to nuclear power on a large scale. + +Another big reason is jobs. Many people depend on the oil industry and etc. for work. (EDIT: Check /u/david12scht's post below! It's relevant and you should research economic impacts of technological shifts yourself, too. Still, while we're almost certainly going to be fine after the fossil fuel industry is gone, the fact it's here and providing jobs now *is* relevant as a why as outlined in this post.) + +We don't use them more often because it's scary, expensive and too many people depend on fossil fuels to make their living. + +So yes, we probably should use nuclear power more openly, but it's going to be a very slow process to get to that point because of how depedant we've become on fossil fuels *and* how nuclear power works, right now. These are some of the reasons that, *right now*, we can't. +Geneio42: *Ding Ding Ding* We have a winner. Thanks. Your comment made a really good argument by using both sides and points that I guess I have over looked. Hasn't change my view but rather showed me the other side and has made my opinion a more centralised one. Good job. + +&#8710; <--- Never done this before ~~[Hope this works]~~" +"Dinaverg: So, what exactly are the 'harms' to culture that occur? You must understand, if you read the statements you've made from the perspective that 'turks and muslims' are people with exactly equivalent value to any other human, like Germans and Scandinavians; then things like seeing them outside and having them in your school are not actually harms. So maybe you could clarify the concrete negative effects (to culture in particular, since you mention it) that would not occur if these individuals were German instead of, say Turkish? +TheThing345: As stated: + +> germans being made fun of, for being german, in their own damn country + +Is quite the harm in my eyes. + +Furthermore, (it's a stereotype redneck argument, but still aplies in some cases), especially the romanians do nothing but leech off the government, no searching for work, nothing + +However, +>if these individuals were German instead of, say Turkish + +is a very good argument that I can't really counter though +&#8710;" +"Snafu_Coaxer_2013: This depends on what you're debating. If it's something that requires normative judgements (like a political debate or a philosophical debate), suggesting reading can often be more helpful because it's incredibly difficult to summarise a lengthy argument that is designed to take you on some sort of emotional journey or convince you of a particular value judgement. + +Also, summarised arguments are easy to misinterpret, so if someone has worded an argument particularly clearly and it's not too lengthy, it's often beneficial to refer to it rather than attempt to phrase it in a way that will likely be misinterpreted and you'll be left without a way to properly defend it because you can't find the particular mistake you made +greengreen_grass: It can be helpful, especially once someone has failed once to give the argument, but to not even try..." +"GameboyPATH: The idea that this Earth is supposedly littered with billions of individual consciousnesses is, indeed, a mindblowing thought that's difficult to comprehend. + +But let me counter that with something just as mindblowing. Consider how [small we are in the context of the entire universe](http://htwins.net/scale2/). It's easy to consider human consciousness as significant when it's what we're exposed to our entire lives, but in the grand scheme of the universe, we are merely a speck. Likewise, going small-scale on that interactive page also demonstrates how possible it is for small parts of matter and energy to create something as unique and cool as a human consciousness. It's not impossible to imagine another person as having a mind of their own. Hell, by some theologies of religion and philosophy, our minds are simply individual parts of a greater consciousness. +mrgnostic: &#8710; Convinced but not entirely: Your comment has made me see how everything that I think is incomprehensible is very insignificant to this size to the size of something like VY Canis Majoris (The biggest star currently known of) or even the whole universe as a whole. + +However, I would like to go on and think this is true but I still feel a underlying uncertainty as to how I can comprehend the sheer mass of our universe but still somewhat think that everyone other than me is a so called [Philosophical Zombie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie) because of my inability to accept that everyone has a mind that is just as active as myself. + +Thank you very much for that!" +"welcometohere: Who are you following on Twitter? If you follow people that you know are going to start drama, that's what you're going to get. + +You wrote +>[on Reddit] there is a treasure trove of actual news and discussion that can be found. + +You can find tons of news and discussion on Twitter. I follow many news agencies and individual journalists to get news. Ultimately, why do you have to participate? What's so bad about following people to read what they say, but not responding? + +Twitter, like almost all social media, is entirely what **YOU** want it to be. If you want it to be your news source, so be it. If you want it to be the way you find what your friends are up to, so be it. But you really can't blame the platform for the actions of the users. +actionsketch: ∆ + +I think the only way my view can be changed is by using twitter... which is more or less what /u/welcometohere is saying. Twitter isn't *for* anyone, it's more about what you make of it. + +There seems to be two ways to approach twitter... as a custom news source and/or a social networking platform. + +I feel like reddit is a consistently great custom news source while twitter is better in the moment when something big is happening, because people on the scene can tweet and spread their experiences quickly. So news doesn't change my mind. + +The social platform aspect seems to be more about networking. I don't actually know anyone personally who uses twitter between common friends. So, I'm not convinced here either... but then again, maybe I'll find a bunch of friends on twitter that change my mind. This is probably what it's going to take." +"agentxorange127: I think that the state of the world should not necessarily influence your decision to have/not have children. The whole ""the world is getting worse"" idea has been around for all of history. It's just a depressing feature of being an intelligent being (the fact that we have to worry about how our actions affect others). + +Why is the world getting worse? Technology is progressing at a much faster rate. There are no World Wars, no conflicts where hundreds of millions of people die. We hear more ""sad"" things only because we have access to vast amounts of information, more than we have ever had access to before. There are more people, yes, but that seems to not be the reasoning behind you not wanting to have kids (which would be an arguable reason). + +The whole ""the world is going to shit"" is not a great idea to have in your head. Other than the fact it is depressing and doesn't make you have a very good worldview, it is also just not true. People have had that attitude for ages, but the world progresses none the less. That attitude leads to becoming a old-timer who just raves about how much simpler a time it used to be while being completely ignorant of today's society; someone who looks to the past, and not the future. +UnivitedSam: You know, I never looked at it that way. Many people on this thread seem to think that the media has alot to do with my outlook on it. That just because we have access to an extraordinary amount of information can be negative, but should it not also be positive? If I have access to so much information shouldn't the positive and the negative be in equal volumes? Or is it accurate? + +Also, people seem to think that advanced technology is a good thing. Because its gotten to a point where information is so easily accessible, *negative* information can be spread just as easy. Just look at the recent event in Ottawa, it was a Canadian that was radicalized over the internet about the Islamic state which lead to his actions. + +EDIT: Expanding my idea +" +"shibbyhornet82: I think there would still be a place for strip clubs. There are different levels of sexual objectification and different people are morally comfortable with different amounts. One could have made essentially the same argument you're making by saying that Hooters shouldn't have been open when strip clubs were open, because if you're going somewhere for a woman's breasts why not have her wearing as little as possible? Yet Hooters did great business for years. + +Also, I know of married men who think it's somehow funny/novel to hang out in strip clubs, but would never think of physically cheating on their wives - there's a definite line that exists in our culture that ensures that some of the people who want risque entertainment won't patronize brothels. +MordorsFinest: These are some pretty good points. Hooters is a pretty decent example of my argument, its a strip club that offers something extra (food), yet strip clubs are still around...though the hooters girls dont get naked and give lap dances. + +**I'll give you a ∆** +" +"sonofaresiii: It's very difficult to change someone's views on something that is entirely subjective. The answer is: + +City life is preferable to country life, unless you prefer country life more. + +Some people like the more slowed down/relaxed nature of the country. Some people like the big open spaces, with the ability to do more activities. Some people like that the country is less crowded. Some people like the ability to do things in public but still be private (ever fired off illegal bottle rockets in a massive field as a kid just for kicks, knowing that there's no chance anyone's around for miles to bitch at you for it?). Some people like having lots of animals. Some people like the lack of pseudo-anonymity and prefer to get to know their neighbors well. + +There's really no way to convince you that country life is preferable, because it all comes down to what you personally prefer. The best I can do, maybe, is convince you that country life is preferable to *some people.* + +For the record, I love city life and hate country life (I've done both). But I completely understand why some people might prefer country life. +alexskc95: >Some people like that the country is less crowded. Some people like the ability to do things in public but still be private (ever fired off illegal bottle rockets in a massive field as a kid just for kicks, knowing that there's no chance anyone's around for miles to bitch at you for it?). Some people like having lots of animals. Some people like the lack of pseudo-anonymity and prefer to get to know their neighbors well. + +Fair enough. I don't consider any of those important, and they're so low on my priority list I didn't even think of them, but for some people, I'm sure they're hugely important. Different people have different priorities and I guess I sometimes have trouble seeing eye-to-eye on that. + +&#8710;" +"KingOfSockPuppets: >I feel as though I'm lying to myself. + +Why? And what 'technical standpoint' are you referring to? Gender is mostly a surface level set of assumptions we make about other people to orient which social norms we should apply when interacting with them. Sure, biology has some influence and in a *very* few realms, might be a concern, but in terms of how we treat people in a day-to-day environment there's no reason trans people are not their gender. +JoMommaa: Mmm I see what you mean. + +In regards to the 'technical standpoint' thing, what I mean is on a biological level - DNA and chromosomes. + + +Basically the way I see it is (using my original example of a man becoming a woman) that this person is ethically a woman and I will refer to her as a woman. But inside, my conscience tells me that this person may now be taken as a woman, but in actuality is a man who has mutilated genitals to resemble a vagina." +"Tentacolt: >The theory of The Patriarchy, as I understand it, says that men have a great deal more control over society than women and use this to the benefit of men and the detriment of women. + +This is a misunderstanding of the theory then. Patriarchy theory is simply that our present day gender roles (for both men and women) are decended from the values of society during institutionalized patriarchy. + +Men are protectors, and providers, women are fragile and motherly etc. etc. + +[This woman](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI2yf9aueBA&feature=player_detailpage&t=345) explains patriarchy theory amazingly. +bgaesop: I have now watched this video. It was very good! I am confused, though, because the video seems to be talking about how men and women are both oppressed by the patriarchy, whereas the overwhelming majority of what I have read on this before refers to women as an oppressed class and men as oppressors. + +Still though, &#8710;" +"KuulGryphun: Why shouldn't a store be allowed to deny to sell anything to whomever they want? + +Lets say you started a lemonade stand on the street. Are you telling me you want to be legally bound to sell lemonade to anyone who walks up to your stand, no matter what? + +Note: I want an answer to this from OP, I know very well what a possible answer is. + +> I am still denied the right to buy the game + +Why do you believe you have such a right? +fiachraaa_: I guess you're right. I believe I have a right because there are no laws saying that I shouldn't be allowed to buy the game I guess? But can you see how it annoys people my age? I mean most gamers my age are mature enough for these games. I have the money to buy the game, I haven't done anything wrong (its not the law), but they won't sell me the game because of my age. It just kind of annoys me. + +However I do realise that now from the comments the shop decide how they run their business, and that I shouldn't be complaining if they don't want to sell the game to me. " +"RustyRook: > Am I missing out on good experiences that only a controller can offer? + +Yeah, you're missing out on the subtle immersion that the vibrations from a controller can generate. I played an action game (probably Tomb Raider) a little while ago, and when an explosion took place off-screen, or sometimes during a cut scene, the controller would vibrate. Coupled with the sound design it really added to the feeling of being ""inside"" the game. + +Edit: You mentioned the Batman games. It's been a while since I played them, but I think the controller vibrated a little during a silent takedown, mimicking the thug's struggling. It was cool. It's hard to explain the value of the sensation in its absence, but it did add some extra enjoyment to the game. +JamesDK: Vibration is a cool feature, but is it enough? In my mind, a vibration in the controller doesn't really translate into an action on the screen. It's a little bit of haptic feedback (the way my phone vibrates a little when I touch certain objects), but for things like explosions? I feel like that would be more immersion-breaking than enhancing. Something huge blows up and all I get is a little wrist-wiggle? I don't know if that would really help my enjoyment of the game." +"arjun10: It wasn't too long ago that people of Irish, Italian, and other non-Anglo European ethnicities were treated as second-class citizens in the US. Fast-forward to today--now the ""tribe"" has been extended to include them as White. + +Another example is that of indigenous people in North America. Back in the day, different tribes (i.e. Mi'kmaq and Mowhawk) would fight one another regularly. Fast-forward to today, and while they still have their distinct cultures, they are united under the label of ""indigenous"" or ""native american"". + +Point being, race, ethnicity, and culture are *very* fluid categories, and you just have to have a cursory understanding of history to understand that through collaboration, solidarity, and mutual struggle, these categories can become increasingly blurred and irrelevant. In the context of today's America, I would say that the interests of working-class Black and White folks are much more aligned than the interests of working class White folks and wealthy White elites, and that this can be the basis for overcoming current tensions and perceived differences in race. +Jrlz: This is an excellent response. + +EDIT: Delta removed to continue interesting conversation. + +EDIT 2: Delta reawarded. ∆ +The indigenous people of North America example you raised is a very good example of (literal) tribes uniting. + +I guess progress is slow, and sometimes things regress a little, but the overall trend is positive. I guess if we're all patient, we'll eventually build a more effective, more fair society." +"NaturalSelectorX: I do a little volunteer work with a women's shelter (though I'm a guy), and you will probably find that those shelters offer services for men as well. The shelter I work with has a dedicated facility for women, and partners with hotels for men. This is because there are far more women requiring shelter than men. In this case, there is a legitimate need to keep them separate. + +As far as gyms, I believe that is plainly discriminatory. While I understand the desire for women to workout without men around, that desire does not justify discrimination. If a white person felt in danger around black people, could that person have a whites-only gym? + +If women feel like they are in danger, then gym has failed to create a safe environment for them to work out. A gym could cater to women by having more private workout ""booths"", and a good security presence to achieve the same feeling of safety. A gym can also respond promptly to complaints of inappropriate behavior from members, and then ban them from the facility. + +If the mere presence of a man causes a woman to feel in danger, then the problem lies with the woman. That view of the world is just as prejudicial as a white man being afraid of a black man. We should not cater to it. +the_skeleton_queen: ∆ + +Very convincing to get an opinion from someone who actually works with a shelter that helps men… and you have a lot of great points, especially about how fear doesn't make discrimination justified. Although someone else made a great point about how women might not necessarily feel threatened by men at the gym, but embarrassed. But I think you're absolutely right in saying that if a woman feels threatened, it's because the gym is not creating a safe environment for them. + +I see why there's a market for women-only gyms, but I guess there could be a market in some places for whites-only gyms, or straights-only gyms, and I would think that is wrong… so you have CMV!" +"moonflower: If he is setting this condition as an ultimatum, then technically, you *would* have to sacrifice your current job to continue in the relationship. + +But it's not as simple as that because you want both the job and the relationship, so if he is unwilling to sacrifice his own job and move to your country, then you will have to make the decision as to which one of those you want more. + +It's not sacrificing your *career* though, it's only sacrificing this particular job and switching your career onto a new track. + +\*EDIT: Had a look at you previous posts, you said you only just started this relationship in the beginning of April ... chances are that if you go and live with him, the reality will not live up to the fantasy and it will soon be over ... but you might have to actually go through that to find out for sure otherwise you might always believe that it would have been wonderful if only you could have been together for ever. +mochicken: 1 &#8710; to moonflower " +"aiccia: I don't think anyone is going to argue that you don't have the right to use deadly force when defending your home from an violent intruder. + +The problem in these situations, and which I see in your example, is often the owner starts shooting before visually confirming the violent intent of the intruder. Visually confirming a target is the cardinal first rule in any shooting encounter, whether military, hunting, or self-defense. + +In your example, you clearly state that because your alarm goes off and you hear glass breaking, you're going to automatically assume that danger is imminent. There have been several cases recently where owners shot and killed people banging on their front door when it was only a motorist needing help. + +No one would recommend confirming a target simply because they don't respond to your challenge. Maybe they need medical help and are choking or passing out? Maybe they don't speak English? + + + +garbageraven: A motorist, or someone chokingis not going to break my windows. I don't plan on shooting someone that knocks on my door. But I understand your concern, there needs to be 100% assurance that your life is in danger, correct? " +"stoopydumbut: Dogs only eat poo if you leave poo lying around. That's a reason to not leave poo lying around, no a reason to get rid of a dog. + +When you say ""you"" shouldn't own a dog, do you mean specifically me? Because I don't live in Germany so my dog won't hump your leg on the bus or poop in your park. Those seem to be problems with Germany, not problems with dogs. + +Dogs sometimes kill people, but they also sometimes save people's lives. + +It's true that he consumes resources and produces CO2, but by that reasoning, I shouldn't own anything. +Theobromin: You seem to be one of the considerate dog owners. Unfortunately not all dog owners are considerate. But even the most considerate dog-owning does not change my last three points. +Certain dogs sometimes save lifes. These are trained dogs (not privately owned), which I specifically excluded. The incidents of ""wonder dogs"", who saved the baby from the burning building are too rare to make up for the deaths. + +>I shouldn't own anything. + +This is an reductio ad absurdum. Of course you can own things, but one should ponder the pros and cons of owning certain things. I still think in the case of dog-owning the cons dominate by far. " +"kabukistar: >I actually think if there was no prison or capital punishment it would have very little effect on crime rates. The few people who are truly serial offenders could just be put in hospitals and the rest will eventually be released from prison anyway and will be far crazier on release after spending decades in the pen. + +If there's no official justice system, then there would be nothing to deter people from using violent revenge and angry mob justice when they feel that they have been wronged. And vigilantes, mobs, and revenge seekers tend to be far more violent and hot-blooded than a dispassionate governmental legal system. +parissyndrome1988: ∆ That's a good point. Maybe the real purpose of a justice system is to regulate people's blood lust, and protect the criminal and the order of society, not the victim. People always say the justice system ignores the victim, but maybe it's not really about the victim anyhow. + +Even though IMO punishment is pretty much useless in a civilized society beyond preventing vigilantism, we evolved in a way that makes us want to destroy those who commit acts of harm. Often even if they are not as serious as murder (ie robbery, sex crimes, etc - plenty of people would have them executed too)" +"arcticblue12: And how do you propose to pay for all of this? Sure it's a noble effort that you want to get everyone the help they deserve but this would be a massive effort and require the funding and man power to back it up. Also people have lies where they are, who is to say that you may relocate someone who just recently became homeless and is looking to get bak on their feet. Also you assume that all homeless don't have jobs. I've met quite a few who do work all day and struggle after because they cannot afford housing because they simply do not make enough money. +I_STAB_HIPSTER_FILTH: ∆ + +If I recall, it costs six figures to incarcerate a person in USA. I think some of that money could easily go to treating crazies. + +And I have never met a working homeless person. And while I worked temp jobs (like the lowest quality manual labour) I have not met a single homeless person. Plenty of migrant workers, plenty of illegal ones, but not one homeless. + +But you do have a right point that a person that just lost their livelihood does not deserve to go to jail. Just a few years there was a scam going around Russia where multiple deposits were collected for the same apartment, with forged ownership documents. People give up their savings, get no housing and have nowhere to go. But this is generally rare in the west. And I guess the foreclosure scams are getting increasingly frequent. + +I guess I had a different perspective living in Canada. I forget just how many people do end up on the street and why. Most that I meet are there because they want to be..." +"Hq3473: What about constitutional monarchy? + +All the upside of electing most of your government with a cool extra of having a royal family that is very entertaining, and may even be useful for foreign relations. + +Seems to work for UK, Sweden, Belgium, etc. + +Sweden, Belgium have higher standard of living than US. + +http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index +BojackOfCourseMan: OK I hate to split hairs but what are we talking about exactly? + +A constitutional monarch where you have a royal family And a functional parliament Or a monarch that is bound by a constitution? + +I would argue that UK, Sweden, Belgium are all democracies, and that their ""higher standards of living"" have no correlation with their monarchies but rather other features of their democratic systems. + + +Also have you seen this?: + +http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/08/26/if-the-uk-was-a-u-s-state-it-would-be-the-second-poorest-behind-alabama-and-before-mississippi/ + +Sure wealth is not necessarily a way to measure quality of life, but my point is UK, Sweden, and Belgium all have their issues as well, and the U.S. has unique problems to deal with that the other nations don't and vice versa. I would say the quality of life in these places and the democratic systems are similar enough that this does not change my view, sorry. + +EDIT: Please ignore the above link, it has been refuted here: http://time.com/3198225/britain-poorest-state/ + +My arguments still stand though." +"PepperoniFire: The issue is that marriage as it stands is basically a default scheme predicated upon that legal status. As you've mentioned, it deals from issues ranging from inheritance to taxes to medical decisions to child custody. These default rules can be modified via prenuptial agreements, but it still stands as a basic package for people with a legally recognized relationship. + +Your suggestion flows from good intentions where couples who want to formalize their romantic relationship create their own contract and dictate its terms. The problem with this is that marriage touches on so many aspects - [over 1,000 federal laws alone](http://www.gao.gov/assets/230/223674.pdf) ([2004 update](http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04353r.pdf)) - that building it from the ground up is cumbersome, time consuming, and probably expensive to the extent it would require a lawyer. You would be asking people to contemplate all the circumstances and likelihoods that matrimonial law effectively does already by virtue of having the same issues arise for hundreds of years. + +In a way, marriage functions as a very egalitarian institution because it is within easy reach of broad swaths of people. For ~$40.00 you can get what you or an attorney would (for a fee) have to draft. You would have to hope it contemplates all of the same things and that every clause is legally enforceable. Making it more costly - actually (legal fees and associated costs) and through time/effort spent - makes marriage far less accessible. We already have an access-to-justice problem. Low-income people can't get the legal representation they need, particularly with civil issues, because it's too costly and pro bono/legal aid societies can't effectively pick up the slack. + +Requiring people to create marriage-like agreements piecemeal and then be on the alert to update it every time their circumstance changes is not only problematic generally, but will just exacerbate this access issue and predominantly affect people in lower socioeconomic circles. Even when we talk about boilerplate forms one can download off the Internet, these oftentimes fall short and would still require the creation and formalization (probably notarized too) of each and every right and responsibility flowing from marriage as it stands today. + +Also, this ignores another issue: non-marital laws still work in conjunction with and refer to marital status. Social Security is not matrimonial law but it still creates benefits based on marital status. Inheritance law is not matrimonial law but it still creates rights and presumptions based on marital status. Evidence law is not matrimonial law but it still creates privileges based on marital status. Bearing this in mind: + +1. You can't just get the government 'out of marriage' by turning it into a traditional contractual relationship because you would still have to get rid of statutorily created rights/benefits/privileges/presumptions that were drafted independently, and; + +2. Since it's unlikely that we'll just reform these laws piecemeal, each individual law can still dictate what kind of relationships it chooses to acknowledges for the purpose of that statute, i.e., still discriminate against 'peculiar' kinds of relationships. We saw (2) arise when some states legalized gay marriage but those couples only had equal status in state law, not federal law, pre-*Windsor*. You (general you) and your four partners can draft your contract, but the SSA and Congress can still be jerks and say their death benefits are only for monogamous two-party couples so long as they have a rational basis for it. + +Moreover, the law that would govern traditional contracts is ill-suited for the nature of marriage. Contract law is designed to facilitate *arms-length* economic transactions to allow the economic pie to grow bigger. It is enforced, in part, by the state. Marriage is by definition intimate. We don't breach marriages. We don't sue our partners for damages if things don't work out. Instead, we have equitable dissolution, the parameters of which are outlined primarily by state marriage (not contract) laws. It was created to ensure both parties leave in the best way possible (even if it is imperfect) rather than ""making them pay."" Sure, we could keep these rules, but then we'd be circling right back to a special body of law that caters to the unique circumstances arising out of marriage that we just don't care about in a standard contracts. + +If we're going to discuss marriage equality between monogamous and non-monogamous couples, it would probably be better to do things with an eye towards reform of present marriage law rather than non-monogamous couples deferring to recreating a marriage-like scenario from the ground up. This is what gay and lesbian couples have historically had to do and there is a reason they pushed for marriage equality beyond the ability to make a solemn, public declaration, and that's because the extent to which that status affects the partners is massive. + +Marriage creates sensible rights, defined contours and presumptions for important issues of natural consequence when we invest our lives, finances and future into a community of interests. Getting government out of it is unlikely to solve its inequities. +Vanbone: First of all, thank you for your well written and thoughtful response. You make a number of very good points, but they seem largely pragmatic, based in the difficulty of changing or re-making the gargantuan system that currently exists. This is certainly valid, but I confess that I find it somewhat difficult to reconcile with my views, which I confess are largely philosophical. + +> Even when we talk about boilerplate forms one can download off the Internet, these oftentimes fall short and would still require the creation and formalization (probably notarized too) of each and every right and responsibility flowing from marriage as it stands today. + +To my view, though I certainly have not dealt in writing contracts professionally, a good deal of society relies on contracts, which are open to customization, but largely standardized. I would envision marriage contracts could be similarly standardized, while still allowing for the individual needs and desires to the participants. + +> We don't breach marriages. We don't sue our partners for damages if things don't work out. Instead, we have equitable dissolution - the parameters of which are outlined primarily by state marriage (not contract) laws - that was created to ensure both parties leave in the best way possible (even if it is imperfect) rather than ""making them pay."" Sure, we could keep these rules, but then we'd be circling right back to a special body of law that caters to the unique circumstances arising out of marriage that we just don't care about in a standard contracts. + +You make a good point here. I suppose on some level you've changed my view - I don't necessarily feel that society should be torn down and reformed so that it's systems no longer take marriage into consideration (though considering the divorce rate, there may be other arguments for that). So perhaps marriage should have, if not more oversight, *different* oversight from traditional contracts. I still believe that the Government should have extremely limited power to regulate who can and cannot enter into a marriage, but that is a strong shift in my view at the least. + +Thank you, I'll award you a delta as soon as I figure out how. + +edit: &#8710; = ���" +"theconstipator: The thing about ""fat acceptance"" is, its sort of glorifying being unhealthy. You bring up some good points and I'm sorry that you have been mocked for being heavy, but the truth is, being overweight is a terrible lifestyle. Not only because of how it damages your health, but because of the hatred some people have of fat people. You can't make people who hate fat people go away. There will always be mean people. But, unless you have a legitimate reason making it impossible to lose weight, you can stop being mocked by losing weight. + +When you accept the fact that you are overweight, and feel ""comfortable"" in your own skin, you're simply giving people a reason to mock you. I don't have any biases against overweight people but I know people that do will always exist. And by feeling comfortable overweight, you're letting yourself be mocked, as opposed to taking a stand. The more comfortable you are being far, the fatter you will get and the more insults you will receive. + + + +**TL;DR**: The reason it is bad to be comfortable with being fat is the fact that having that mindset and continuing to ""let yourself go"" will make you get more insults. When you accept your body as overweight, you're justing proving that the people who insult you were right. Living the ""fat lifestyle"" includes being mocked, which is why you should not want to live life like that. +NotALameUsername: Here's my reply to /u/permabulkjelly: + +>I think you and /u/theconstipator have convinced me. I'm still tempted to argue, but I can see where you're coming from with these points. While I would love for fat acceptance to be a thing simply so we aren't scorned and mocked, mean and rude people simply won't go away and fat acceptance could potentially encourage unhealthiness. I suppose what I want isn't necessarily ""fat acceptance"" (though we do get an awful lot of flak), but just acceptance for everyone. Acceptance for people of all shapes, sizes, and colors (which plenty of people want), but which will unfortunately never happen and this is just wishful thinking. + +>If everyone had the necessary willpower and means to stay healthy even *with* fat acceptance, it could be a viable option, but that just won't happen (because some people would definitely misunderstand it as ""I can let myself go now!""). + +Thanks. &#8710;" +"mfanyafujo: > We just need to accept ourselves as we are + +Maybe that is what your friends are doing. Just because someone identifies as a certain gender doesn't mean that is how they truly feel inside. Perhaps they didn't even realize that there was a term for how they felt. Perhaps they spent their entire lives thinking that there was something wrong with them, and when they finally realized that there was a whole group of people who felt the same way, they were elated. It's not crazy, it's not seeking attention, and it's certainly not so they can feel ""special."" It's about finding out that they aren't broken, they are just different. +Kevrake: ∆ + +That's a good point. I guess perhaps that I'm too quick to judge, when someone might have actually been feeling that way all of their lives. I guess I just find that there are some differences, because I know my friends, and they go through phases, and I feel/felt as though this was just a phase of theirs. In reality, they may actually have felt this way all their lives, so I should treat their decisions with more respect. Thanks for the comment." +"Hq3473: The politicians WOULD go for it. + +Because potential success would be a HUGE publicity coup. + +Heck, even failure would be a significant publicity coup, because politicians would get to talk about those brave astronauts who sacrificed themselves for a great goal. + +You know what would not look good? Leaving Watney to die without apparently trying to do anything about it. + +The politicians would have everything to gain by trying to save Watney, and almost nothing to lose. +huadpe: >Heck, even failure would be a significant publicity coup, because politicians would get to talk about those brave astronauts who sacrificed themselves for a great goal. + +I think this is the point that pushed me over the edge on it. I was more thinking that the other astronauts dying would be a ""you needlessly killed 5 people"" thing. But you're right that it could be spun. + +∆ + +That said, I still think it would be the President making the calls, not the NASA director for Mars operations." +"eye_patch_willy: It appears that the Oregon legislature chose to recognize same sex couples as a protected class and passed laws that made denying service to them illegal the same way that denying service to people on account of their race is illegal. I don't see how making a cake enables sodomy, I really don't know why that word even appears in this context since it's both irrelevant and even if it were, inapplicable in the linked situation since that deals with two women. + +By the way, there was no court involvement. This was a hearing conducted by the Oregon Board of Labor. Rights are only as strong as people's willingness to fight for them and assert them when those rights are violated. + +All that said, from my perspective, this amount is high if it is truly only for emotional distress. If this amount is also meant to be punitive, then it makes a little more sense. For the record, and I just checked, Oregon only allocates about 30% of the punitive damage award to the prevailing party, the rest is allocated to a state fund for low income legal aid in the State. +GnosticTemplar: ∆ + +That makes... a little more sense, although the amount is no less ridiculous. I still don't see how this situation is analagous to Jim Crow, but I know it'll open up a slippery slope to actual Jim Crow against homosexuals. +" +"PepperoniFire: >Why can't a private business make the same decision? + +Because, when we talk about businesses, we're usually talking about conglomerates that have formally incorporated in one way or the other. Incorporation is a creature of statute; it's created by the government. It's more reasonable for the government to attach strings on the benefits associated with incorporation than it is to you as an individual because they're giving the business some fancy treatment. + +The government hasn't bestowed any peculiar status to you, personally. It has bestowed a status upon most businesses, who are insulated from traditional personal liability, can choose from a myriad of different tax schemes, enter contracts as a business, and so on. +glwilliams4: This is a good point. To be honest, I'm not sure what all happens legally speaking when a business is started. Just curious, does someone selling something from their own house, such as an Esty store, constitute being a business? At what point legally does an entity become a business? I'm assuming if I have a yard sale and even pay people to help me that that isn't considered a business. I wonder where that line starts. + +If the perks of having a ""legally sanctioned"" business are as you say, then I could definitely see why the government can have a say in who you give service to." +"BenIncognito: This is a huge generalization of both men and women. For some people, sex is a take it or leave it type of thing. For others, it is something more akin to a need. + +I know plenty of women who are sex-positive and need to have sex in order to feel fulfilled and satisfied in their relationships. I know men who don't need to have sex on some kind of regular basis. + +I think this perception of yours stems mostly from societal expectations of both men and women. Men are raised to feel like they should see sex as some kind of insatiable hunger (boys being boys). Where as women are raised to view sex as something damaging to them and that they should strive to save for their one true love (see: the idea that vaginas can be stretched out by too much sex to uselessness). +jherazob: I've always considered those ideas ridiculous and maybe even offensive, but I'm relating my experience" +"ExploreMeDora: It's impossible for anyone to argue whether or not **you** could win in a fight against a dog or a wolf. We don't know you nor have you ever fought a dog or a wolf. The greater question is whether or not a, ""full grown adult male could fight and overpower a dog of just about any size?"" You proposed this in your original post. To answer that question: No. It completely depends on the individual and the situation. + +* A person may legitimately be weak or cowardly and the dog could be stronger and more ferocious. +* There are some big dogs that can be very vicious and won't give up. +* As people tire or get injured they become weaker. Dogs and most animals have higher stamina than people. They can run faster and longer and not grow weary. +* Dogs and animals have a greater tolerance to pain. A person may smash his head against a door and get a concussion or fall to the ground in pain. A dog may do the same and will bounce back with no care or injury. +* The person may not take the situation seriously and doesn't want to harm the animal. Too late, it just crushed your throat with its jaws. + +Also, I would probably make the argument that you couldn't defeat a wolf. I don't know you personally but I don't know many people who could defeat a wolf. A lot of times it may come down to the first blow. If the animal strikes first and chomps down on you hard, you're going to be in excruciating pain and your main focus will probably be getting the animal off instead of trying to kill it in that moment. You'll be losing blood, getting tired, and getting weaker as this goes on. Even if you strike the first blow, the wolf may snap back and get you. While you have to think about how to actually kill the beast and when the best opportunity to do so is, the wolf is only focused on ripping you to pieces. + +Fighting a pomeranian would be a different story. +nickwhittaker: /u/exploremedora I am wondering if you have any thoughts on what /u/xantiherox said below regarding dogs and their weaknesses. + +> The only weapons a dog has are his mouth/bite and his claws. canine claws really aren't that substantial, and the way a canine's body is put together is such that they have a pretty limited range of motion with either their front or hind legs. They need 3 of their limbs functional to be mobile. They don't have the power to break a adult male human leg. +so off the bat I think a human is at an advantage just in terms of body structure. we can us our arms, legs, head, mouth, and inflict damage with all of these. our kicks and punches are more powerful. +Add intelligence and it's pretty much game over. Any object can be used as a weapon. A rock can be thrown from a distance or used as a hammer, a stick becomes a spear, etc, etc. +If you are familiar with fighting you know weak spots: eyes, neck, spine, ribs, genitals, limbs. You know these are the areas to attack and that these are the areas you need to protect on yourself. But a canine isn't really capable of inflicting serious damage to a humans back or ribs or limbs (I'm talking about attacking them such that you can't use a limb; a dog isn't going to break your arm or leg or back with it's bite, at least not an average adult male). So a human really needs to only be seriously worried about their eyes/face, neck, and groin. A dog pretty much has no defense. +If you can take a dog's back it's over. their snout is such that one could easily grab it's jaws and twist to break it's neck. Kicks to the ribs, limbs back, from a human male, are forceful enough to break a dogs bones. Knees to a dogs skull or ribs would also be very effective. +The biggest disadvantage a human has is human fear. If you are able to overcome that I don't really think a dog has any chance. If you realize that if you don't kill the dog the dog is going to kill you, you'll do what needs to be done. +Again I am talking about an average male who knows how to fight, is of average intelligence and is in good physical shape. +I have grown up with rottweiler's and german shepherds. We fought. Granted they weren't trying to kill me (I just like to play rough with my pets) and while I have certainly been bitten and blood has been drawn more than a few times, it has always been pretty obvious that if I really wanted/needed to, the dog wouldn't stand a chance. But, I am trained in multiple martial arts since I was 4, and have fought people. A dog isn't going to put you in an arm bar or rear naked choke. I think knowing how to fight gives one a better chance than being an adult male. And being able to use objects is a pretty big advantage as well. Near water? just hold the thing under. +The only way a dog is going to beat me is if I let my guard down and it gets my neck. +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw8af1K4Z_4 (Boy kills adult german shepherd with bard hands) (doesn't show it, it is just the news story. the dog was a police dog. the kid strangled it. shows the kid after the fight being taken into custody. his clothes are torn, but no substantial injuries.). +I tried to find the last known case of an adult male being killed by a single dog, but I couldn't find anything. + +" +"StanleyDarsh22: backing into a spot where no cars are moving and you can see exactly what's behind you, VS backing out into the road where cars can be flying by because people don't know how to drive safely in parking lots, added to that bigger blind spots and possibility of huge trucks parked next to you. + +choose one. + + +should note that this doesn't apply to the parking lots that have the angled parking spaces. those you should only ever pull in forward. +NJFiend: Hmmm. This is compelling. So now I do understand the idea, but your blind spots are only at your side and slightly back. A car isn't going to hit you from the side while you are in a tight space. Looking over your shoulder and going slow should suffice in virtually all situations. + +My own experience is the person who backs into a spot creates more of a hazard, because they drive past the space and reverse unexpectedly into it. This confuses whoever is behind them (or driving past them) and creates a potential accident situation. + +If you are a good enough driver to back into a space, you are good enough to back out. One way just takes longer and is confusing to drivers around you." +"Quetzalcoatls: The biggest issue is that all of the things you have listed are not primarily concerns for the general public of computer users. Ease of use and familiarity are the chief concerns and these are two metrics in which even the best Linux OS's fails spectacularly. + +Linux, if time is spent configuring it, can be great. Unfortunately most people will never take the time to do this and find the UI of the OS quite annoying and counter intuitive after 2 decades of exposure to windows. + +Clearly you are someone who is knowledgeable in computers so you see no problem in adapting to Linux use. Imagine having the headache you would receive teaching every member of your extended family how to operate Linux. Now expand that onto a population that isn't going to have a handy guide to hold their hand the whole way. + +Until Linux takes significant steps to adapt it's UI to a more user friendly design it will never receive more than a niche market share of OS's. Private citizens and businesses alike will be weary to adapt it until this problem is addressed. +tuxed: &#8710; Perhaps I've dug down into the Google hole far too much. I think at this point it's just a lost battle altogether. The short term is much more important than the long-term for most people, sadly. Thus, I have changed my view to no. + +tl;dr: Linux is simply not desktop ready due to the short-term disadvantages that eventually drive them away." +"CrazybutSolid: They do have the same importance. I think the point you're trying to make is that they should have the same importance to the media? + +If this is the case, then it all goes down to the fact that explosions happen less often. The more something happens, the more banal is seen, the less it will attract attention + +Blair_84: Yes, that's my point. I understand the rarity of the occurrence, but the Boston bombings happened almost a year ago and people still talk about it. When something rare happen, you talk about it for a while, but not for so long, in my opinion." +"Helicase21: Some of your criticisms are definitely valid. However, older people often have more varied or extensive life experiences to draw on, and do not generally make decisions in a vacuum. + +For example, imagine a relatively long (30+ years) period of peace. All of a sudden, war is a possibility. I would like my decision-making body to have at least a few people who might have had prior experience with a war. + +Additionally, when you elect someone, like your senator, you're not just electing them, you're also electing their entire staff. The senator might not have direct experience of what it's like to be a working person today, but does that matter as long as they have someone who can explain it to them in such a way that they understand and accept it? +deathvevo: Although it's highly unlikely that there would be a long period without conflict, I can see how something similar could happen. However, it's not like the previous generation's knowledge would have disappeared there are thousands of guides and essays about every topic." +"MrCapitalismWildRide: Many employees live paycheck to paycheck, or close. If they get no sick pay, they won't stay home when they're sick because they need the money. So they end up infecting other people, some of whom may get so sick that they can't work at all, costing the company money, or they end up contaminating the product, which hurts revenue if the problem is caught and hurts customers and can lead to lawsuits if it isn't caught. + +I'll need to think more about vacation time but sick time seems like a no brainer +eaglessoar: ∆ + +Your username is perfect for this topic btw :) + +Edit: looks like I need to write more, first time here... It's a good point about people being forced to come into work when they feel sick, it's less about them feeling good and more about them needing the money, so if you're not giving them money when they stay home they'll come in anyways because if you don't care about the employees why should they?" +"MrCapitalismWildRide: That is literally not what socialist feminism is. Or at least that's not what Marxist feminism is. Marxist feminism asserts that women were made subservient to men, by men, for the interests of capitalism, and that the oppression is so tied to capitalism that, even if you somehow eliminated it, you'd still have oppression along other lines (race, sexuality, etc) that would potentially be worse than before. Therefore dismantling capitalism is the only way to end oppression. + +Among the left, the idea that women's oppression is solely derived from biology is an idea pretty much only believed by trans exclusionary radical feminists, a particularly small and terrible movement. Heck, in early hunter gatherer tribes, gatherers, who were mostly if not entirely women, provided upwards of 80% of the food. +Bunyardz: Δ I'm giving you a delta because while you haven't exactly changed my view, you definitely took a little chunk out of my argument, and saved me the embarrassment of using socialist feminism as an example during a real life discussion." +"Casey234: >What I'm trying to say, is that people should not be forced into believing and supporting gay marriage, gay/lesbian/transgender/pansexual and all that—they should be allowed to express their freedom of religion... + +People are already free to practice their religion, they don't have to support LGBT people and they're not being forced to either. What they can't do, is impose their religious beliefs on other people, they can't get their religious beliefs enshrined into law. Religious people are in no way being oppressed by two gay people getting married, they just aren't allowed to dictate the rules on who gets to get married based on their religion. + + +Stines182: &#8710; - This makes more sense to me. I often forget the fact that you can't [and shouldn't] let religion get in the way of unlawfully mistreating a gay person for example." +"howbigis1gb: Some of these are NOT victimless crimes. + +Drug cartels are a thing, and are responsible for plenty of violence. + +Prostitution and sex trafficking are interlinked. + +Not wearing seat belts can kill people. And additionally be a HUGE liability issue. Imagine two people involved in a crash - one of them is wearing a seatbelt and another is not. One of them dies (the one not wearing a belt). Now negligent manslaughter can be added to the list of charges of the person wearing a belt. Additionally - why is smoking in the car with a minor present different than neglecting to buckle your child? + +There is merit in the suggestions to legalise drugs and prostitution - but calling them victimless is simplistic. + +Not to mention the users themselves are at high risk of injury or death in the case of drugs. + +And what will be the support system for prostitutes? The government might even need to get involved. + +I can't argue with kiddie cartoon porn. + +Nudity is generally frowned upon socially, but I don't have a strong case for why it should be illegal. + +Sexting is complicated. It involves issues of privacy as well. What about bordeline minor/major, etc. +Giblet4u: >Drug cartels are a thing, and are responsible for plenty of violence. + +That's why I believe in the regulation of drugs. There aren't drug cartels dealing in alcohol or tobacco because they are legal and regulated by the government. I believe in opening it up to companies to make and sell drugs with proper permits. + +>Prostitution and sex trafficking are interlinked. + +Again you are totally right, but I would argue that the reason for that is its an illegal business. In Las Vegas as far as I'm aware all prostitutes are checked out, and I don't think the sex trade can exist on the same level as in other places where its totally illegal. I definitely believe the government should be involved in keeping it consensual. + +>Not wearing seat belts can kill people. And additionally be a HUGE liability issue. + +It can kill people, but as far as I'm aware it only kills the people who fail to buckle up. I don't think the government should be like ""Hey its illegal for you to do things that are dangerous to your own health"". I didn't even consider the liability thing though, so thanks for bringing that up because thats a really good point. You have perhaps changed my view on this aspect. + +Thanks for the reply :) +" +"haikuginger: While XML isn't the best *computer-readable* method for storing data, it's fantastic when you want data to be both computer-readable and easily human-editable without specialized software. + +For example, I rip all of my DVDs and Blu-Rays to my computer so that I can access them through media software. That software automatically retrieves metadata from the Internet for each movie and saves it in an xml file alongside the video file itself. Obviously, the software would run more efficiently if it ran its own SQL server to track that information, but even with external files, it works well enough. + +And, significantly, I can open up any movie.xml file I like, immediately be able to parse it, understand the information contained in it, and make modifications easily without any sort of specialized software. +petrus4: > And, significantly, I can open up any movie.xml file I like, immediately be able to parse it, understand the information contained in it, and make modifications easily without any sort of specialized software. + +What language do you use to parse the XML? I came up with something for my own media files a bit back. I name them like this:- + + star-trek+deep-space-nine+s03+e11+past-tense+1+2+.mp4 + +As you can possibly see, the + signs are field seperators. This then means, however, that I can do this:- + + #!/usr/bin/env bash + set -x + + filename=$(find ""${video}"" -type f | sed -n ""/${1}/p"") + mplayer ""${filename}"" + +Because of the way I've named the file, with 1+2 (part 1) coming first, this means that this single command will also set up a playlist of all parts, that goes straight to mplayer without me needing to write any other playlist file. The same works with audio or any other kind of file that has a specific application to open it, as well. If I name my files appropriately, I can open anything by keyword like this." +"Account9726: Look at the definition you provided, if we remove the exclusion of things which humans create: + +> existing in nature ~~and not made or caused by people~~ + +So essentially, by this definition, ""natural things"" are ""things that exist,"" which is frankly rather meaningless. If one wanted to discuss the results of human activity we would then have to make up a new word which could be redefined by the same argument. + +The whole point of the word is to exclude human activity. If you remove that aspect, it simply ceases to have meaning. +seanyowens: ∆. Yours was the first comment I read to make me understand how changing the definition would render the word useless. I see how depending on context there are multiple uses of the word natural and it would appear my friend and I were arguing over the definition rather than what we meant each time we used the word natural. That's why you've changed my view, also went to bed so sorry for the delay haha. Cheers" +"garnteller: The problem is that most countries don't work that way. California can't secede from the United States even with 100% of the vote, no more than San Francisco could secede from California. + +But that sounds very undemocratic, doesn't it? However, when running a country (as opposed to say a loose confederation) you need to know that there is stability. It's hard to build an airbase, or an oil reserve, or a research lab in an area if that area might decide to leave. Or if a massive earthquake hits the Eastern part of the country and the West wants to leave to avoid paying for the cleanup. + +Then you have things like who makes up the military. Do you need to make sure that you have only segmented regiments, so if one state leaves, you can just split off their share? + +That doesn't even get in to things like currency, trade agreements, pipelines, and borders. + +Finally, what happens to the people who grew up in one area and moved to another for work? Where do they belong? What is their citizenship? + +It's not as simple as you make it out to be. +AgentCC: You raise a solid point. For some reason, I was under the perception that Ukraine became a country yesterday - it was lost on me that Crimea has been a part of the Ukraine since independence and for them to become a part of Russia now that it's convenient for them does smack of illegality and invites a withering away of Ukrainian sovereignty at a crucial time in its development as a more independent and rather fragile state. + +Kudos to you, I now see the Crimean referendum as illegal and award you with your 38th delta [&#8710;] + +However, I still believe that it will be a restive province and there will be further bloodshed down the road. " +"MageZero: This has actually been tried in court in 2006. + +[In his ruling, Worcester Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Locke cited Webster's Third New International Dictionary definition of a sandwich and explained that the difference comes down to two slices of bread versus one tortilla, “A sandwich is not commonly understood to include burritos, tacos, and quesadillas, which are typically made with a single tortilla and stuffed with a choice filling of meat, rice, and beans.”](http://www.stuartkaplow.com/library3.cfm?article_id=131) +Ayavaron: Burritos, tacos and quesadills are legally not sandwiches. I've been disproven with legal precedent. + +∆ + +EDIT: I need to make this comment longer and I'm not really sure how. I suppose it's worth stating that the interaction between language and law is a powerful confirmation of how meanings of words have been disseminated and can be understood. Does that make this long enough for me to give a delta? " +"intangiblemango: I am going to start with the caveat that I am not trying to change your overall opinion. I am ONLY trying change your opinion on this particular segment of your reasoning: ""...this was wrong to do, *because he has fought for civil rights before and his economic platform greatly fights for the poor and working class, in which black people are disproportionately represented*."" I totally agree that Bernie Sanders has one of the better records on civil rights among the candidates who are running. However, that makes him a better target, not a worse one. It would be completely pointless to show up at a Donald Trump rally and say something about Black Lives Matter (or any racial issue). Donald Trump is a clear and overt racist. There is nothing that can be done to make Donald Trump a good candidate on race. Bernie Sanders is a relatively good candidate on race, but many people who have race as the primary political issue that they care about believe that he could be better. By targeting Sanders, who is already a relatively good candidate on race, people can put pressure on him to make race a primary element of his campaign and to refine his opinions on policies regarding racism and social justice. + +I don't know what the motivations of these women necessarily were (their message was VERY muddied by a lot of factors) and I don't think their actions were appropriate or helpful at this time. But I think the idea that Bernie Sanders should be free of criticism on racial issues specifically because he has a decent history on them is silly. If people who are not satisfied with his record at this time criticize him and he steps up to the plate, they might have a candidate they actually want to vote for. +JapanNoodleLife: That's a good point on that part. I think that overall it's a bad idea, but you're right that it'd be pointless to do this at anyone running on the right. ∆" +"facing_the_fallout: I think the central issue with this type of view is the idea that the life a severely disabled person has is not ""good."" Certainly it is not ""independent,"" but who is to say it is not ""good?"" We don't know whether severely autistic people are generally happy or miserable--often they do not express happiness the way neurotypical people do but may report experiencing it. After all, autism is a communication disorder. We can't really ""share the experiences"" of someone with severe autism. And, of course, there are many other disabilities where we encounter the same question. We've no way to know whether they are enjoying themselves and their lives, because we can't ask in a way they understand and they can't tell us. + +Now, I'm not talking about people with devastating, painful medical conditions who CAN tell us how they feel. I believe in assisted suicide for the terminally ill and greatly suffering. But I don't think we can reasonably extend that to someone who by definition cannot tell us if they are suffering or not. + +Edit: You also mention the negative impact a child with a severe disability has on the family. While this is very sad, if it wouldn't be grounds for euthanizing any other child, why are disabled children different? What I mean is, if my family were suffering greatly because we could not afford to feed a child, say, or because we were overburdened by regular childcare needs, would we be able to euthanize the child? If not, why not, if effect on others matters? I'm not trying to make a slippery slope argument, I'm asking why a negative impact from a disabled child is different from a negative impact of a non-disabled child--which, depending on circumstance, could be equal or lesser. + +Edit2: If you've come to tell me I don't know anything about taking care of disabled people, save it. I worked in a care facility and my brothers are autistic. I guess it isn't clear: my alternative plan to OP's euthanasia is not ""parents should suck it up,"" it's ""we should have a social safety net for this type of situation, including in and out of home care for these families, because that's what social safety nets are for."" There is no need to tell me that these families suffer because it is impossible to provide round the clock care--that is obvious to me. +elvish_visionary: > I think the central issue with this type of view is the idea that the life a severely disabled person has is not ""good."" Certainly it is not ""independent,"" but who is to say it is not ""good?"" We don't know whether severely autistic people are generally happy or miserable--often they do not express happiness the way neurotypical people do but may report experiencing it. After all, autism is a communication disorder. We can't really ""share the experiences"" of someone with severe autism. And, of course, there are many other disabilities where we encounter the same question. We've no way to know whether they are enjoying themselves and their lives, because we can't ask in a way they understand and they can't tell us. + +Indeed, we cannot tell for sure if they are happy or not, but is the chance that they might be happy worth keeping them alive, when we do know for sure that their mere existence is wreaking havoc on the lives of multiple other people? + +> I'm asking why a negative impact from a disabled child is different from a negative impact of a non-disabled child--which, depending on circumstance, could be equal or lesser. + +Because the non-disabled child, even if it comes from a poor family, still has a great chance to contribute to society, and live a normal happy life if they can better their economic situation." +"Amablue: > At some point, the sum of all your actions becomes nil. No one remembers and no one cares that everyone forgot. + +Why does this mean your life is pointless? It had a point *to you*. That's all the meaning you can hope for. No matter what else happens, even in the heat death of the universe when every particle has decayed and there's nothing left, nothing can change that you existed for a period of time. Your existence and your actions still happened even if there's no record of them. Do your actions need permanence to have meaning? +Senecatwo: I am simply a biological machine looking to make more biological machines. The meaning I find in my actions is there thanks to biological imperatives to survive and reproduce. Once I'm dead, the meaning leaves with me."