stealthbeast

We have GOT to get rid of the tipping system in America... But until we do so, yes, you as a matter of fact HAVE to tip your waiter. Yes, even if they did a dogshit job. You don't get to treat people like slave labor just because you disagree with their professionalism or whatever.

It's not competitively viable to pay the waiter a sufficient wage. We need litigation for that to change. Until then, we're stuck with this sytem. If you don't want to tip waiters in America, then don't eat out in America. It's unethical, and as desperate as you are to shift this onto the employer, it's the fault of the customer.

And that's sad. It's sad that the system works that way. But pretending it doesn't, doesn't get us anywhere.

Breaking down a person's intellectual dishonesty is one of the key foundations of critical debate. It's not name calling, and if Parlia can't wrap their head around something THAT simple, then I don't belong here.

I would argue that it's the most important thing to learn because most of the truly important stuff is already natural to children. Discipline is not intuitive to learn.

Creativity, tolerance, and curiosity are all more important than discipline.

But creativity is so baked into us that we're destructive to our environment as children.

Curiosity is so baked into us that small children seem hell bent on getting themselves killed.

And tolerance isn't a thing we "learn". Intolerance is the thing that we learn, and later as a adults hopefully unlearn. Children are born innocent. Don't raise the kid to be intolerant in the first place and they won't be.

Discipline, however, comes with time, experience, and a whole lot of unpleasant work. It's important, yet almost unnatural.

edit:

Actually, I suppose kindness and particularly NOT being mean is also really important, probably more important than discipline. Being kind is intuitive to a kid, but sadly so is being mean. So I suppose I'm not PERFECTLY "For". But I do maintain that discipline is severely lacking, and underestimated in society.

We should call them whatever they want us to call them. Some people prefer survivor. Some don't.

Hell, some rape victims don't even want to be referred to as a "victim". I'm not going to then proceed to refer to them as a rape victim. I'll just have to figure something else to do with my language in the moment.

This is gonna be sketchy, and I think I can have my mind changed... But I'm gonna argue... mostly yes. They don't work. But it depends what you mean by "work". If you mean that it's the quintessential force for change? NO. There's a million other forces at work that completely drown out the effectiveness of protests.

But if you mean it brings awareness to an issue? ABSOLUTELY... As such, I think protests were highly effective for the LGBT community in a very short period of time because awareness was the primary thing missing from public opinion. Meanwhile black people have been protesting for their rights basically forever, and have made lots of progress... but very very very very slowly, despite it being a more important and easier to understand issue. People didn't really know anything about the LGBT community or their problems. Pretty much everyone already knows black people have unique disadvantages to face. Or they at least heard of the issues.

Also, (and take into consideration that I'm not a history buff), the only highly successful protests I can think of off the top of my head that weren't because of awareness were the ones where their oppressive government did something egregious to the protestors, which unified the bulk of the people against the few in power.

But that's not because protests are effective. Martyrdom is effective. Protests sometimes lead to martyrdom. Therefore protests sometimes appear to be effective.

I would say that using a language very regularly is but a single necessary component to learning a language.

It's not that it's the "fastest way" because constantly trying to use a language you know nothing about just isn't enough. You need focused study. But focused study isn't enough to develop comfortable fluency. You need to actually use it.

This doesn't just apply to language. This applies to literally any subject. You can't learn something you can't use and you can't use something you haven't learned.

Homosexuality is common in nature. That doesn't tell us if it's good or bad, but it does tell us it's natural. This is simply an objective fact. There's nothing to argue about.

I dunno man. My sexuality feels pretty natural to me.

What does it mean to be "genuinely" LGBT? Like, what's an example of NON-genuine LGBT people?

Lots of comedic things have no connection to pain in any meaningful sense.

Comedy is, more or less, whatever the heck is funny. Coincidences can be funny (don't have to be based on pain). Optical illusions can be funny. Weird colored, mismatched socks can be funny. A puppy's reaction to a grasshopper can be funny.

Maybe you'd have a point that some of the finest comedy on Earth is based on pain, but comedy and pain are not strictly mutually inclusive.

I... guess?

It's a bit of a weird statement. By this logic, tea is colonialist. Modern medical practices of the time were colonialist. Hell READING is colonialist if you really really want to push the issue.

The concept of codifying human rights has been around since government has been around. Long before the concept a colony even made practical sense. The very first person to come up with this idea was sitting in the very first invented cage.

You misspelled Tommy Wiseau.

Don't get me wrong, we need to get rid of the death penalty, but to claim that it's hypocritical?

Killing a person does not = killing a different person in a different situation. It is not intrinsically wrong to kill someone, and the murders that people are typically on death row for ARE intrinsically wrong. We'd all agree I'm not a murderer for defending myself in a way that might kill my assailant. I'd argue that neither the judge nor the executioner are a murderer themselves for sentencing a murderer to die, and then carrying it out. It's society trying to defend itself. I don't agree with it, but it's not hypocritical.

I will say that the death penalty is ironic. But hypocritical? Kind of a misuse of the word. Comes off as trying to be dismissive of the opposition.

"The Golden Rule" as it were, is an excellent starting point for grasping morality, especially for children. But that's all it is: A starting point. To truly be good to each other, we need to try to see things from the perspective of people other than ourselves.

SO... for instance, I want people to be frank with me. I want them to not be afraid of using words like "fag" around me just because I'm bi. I don't believe in curse words, really. I want them to be brutally critical and pull no punches. Even meanness towards me has its place in constructive dialogue. I also love many offensive jokes, even when they're mocking my own demographic.

SO... Naturally, I should freely use the N word around black people, right? Because >I< don't believe in curse words, and because >I< don't mind being called a "fag", >everyone else< should ALSO get on board with my high tolerance of horrifically offensive language, right?

Wrong.

Treat others, within reason, as THEY would like to be treated.

...here's the issue, even if people COULD see the future.

If some people truly can see the future, every single one of them must be horrendously immoral. They could've stopped the explosion in Beruit. They could have stopped 9/11. They could have pointed us to COVID-19's patient 0. They could be alerting us right now to all the stuff whistle blowers from the future would eventually uncover for us. They could be helping guide our medical scientists towards cures faster by eliminating tons of dead ends. They could tell us the consequences of our actions as a species.

None of this is happening. So either everyone who can tell the future is a terrible person or nobody can actually tell the future.

(The third option, I guess, is that people who can tell the future don't necessarily have unlimited power/control of what they can see. Awfully convenient, but we don't have to take their word for it because people who claim this have been tested ad nauseam. The fact that they're either lying or deluding themselves is a borderline scientific fact.)

Having a substance abuse problem myself (alcoholism) I must say that it's a seemingly impossible problem to solve. And that's with my substance being completely legal.

If they made alcohol illegal tomorrow, as much as I try to follow the law and I don't want to ruin my life with alcohol I would probably fail to stay away from alcohol. Things are hard enough for a drug addict before we throw that already shattered mind into jail for doing something they had very little chance of controlling.

I take an extreme position on drugs. I think they need to be legalized and reasonably accessible. All of them. Will this worsen our drug abuse problem? YES. Yes it absolutely will. In fact, it would be DEVASTATING. I even contend that we'd see a lot of people who weren't going to ruin their life with drugs, ruin their life with drugs, just by making those drugs more accessible.

But being worried about the worsened drug problem when we are locking up entire generations of otherwise innocent people would be like being worried about water damage because a firefighter is hosing down your flaming house. Yes. I understand that there will be water damage, I don't reject that in the slightest. In fact, it's gonna be DEVASTATING. But your HOUSE is LITERALLY ON FIRE... let's worry about the water damage once the fire's out.

While it wouldn't surprise me to find out that one SEX is slightly smarter at certain stuff than the other, GENDER is an identity issue and it's borderline nonsensical to try to connect simple identity with something as hard to measure as intelligence.

Aren't we all? Just because you're an egotistical, spoiled, bratty, entitled, prejudiced, unintelligent, rude person doesn't mean you're mentally ill.

I'm not interested in blaming his actions on something he can't control. Yes he can.

OH. Public MARRIAGE proposals. I'dve clicked in here earlier if I knew that's what this was about.

Yeah, honestly, I don't really believe in spontaneous proposals at all. Ambushing your partner with one of the biggest decisions they'll ever make in their life is dangerous, no matter how confident you feel that you're on the same page.

Be smart. Talk it out.

Arguing that we don't have free will is a lot like arguing that "evil" isn't real. Free will isn't a... object. It's a perception. And yes, we perceive to have free will. We make decisions. We deliberate. We change our minds.

The fact that we live in a deterministic universe isn't incompatible with the practical qualities of what we call "free will" because we don't have great predictive power. If this changes, and we can literally predict someone's actions deterministically, yeah, then you can start talking about the fall of free will.

This is more of a poll than an opinion.

What exactly CAN white people do without being offensive? It always feels like someone's ready to drop an 8 page history lesson on how I'm culturally appropriating my preferred brand of hair conditioner or something.

We need to define what we mean by "making peace".

As I see it, "making peace with the establishment" is essentially recognizing the things that you can not possibly change and pragmatically handling those problems in a civilized way. Even if it's inconvenient.

You might be offended that a cop is pulling you over when you know you've done nothing wrong. But you need to pull over. This simple, civil cooperation is what I mean by making peace with the establishment.

Key point is, you don't want to be 1 person going to war with the establishment. If you want to go to war with the establishment, you better bring a lot of backup. Until then, lay low, and follow their stupid little rules if it means protecting your overall freedom.

And of course, there are peaceful ways of inciting change too. Culture in America basically celebrates ripping on the establishment lol. For everyone else? Your mileage may vary.

Borderline off topic, but back when I worked in campus security, we had a strict policy, if a student didn't feel safe and wanted to be escorted to their car, we HAD to do it. It's the only thing you could walk up to us and order us to do basically lol. And personally, I was happy to do so.

I mostly walked women to their cars at night in the especially larger, sketchier lots. But I had a big tough dude who looked like he could kill me with one hand ask to be escorted too. Safety in numbers I suppose lol. (Not to mention security can call for help unbelievably fast. )

Er, anyway, so this is a common thing. Depending on where you work or go to school, there might be some help you can get that you just don't know about if you don't feel safe traveling back to your car alone. Try asking security. Or the front desk. It was very strict. And if we lied about this policy's existence to students, we would be fired. The policy was there, primarily, to protect women. But small men, handicapped people, or really anyone at all could take advantage of it.

You reject the notion that a family with homosexual parents can be loving and healthy? Never mind gay couples for a second, I'd argue that you don't even need to be a couple to raise a kid well. An uncle and a random roommate who happens to be very good with kids? Yeah, they can absolutely take dominant parental roles, and be pretty darn good at it. Family isn't defined by our genes, it's defined by US.

Now, I do see some subtle benefits to the male/female combo in the sense that two gay guys explaining tampons to a young woman is going to be almost academic, where a woman can explain this in a much more personal, practical way. A female doesn't usually know that much about mustache management, so no direct lesson to pass on there either.

But that's literally all I can think of. Petty details. The biological details that make men and women different are not THAT big.

Um... I hate to say this, but hormones are one of the few things that do indeed vary radically between the male and female sexes. And yes, these hormones absolutely affect temperament. Which has a direct relationship with many things, including aggression.

I'd GUESS that men are naturally more aggressive than women, but I can't know that for sure. I'm convinced, however, that they can not possibly be nearly the same.

Provided the person's being sincere (is chopping your dick off convincing enough? Yeah? Good), pretty much. If you want something tied to objective facts and biology, you're looking for the word sex, not gender.

Gender has everything to do with identity, and all identity is self-identified.

Btw, your identity in general is essentially what you say it is. I can not grant this to transgendered people without granting it to transracial people and trans-animal (otherkin) people. These groups are nothing alike but they are all about identity, and you just don't get to tell other people how they feel.

An oversimplification. I've had sex that had nothing to do with power. Just... motions basically. Two people agreeing to come together for no reason other than to fulfill a mutual need.

I have no leverage on this random person. I don't know this person. They didn't pressure me into it (I don't know whose idea it even was). How can it possibly be about power? I'm just horny bro lol

edit: I've also had tons of loving sex that wasn't about power. I've done things I don't like for the express purpose of pleasing my partner. They've done the same for me.

Sex isn't about power for me. Maybe empowerment at times, but not power over the partner. Sex is a fun coop game.

Masculinity/Femininity is silly invented human bullcrap. And people should be allowed to pursue both, neither, etc.

I will say though, femininity and masculinity isn't something I want gone. They have their place. I'm a bi guy. What I happen to like is masculine men and feminine females. i.e. I especially enjoy the more traditional expressions of gender. It doesn't mean I can't be attracted to a trans person (I'm dating a trans person actually, and they are SIZZLIN), but I especially gravitate towards these extremes, and mish-mashing the two together doesn't really do much for me. An obvious man in drag is or an obvious woman with a beard aren't instant deal breakers but just don't do much for me.

You do you though.

Of course it's natural. It's just that it's not the only thing that's natural. Polygamy is also natural. Dying before you mate at all is natural.

Also... not really sure why nature gets brought up so much. So what if it's natural or unnatural? That doesn't tell us if it's a good idea. Getting an MRI aint natural

Not usually, no.

Thanks for calling me a wimp when I'm already knocked down... Reeeaaal constructive.

We are really damned if we do and damned if we don't here... Gender transition is best done before puberty, but that's also the time we can do the most damage to a kid should their gender identity change/refine over time in a way not consistent with the original plan.

I see no reliably winning strategy to handling kids who are trans.

Edit: Actually one caveat. I'm talking specifically about hormone therapy.

Gender reassignment surgery is too crazy of a commitment. It shouldn't be happening to anyone in their childhood. I'm sorry. 18+ for the surgery, arguable for the hormone therapy.

The Mario Franchise is soul crushingly boring to me yet DEPRESSINGLY relevant to the industry.

People CLAIMING to be operating under feminism have gone too far. Feminism itself is an intrinsically positive force, almost by definition.

Obviously all sentient life forms continued existence matters. Which is not to be confused with the fact that obviously the All Lives Matter movement was a horrific response to Black Lives Matter that acted as a ridiculous distraction.

The exact phrasing of this, "All Lives do Matter" instead of "All Lives Matter" is deliberately designed to be ambiguous. We're literally arguing over nothing in here.

The word "terrorism" itself has purely negative connotation.

That being said, sometimes we misapply the word "terrorism". And the word is often used to be dismissive of a "terrorist". Sometimes, people organize and rebel, and sometimes that involves guerrilla warfare, which is already kind of... "terroristy" looking.... (wtf? Yeah that's a word now. deal wit it)

As an American (or really, as a person), I don't want to oversimplify even our enemy's position. ISIS had a point in that America is often poisonous to this planet. Unfortunately, ISIS's methods mean they need to be eradicated with extreme prejudice. But we should at least try to UNDERSTAND the position of the people who hate us. Think about where they were raised. Who was around them. The options they had. You think you would fare differently if born into their situation? I mean... I guess I'd like to THINK so... but that's easy for me to say while sitting in this air conditioned room in this Barbie world we call America.

Paralyzing a plant's ability to react to stuff via anesthetic doesn't automatically make that a loss of CONSCIOUSNESS...

We can strategically give you drugs that can basically shut off all sensation and motor skills in one of your arms. Just because the arm is completely nonresponsive to the rest of the system doesn't mean that it's not attached to a conscious person. Just because the plant loses the ability to send signals doesn't mean it's a conscious person at all. It just means signals can't be sent.

It's embarrassing to the human species that we act as if raising our kids to believe in things that are magical and factually false is some cute little innocent tradition. Beliefs don't live in a bubble; this is NOT a live and let live issue. I'm glad YOU might not have developed magical thinking, but not everyone's going to react the same, so we need to be very VERY critical of what we tell kids about the nature of reality. This type of thinking is how you fall for con artists, alternative medicine, and superstition.

A parent's top priority should be to instill an accurate sense of the world on their kid (and perhaps even further, give them a healthy skepticism to everything they encounter). Teaching Santa's magic is literally real just isn't conducive to this, and Christmas isn't any less magical (metaphorically) just because you teach the kid that Santa is purely a symbol for fun and holiday spirit, much like the Easter Bunny. The kid's still getting presents under a tree. Heck, now they're thanking you, instead of Santa. A lesson of confusing magic has turned into a practical lesson of love. We can have Santa, just don't lie to your fucking kids.

The fact that anyone objects to this opinion of mine is mindboggling to me.

You and I don't actually disagree much here. We are using the term "magical thinking" entirely differently.

I'm not talking about wondrous thinking, or creative thinking. "Magic" is a thing that we can expose kids to plenty of in fiction, with the understanding that it is just that. I'm talking about magical THINKING... THIS magical thinking:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking Which is NECESSARILY bad. It's the type that necessarily conflates the real with the made up. You're talking about like... Disney magic, basically lol. Which is obviously valuable. But we don't have to lie to kids about Santa to have it.

This is obviously circumstantial. If the item is valuable enough, you really should put SOME effort into getting it to the owner. Even if it's simply taking it to the lost and found.

But of course, no one should be compelled to take time out of their day to deal with it. If you find something valuable in public, the best thing to do might be to walk away. Besides, the owner tends to come back to the location it was left.

But simply, say, picking up a phone, turning it off, taking it home, wiping all of its contents, and reappropriating it without even TRYING to find the owner? It's wrong.

A healthy relationship also need standards.

Completely unconditional love has the potential to be a very dangerous force. It's not dangerous in and of itself, rather, it's risky. It's how people get wrapped up in horrifically abusive relationships. Sometimes, we love people that we simply SHOULDN'T be with; Love is NOT all you need.

"Listen Morty, I hate to break it to you, but what people call "love" is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, Morty, then it slowly fades, leaving you stranded in a failing marriage. I did it. Your parents are gonna do it. Break the cycle, Morty. Rise above. Focus on science."
-Rick

They should either pay taxes, or register as a non-profit organization and open their books up to be read so we can make sure pastors aren't doing some stupid rockstar bs with everyone's money.

They really shouldn't be allowed to have both tax exemption AND the ability to hide what they're doing with their money. You can't have it both ways.

Pick one.

Yes. Period.

That being said, if you knowingly mislead someone into a sexual situation, get them incredibly worked up, then suddenly withdraw your consent after it's already been thoroughly established and agreed upon that all parties are 'GO'. That's... radically inconsiderate and you should be ashamed of yourself.

THAT being said, that doesn't validate someone pushing the issue. As much as people misuse the concept of consent, we can't get around the value of consent. You can NEVER simply take what you want from someone, no matter how unfair they're being.

....Yes? SOME sort of effort needs to be made to help someone in crisis. But I don't believe in forcing your will onto other people, even if they might die.

At one of the lowest points in my life, I had a partial suicide attempt. My parents called the police, I verbally resisted, the cops didn't care about what I had to say and walked me out of my own home in handcuffs and threw me into a psych ward filled with crazy, violent people, half of which were clearly going through visible withdrawal symptoms. That place was a fucking zoo. And the staff were incredibly hit or miss. And because I'm a gun owner, I was forced to check myself in (a 302 warrant would disqualify me from having guns), and didn't have the usual time limits to look forward to.. They kept me there for a very long time, and if I tried to fight it legally, I would have my guns confiscated, which was an incredibly important hobby to me at that time. (Also guns never had anything to do with my suicide attempts. I was recently trained in EMS at that time, why the hell would I use a gun? I know exactly what can go wrong with headshots, there's more reliable ways to die. Having my hobby be used as legal leverage against me was... cruel.)

Needless to say, ripping me away from my support network when I'm at my most vulnerable and what few coping devices I had in my life, tossing me into a cell, with a cellmate, where we can touch both sides of the cell with our arms at the same time worsened my mental condition. No phone, no friends, no where to jerk off, nothing. Not to mention, when I got there, they threw out my entire established med regimen and forced me to take a brand new regimen. A regimen with horrible side effects. It was the only time in my life that I passed out. Thank god I happened to get only good cellmates. That was the one saving grace of that experience.

After that horrific, scarring experience, I vowed NEVER to tell ANYONE about the reality of my suicidal ideations or behavior ever again. Not my parents. Not my friends. And absolutely not my psychiatrist. They're just going to have to try to treat me as I occasionally reach out and half lie whenever I go into crisis.

Why the **** do I have to do this act? I don't want to hide my feelings anymore. I need someone in my real life to know how bad it gets sometimes but I just can't do that without risking getting incarcerated.

I'm the worst!

Not MY fault they're boring!

I'm the worst!

Not MY fault they're boring!

Yeah, there's some opinions that are so poor that they aren't worth entertaining. When's the last time you even heard of the Westborough Baptist Church? They're still doing their bs. They're just being driven into obscurity by the sheer terribleness of their opinions. Their opinions really don't matter. At best, they've turned into an obscure case study of what not to be.

As a bisexual man (man I've played this card a lot recently...), I don't think so. But I do think women and men, for social reasons, treat sex a bit differently.

I think men, for social reasons, are more likely to be blunt about what it is they want. Some people see it as disgusting or animal-like behavior, but done respectfully I just see it as honest.

Women seem to be much more guarded about sex. It's classy, but also sometimes a bit mysterious to me. I don't fully understand what it's like to be a woman.

Come to think of it, I think every man I've been with, we fucked on the first date. None of the women I've dated ever fucked on the first date.

Yes. Some people are a waste of time to bother trying to better them. But because we aren't gods who can peer perfectly into the minds of every convict, we can never EVER act like we know for a fact that someone can't be rehabilitated. No matter how bad they are currently.

Think about how different you are from 5 years ago. or 15 years ago. What might change for you, 30 years from now? Probably a lot.

I really want 6 inch heels to become less popular. They're really bad for your feet... and of course they're completely impractical. There's always some sort of REASONABLE footwear, that ALSO looks good, that you could be wearing instead.

I'm not trying to tell you not to do it... But... Man, I just really don't see the appeal.

tl;dr- We were trying to breed humans like we breed show dogs. Focusing on meaningless, racist cosmetic features. That's why eugenics has the horrible reputation it has. As a species, we need to breed smarter, happier, healthier people.

Eugenics itself isn't inherently racist, it's just been misused by racists. What we need is to select for stuff like reduced chance at heart disease, congenital illnesses like sickle cell anemia, various forms of specific cancer that are deeply tied to genetics, etc.

Whatever the skin color/eye color/hair type would ultimately optimally be is irrelevant. (Though I will say this, I doubt the typical white person's skin is optimal. Given modern agriculture, and that vitamin D deficiency isn't a constant issue anymore, even to most people in poorly developed nations, I suspect dark skinned people's resistance to UV induced skin cancer would be the natural, intelligent choice to make someone's skin color. But then again, maybe not, because it is very easy to identify medical problems on white people compared to black people because the melanin literally gets in the way of seeing the flesh underneath. There's SO much to consider in picking the best shade of skin. I'm almost certain it's not pale white though.)

Now, how do we enforce or even decide on the eugenics? Ummmmm that's a really hard question that would require an answer way longer than this, and would boil down to, "I don't know but I think someone might". Eugenics inherently has a lot of... possibility of going wrong (hence it has, like every time). But I think it's possible to live in a society where people are more encouraged to use healthier genetic combos for their kids than just using whatever genes that happen to naturally be in themselves.

Not for me personally. If I found out my partner was cheating on me, I would like to know why. I want to know what I wasn't giving them that they managed to get from that stranger. I would also be slightly frustrated at the unfairness because I'm being faithful despite having a few issues that I desperately want to act out on. I wouldn't act out on it, even after finding out they cheated, but it doesn't stop the fact that... I really want something very specific that I can not get from this person I'm with right now.

I have totally felt the sensation of jealousy before, but not really regarding sexual partners. I'm faithful, because I know how much it seems to hurt others to NOT be, but I'm not actually bothered by the idea of someone fucking my partner. But again, that's just for me personally.

I just want to know about it. If we've been together so long that we modify the safety of our sex with the understanding that we're being exclusive, then I REALLY need to know. Cheating on me then is a health risk that is intolerable to me, and could even lead to a breakup.

Love isn't always fair, but it should NEVER be physically dangerous.

"Beautiful, almost perfect, now please hand me the sharp stone for its genitalia that I may do the work of the Lord"

Yeah no. As a parent you don't get to decide whether or not your child's genitals get mutilated. It is egregious that this topic is handled as casually and dismissively as it is.

I've been with several male partners over the years, anybody who says that a circumcised penis is a simple side grade to an intact penis has absolutely no clue what they're talking about.

Oh and to say nothing of "female circumcision"... It's deliberately designed to minimize her sexual satisfaction. What a horrible thing to do to an innocent baby. The male equivalent would be removal of the glans, making orgasm almost impossible.

I don't usually like to lean so heavily on an emotional argument, but try telling that to my male sex partners. The frenulum, and some other nerve centers, are almost always irreparably damaged. Some worse than others. This isn't an uncommon thing. This is a natural risk of a procedure that removes something thin, delicate, and LOADED with nerve endings. You just can't predict how scar tissue will affect the end product.

Circumcision should only ever been considered as a last resort solution to extreme cases of phimosis. Manual retraction therapy, partial circumcisions, etc... There's a lot of options that don't involve the total removal of the foreskin.

ALL circumcised penises are incredibly insensitive actually. It's not a simple sidegrade, or a preference. As far as I'm concerned, anybody who acts like these two penis types (mutilated/intact) are side grades obviously has no personal experience in the subject.

Even people with phimosis aren't very likely to develop a UTI. I have struggled with phimosis my entire life, I am that incredibly rare exception of a person who should seriously consider a circumcision. Never had a UTI. But I've seen what circumcision does to men's performance and pleasure, so **** THAT... Cut guys really don't know what they're missing, and it's depressing as hell to think about. I'll live with my 25% dysfunctional phimosis penis if it means not losing over half my total sensation, thanks.

I agree with you only in the sense that adults should be free to hire a surgeon to mutilate themselves in almost any way, provided it won't literally kill that person.

But no, circumcisions happening to kids before 18 needs to stop entirely. And honestly, I don't think you're qualified to answer whether or not you want to be circumcised until you've had a variety of sex, and studied what actually happens to the nerves after a circumcision. We HAVE to let people get circumsized when they're adults. But... We need to educate everyone that this is a horrible, risky, useless practice.

I would urge, even outright Jews, to please consider selectively ignoring the circumcision rules as they ignore many other of God's rules.

To be clear, sadomasochism is sexually arousing to people. This isn't the same as (or even roughly related to) being stuck in an emotionally abusive relationship where you are constantly dominated against your will and your interests.

Now, I will say this though: People should engage in as many sexual practices as they can find healthy satisfaction from. If sadomasochism is the ONLY way that you can get off, I feel it might be useful to expose yourself to other mediums and expand the diversity of your capacity for pleasure.

This isn't just directed at sadomasochism either. This goes for everyone. Especially people with boring sex lives (so, actually, LESS likely to be a sadomasochist) e.g. you straight guys have really got to get into butt stuff, it's really awesome.

Sadomasochism necessarily inflicts pain or belittles one of the people involved. Kind of how MMA is designed specifically to hurt people. But like with MMA, the inherent risks the sadomasochistic community have had to face have given them a culture that is OBSESSED with safety, fairness, transparency, and consent.

It's kind of bizarre to think of the "best" way to allow people to hurt each other. But... People want to do this. We're evolved to do this. If you're into it, this can be a healthy outlet, if you're careful.

I agree, it's kind of dumb, and I dismiss the idea that straight guys are inherently less useful to feminism than some other demographic.

But that's why I decided not to post anything here. I just slammed the "Strongly disagreed", glanced through the tl;dr's, and moved on. We're not all gonna want to talk about all the same issues equally.

If you don't have anything constructive to say, you should find a different topic instead of posting.

I've heard of small, tribalistic cultures that actually cannibalize a small portion of their loved ones. To symbolically and literally take their essence and combine it with their own. It's kind of silly to us, but it's how they cope with loss. We do weird funerals where we literally "plant" the dead for some bizarre reason. They do this instead. How could I possibly have a problem with something going on that isn't hurting anyone?

Oh, but this meat REALLY should not be eaten raw (as iirc it often is). Humans are the most compatible creature to get pathogens from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)

Edit: I for the life of me couldn't remember what this practice was called. "Endocannibalism" is a funny word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocannibalism

I feel like trying to argue that reality doesn't exist is a lot like doing a TED Talk against microphones... Dude, you're literally using a microphone, right now, to make your point.

Who am I to declare that someone following a ritual in their culture of eating every third child born into the community because they think it makes fruit grow bigger is savage? Who am I? Really? I'm an occasionally not-terrible person. That's all I NEED to be to entitled tell someone "you need to stop right now or I'll get together a bunch of people with weapons to force you to stop."

There's savage and unsavage parts to every culture. And not all cultures got the same ratio. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like me looking after the wellbeing of people is somehow "preferential" compared to following horrific inhumane rituals for no sufficient reason whatsoever.

The fact that we're not advanced is exactly why we need to stay on top of it. It'd be bad to ignore disgusting elements of cultures just to fit in.

Organized religion was EVER in touch with the Sacred?

I've been with both men and women. I dunno what else to say. We're here.

From a practical, language perspective: I've always had the opinion that we should stop treating bisexual as something different from straight, or gay.

I feel like being bisexual should mean that you're both homosexual AND heterosexual, rather than neither.

We really got to slow down the baby making. The taxpayer cost towards condoms is a lot better than providing government support for someone who has insufficient income to raise a child.

Dude they literally hurt to eat more than like 4 chips.

Depends. If you want bigger boobs or hairplugs or something... look, you're gonna have to save up for that.

But if you have some sort of horrific deformity that can be improved upon with surgery? That can radically increase a person's quality of life.

It's an accessory, but their claws are safety devices. They're evolved to try to grab stuff if they slip and fall off something. They're evolved to want to maintain their claws. Their claws are their tools. Like our fingers.

So if it is at all possible to solve whatever problem you're having, WITHOUT taking a knife to the cat, you probably should.

I dunno if I'd call it flat out animal abuse, but I would at least call it unnecessary.

...Okay, that's what the Bible says, but you haven't established why we should care about, let alone trust the Bible's accuracy.

As opposed to the Quran or something. What makes you think your particular holy book is more accurate than others? Better yet: Why should I?

If you want to see Christopher Hitchens gets critically torn apart, look up a video called "The Sophistry of Christopher Hitchens" by CosmicSkeptic

Psychiatry is borderline shamanistic, but sometimes, that's still incredibly necessary. I simply can not function without my medicine.

What about the long term survival of life? We're the first species to be able to at least TRY to detect and divert an asteroid. We can deliberately infect other planets with life.

We, human beings, have the potential to keep life going for so much longer.

People focus so hard on how much damage we do to the planet, they forget that we are the first species ever to recognize asteroids. We even have space travel. We're obsessed with getting to other planets. And we're the first species to develop this style of intellect, so if we disappear, this type of opportunity isn't likely to evolve again before the planet's surface is literally inhospitable for complex life. Be it because of asteroids or the finite life of our star.

Humans are life's extremely long term, only hope.

You may not approve of it, but transracial people are totally a thing. Body dysmorphia can apply to literally anything.

Ever hear of otherkin? They identify as a species other than human.

What do you think of people who go to great lengths, literal surgery, to transition? It might still be considered offensive, but if absolutely nothing else, this demonstrates their sincerity.

tl;dr Black people don't own something as insanely generic as NOT brushing your hair.

The problem is, pretty much everyone saying "disagree" doesn't understand the struggle of having long, difficult to manage hair.

As a white person with the longest, nappiest hair you've ever seen in your life, dreadlocks are a practical hair style, and anyone who has the type of hair that is conducive to dreadlocks doesn't actually have a ton of other options.

If I don't brush my hair incessantly, multiple times a day, it naturally forms dreadlocks. I brush it to prevent this from happening. But to DEMAND I brush or be called racist is like demanding a woman wear a bra. You're just.... terrible if you do this. How could one be so callous?

If something as insanely generic as dreadlocks is "offensive", then I would argue that it's an offense that SHOULD be made.

Far as I'm concerned, it's "offensive" like a woman breastfeeding in public is "offensive". We should all be pushing back against this absolutely nonsensical bullcrap.

Also, no idea why you're dropping a gigantic history lesson when you haven't established a reason anyone should care.

I'm sorry, you're right. I don't get to use free speech to dismantle other people's free speech. That's not what this is supposed to be about.

I'm confused by the opinion. Who is claiming female orgasm is a scientific mystery? A mystery in what way?

Maybe once upon a time, religion was a necessary proto-government.

Thing is, humanity is growing up. It's about time we put away childish things.

I accept the rebuke;

People are probably more likely to listen to me if I didn't talk about their beliefs in such a dismissive way, (e.g. religion =/= childish)

Fun fact: This question is part of an (incredibly poorly written) political quiz. (https://www.politicalcompass.org/test)

Really? Sounds rad. Good luck devs <3

If there's a "Divine Plan", we clearly don't know anything about it. Might as well act like there is none in the meantime.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

(I'm gonna have to get this shit on a clipboard LOL)

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

"Inherently"? Yikes.

Not to mention, we call dudes Karens sometimes. Karen is a concept describing a bitchy person. To act like you don't know what we're talking about when we describe Karen-like behavior is just you being disruptive to the conversation for absolutely no reason.

Now, is Karen inherently offensive? Well yeah, that's the point of it.

Evidently not. This is not a complex topic. Sorry. Bye bye.

Extraordinary claim, to put it lightly.

Ummmm... We're combining 2 things here. Keeping busy with cheerful things is not the same as not thinking about things that trouble you.

You're gonna feel what you're gonna feel. Don't fight it. Don't try to ignore it. Just deal with it.

Culturally, we're not ready for it. But ideally? Yeah, nudity would be a casual subject. Sure, an unflattering one maybe, kind of how we all fart and burp. But if you can't get over that? Your problem. Not mine.

No idea why people are talking about sexual harassment. That wasn't the question.

You got it exactly backwards. Creationism has nothing positive to contribute to philosophy that can't be obtained in a better way.

If creationism should ever be referenced in a school, it should only be in an academic way (e.g. referencing the creationist position in the context of the history of Islam is acceptable, propping up creationism like an alternative hypothesis to the theory of evolution by natural selection is NOT).

I don't think I'm being harsh at all. In fact, I like the word you used there. "Eradicate". I would love nothing more than to eradicate creationism from all schools and campuses. It's a poisonous, presumptuous topic, with WAY too much baggage to be worth it.

Folks, be careful in interpreting the wording of this opinion. The opinion doesn't say, "Religion should not be taught in schools".

RELIGION can be studied academically. In my world cultures class, we covered the history of Islam. It was great.

CREATIONISM is a separate issue. Creationism presupposes a creator. It's a poisonous topic that has absolutely no place in school. Especially in being compared to actual theories that try to explain how we ended up here (e.g. the big bang, abiogenesis, natural selection, embryology, etc)

You can not be a creationist who doesn't believe in a creator. The creator bit is the presumptuous part that we should hate about creationism.

Just because some creationists have had varying levels of success trying to reconcile god with this indifferent, clockwork universe, doesn't mean that creationism has anything positive to contribute to anyone, ever.

What does, "Men are natural love cheats" mean? Can we get a rewording or something?

"Google, baby, this just aint workin. You've changed."

I don't even know how a country without taxes would even run.

I guess they could print money? But that's basically just a different method of taxing after you account for the inflation.

It's not that cultural appropriation is fine, it's that the term "cultural appropriation" gets misapplied all the time.

If 1 more fucking person tells me I can't get dreadlocks to help manage my long, nappy ass, impossible-to-manage hair just because I'm white I'm gonna scream.

Not yet. Subject to change.

I can define literally anything. Fight me.

This opinion is ambiguous. Does it mean that the state shouldn't be endorsing religious imagery, or does it mean that the students shouldn't be allowed to, say, wear a cross that they brought from home?

Any school endorsing religion needs to be fixed or burnt to the fucking ground. No exceptions, no compromise: Religion, outside of its academic value, has no place in schools.

Any school that would stop a kid from wearing a cross, or praying during downtime, ALSO needs to be fixed or burnt to the fucking ground. ALSO no exceptions, no compromise. Schools should be given as little freedom as possible to fuck with the lives of their students.

You ever notice how the word "bed" LOOKS like a bed?

Um... 12% of people who hit "agree"... You know that the word coincidence exists for a reason, right? Like, it has a meaning. Saying there's no such things as coincidence is a lot like saying there's no such things as the color red. That's simply incorrect.

I know, right? It's almost like these were all invented independently across the world by fallible people who had similar worries about mortality.

There's commonality between religions because the humans that invented them were flawed, mortal, anxious critters.

There's no truth in any religion that isn't better acquirable in some other way. Looking for "truth" in a religious book (Bible, Quran, etc) is a deliberate act of cherrypicking. Knock it off.

What even is fate? A predetermined point that we're working towards? Sure, we live in a deterministic universe, but that doesn't mean that "fate" in the magical sense of the word is a reasonable proposition.

We're meat robots, but don't let that distract you from how incredibly complex, sophisticated, and interesting you are. You don't need to appeal to the concept of a soul to be worth something.

They're both stupid. Just not for the same reasons.

Intercessory prayer has been tested scientifically. This is a trivial subject. The fact that prayer does not work is no longer a matter of opinion, and hasn't been for a very long time.

Now, does meditation/reflection help us? Yes. Does prayer help us meditate/reflect? Yes. But the question is if PRAYER works... no one's rejecting the validity of the placebo effect; That's not the question.

Removal from the open, public view? Sure. But these statues are works of art. Trying to erase history by destroying artwork is some low key Hitler shit.

Toss em in a museum where they belong. No need to deface the masterpiece itself.

A pretty person may get preferential treatment. But they also might not be taken seriously. There's advantages and disadvantages to both.

I suppose I'd still want to be pretty (as opposed to not pretty), but the word "privilege" almost implies that there's no substantive disadvantages. EVERYONE has disadvantages depending on their demographic. It doesn't mean privilege doesn't exist, rather, that the issue is complicated.

Some parents don't want their kids exposed to sex education. As far as I'm concerned, they shouldn't even have a say in this. You don't get to deprive your child of fundamental education.

In fact, I think students should be able to anonymously get contraceptives from school against their parent's will if they wish to do so.

I don't even know what this means... How is the act of doing something that you have to do anyway, less than usual, a "waste of time"? This question is nonsensical.

Cool, let's say you've proved that dieting is ineffective. What does any of this have to do with time? None of this consumes time. How can something that doesn't consume time, be a waste of time?

The OP's opinion is nonsensically stated and for some ridiculous reason no one's talking about it =/. I have no idea why this question was even approved with this kind of wording.

We can't even define God/gods/goddesses, let alone investigate him/her/it/them. To pretend like God is a viable explanation is ridiculous.

Theories need explanatory power. The concept of a god is at best a hypothesis.

Religion is NOT the ultimate truth.

In fact, religion is so untrue that the stated opinion doesn't even make sense because we have to define what religion even is, and specify the religion in question before I can even understand, let alone respond to, the stated opinion.

The truth isn't vague. The truth isn't difficult to define. And most importantly, the truth doesn't need ANY apologetics. What religion even roughly fits any of this criteria?

To be willing to lay down your life for ANYTHING is the height of bravery. Soldiers make HARSH sacrifices. But they are not the only ones.

I can't believe how much tunnel vision people can get.

First of all, we can drop the history lesson. It's irrelevant. The actual reason dreadlocks came to exist is because some hair just naturally binds in a way highly conducive to dreadlocks. That's why dreadlocks have been developed independently across so many different cultures around the world. Dreadlocks, as a generic concept, don't "belong" to anyone.

Dreadlocks are just what happens to this nappy, longassed rats nest I call my hair if I don't brush it INCESSENTLY all day. I struggle tremendously with ADLs so my long flowing bangs are regularly becoming dreadlocks with no input from me, and if I outright skip entire days of brushing, this phenomenon spreads to the rest of my head (though it clumps in the back). It then can take hours of brushing to correct this issue. I have to carry a brush like you have to carry a phone; it's just the way my hair binds together over time. It's not like I WANT dreadlocks... they just sort of happen to me.

But what if I did want dreadlocks? I mean, it would be MUCH easier and more consistent to manage, and I have the perfect hair for it, which is super rare in white people (I guess it's my puerto rican background? Not sure). Why shouldn't I celebrate my hair? Why shouldn't I feel free to get dreadlocks? SO many people have had the reaction of seeing my hair and instantly going, "WOW! Have you ever considered getting dreadlocks?" It's always either dreadlocks or braids getting recommended to me... and it makes sense. After all, it's conducive to the hair type I was born with. There's really not much else I can even do with this hair at this length. My options are limited and my hair is SUPER IN THE WAY. You think DREADLOCKS are cultural appropriation? I've seriously considered learning to wrap my hair in a turban. I'm desperate for ways to manage this fucking hair.

Needless to say, I reject the notion that I would somehow be racist by letting my hair be the way it naturally is.

Edit:

Actually, I'll get cheeky: You accusing someone of being racist, for having dreadlocks, for no other reason than that they're white, is kind of racist.

I see it as a well-intended, but radical overextension of the concept of cultural appropriation.

Literally anything we want to call art, is art. Period.

That being said, as far as I'm concerned, this is a lot like the argument over whether something is a sport.

You can stomp around all you want and demand we recognize Chess as a sport, but you can't just sit there and pretend like you have no idea what we mean when we say that Chess is obviously not a sport.

Art necessarily requires a certain level of time commitment. One can find beauty in a puddle of urine, and that puddle of urine could perhaps only be made by that specific person at that specific height with that specific diet and those specific kidneys.

That doesn't make it art and that definitely doesn't mean we should care about it.

Questions like this help poke holes in the afterlife. Almost all theists believe in a soul, but good luck getting any of em to agree on the details concerning animals.

Man... Imagine how many freakin ants must be in heaven.

Whether or not life has "meaning" is irrelevant to whether or not god(s) exists. Maybe life has no "meaning". What does that matter to the truth? It doesn't.

Edit:
Also, with the Christian God, life has no meaning. The purpose of life is as a test for the real life: The afterlife. The one that isn't gonna end in less than 100 years.

Any effort placed into life that isn't improving your odds of getting into a good afterlife would be meaningless.

As an atheist, this is the only life that I know I have.

Hi. I wrote this opinion. I see what you mean, 'valid' is too ambiguous.

An example of what I mean when I say a "valid" relationship would be me being with a woman, or me being with a man. An invalid relationship would be me being with a child, or me being with a dog, or me being with someone who's in a coma. Point being that a homosexual relationship isn't wrong.

Maybe "permissible" would be better. Actually, simply "fine" might've been best.

Yes! Thank you! (Though I think an "are" got removed between "heterosexual relationships" and "better")

Also, I find it sliiiightly sketchy to change the wording of a question after it's already been presented and voted on.

Given the ambiguity of the word, 'valid', it's possible that some people would find homosexual relationships valid, (e.g. the love is real, or the government should recognize them, or it doesn't affect anyone else, etc) but NOT fine (i.e. just because something involves love, doesn't make it permissible. Like how the sexual love of a pedophile towards a real child is a perfectly valid FEELING, but NOT at all "fine" to act on).

I'm probably just overthinking it lol. I just know that I'm very particular about how I respond to stuff. Maybe there should be some discreet way of viewing the history of title changes, complete with timestamps. Then you could conceivably change the title as many times as you need to with much lower risk of misrepresenting people's opinions.

Not to be confused with other forms of confinement, solitary confinement is cruel, and will only ever harm the mind of a likely already mentally ill person. Whatever positive behavior you THINK is gonna happen? Like better behavior or w/e? Just.. doesn't happen in practice.

Some people can snap in just hours. In just a few days of solitary confinement, the mind can hallucinate. In weeks, some people will experience permanent damage to their personality. And we're doing this to people for months, for years, or for decades at a time, and it really needs to stop.

We may need to separate people with physical barriers (we can't let a prisoner who keeps trying to kill everyone roam in the prisoner population normally), but that doesn't need to exclude ALL human contact. We don't need solitary confinement to punish prisoners. They're in prison. That's the punishment.

Soooo.... we're gonna have a period of time where it's just all the women on the street, and all the law abiding men are stuck at home, and this is going to...? What's the goal here again? To protect rapists or something?

That depends entirely on how good we are at it.

There's a bajillion Skyrim players that would like to have a word with you.

Sometimes, violence is fun. Watching MMA folks do their thing is just fascinating

Not necessarily. Some privileges are issued to everyone by default, only to be removed if they're misused.

tbh I start arguments =P

I enjoy both, but coffee wins out because it can usually administer more caffeine more efficiently, which is the only objective advantage I can think of between the two. The rest is entirely subjective.

Um. Equality is more or less DEFINED to be enough. i.e. if it seems like equality wasn't enough, it's probably because we haven't truly reached it yet.

And yes, equity is a part of equality. If you don't have that, you don't have equality.

I understand that no one wants to find out they're being dated specifically because of race, but people date each other all the time, with nothing to go on but looks. ALL fetishes have the potential to turn toxic, this is not unique to the hyper specific racial fetish subcategory. If anything, racial fetishism is a massive problem for the person with the racial fetish. It must suck having a brain that is, say, mostly only turned on by black guys. Narrows your options.

Maybe I just haven't thought about this subject much, or maybe it's cause I'm white and haven't seen that perspective, or maybe I'm using a different definition for "fetishism" but I know a fuckton about fetishism from the practical end and I can't bring myself to entertain the idea that fetishizing race is an intrinsically bad thing.

Fetishism in almost every form can be fucking amazing when channeled properly. You just don't want to misapply it. You just don't want to dehumanize them (unless that's your+their fetish too). What's intrinsically wrong about being especially attracted to black people? Or asians? Or... Anything. Short people, fat people, smart people, w/e. Even really sketchy fetishes, like violent rape fetishes and sexual attraction to children for instance, is... well, obviously they can't ACT on it outside of artwork and roleplay, but is their fetish actually wrong, in and of itself? I would say no.

No one controls what makes them horny.

I appreciate the sentiment, but there's a MILLION hypothetical classes that we could argue should be mandatory. This doesn't really fit in well with the other subjects.

Yeah?! Well... YOU'RE an insult to nature! I like these darn it! XD

They're frickin sweet candy. They're tasty. Fix yo damn tastebuds people.

There's something rather bizarre about seeing a homeless person huddled underneath the shelter of a skyscraper owned by some billionaire.

Don't EVER forget that men absolutely suffer from unique sexism problems. But are the problems of sexism regarding men as severe as with women? Of course not. Women just got the right to vote like 4 minutes ago, don't be ridiculous.

Evidently so.

Even if you think it's ridiculous, you gotta admit, there's some seriously gender bendy folks walkin around here, and they are 100% serious about their gender identity.

(Shit, is the term "gender bender" intrinsically offensive? I have no idea lmao)

Good luck selling your product without aesthetically pleasing advertisements.

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them gets shot by another hunter. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?". The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guys says "OK, now what?"

That's a freakin hilarious joke! ... but not at the funeral of a hunting accident victim. Hunting accidents are a real thing that have scorched the lives of countless people. There's a time and a place for everything. Even ****ed up, seemingly insensitive jokes. An airplane crash is hilarious when all the passengers are sock puppets.

Here, here's a joke I read (note that I'm a man, sexually attracted to other men):

What do you call a gay drive by?
A fruit roll up.

HAH! Come on! That's kind of funny! Why are people telling me I should feel offended?

Of course. This is more or less self explanatory, everyone should agree with this.

Who are these 4% of people who strongly disagree? I'm baffled! I'd LIKE to come up with a steelman argument, but I just can't think of one.

I suppose a society that doesn't question authority could theoretically get more done? idk man.

I suppose all body types have a sort of natural beauty. In the same sense that an insect's eye is beautiful to behold up close, and in the sense that all humans are incredibly impressive, complex systems.

But ultimately, beauty is entirely subjective; Someone can especially beautiful to me yet not to you.

This goes for any subject of beauty. Not just body types. (e.g. a gun can be beautiful to one person and not another)

There's tons of conflict between incompatible cultures, but we don't resolve them by ignoring them. Cultures that intermingle more, humanize each other more.

Humanizing misunderstood people and cultures is how we got awesome stuff like suffrage for all (voting rights) and marriage equality. Nothing humanizes someone more than going over there and just talking to them like an ordinary human being.

Men and women usually have wildly differing quantities of hormones going through them. If you manipulate these(e.g. estrogen, testosterone), you can impact the temperament of a person's personality.

This asymmetry may be counter-intuitive to us trying to create equality in society, but the truth doesn't stop being the truth just because it's sort of offensive to point out.

I'd argue that whether or not its moral to join the military depends on the behavior of your particular country's military. If a country is very critical of where they fight, and tend to fight for humanitarian problems, or provide relief to other countries during natural disasters, then sure, join your country's military if that's what you want to do. Even if your country's not 100% just in absolutely all military decisions, just make sure they're doing much more good than harm.

Now, is there ever a moral justification for joining something like the US military? NO.

Edit: To clarify, it doesn't mean that naive high school students with no idea what they wanna do with their lives who join the military are bad people. Soldiers aren't innately bad people. But deliberately joining the US military is a pretty rough blunder, and one that I don't think people would make as often if we actually taught kids about America's diverse multitude of atrocities.

It's no secret that some form of punishment makes people less likely to commit a crime in the first place, but this ridiculous practice where we take people who did bad things and lock them up under cruel conditions with bad people and then act surprised when they BECOME bad people? It's really gotta stop.

Oh, also, get rid of solitary confinement. You can separate them from the general population if you really really need to, but they still need to be interacting with multiple humans, daily, for at least a few hours on end. It really doesn't take much. And yeah, I don't care if they murdered another inmate. We don't get to throw ethics out just because someone's a terrible person. Their nervous system is identical to yours. Their blood, identical to yours. Their suffering, identical to yours. Their tears. These are PEOPLE. And you can NOT totally isolate people for long lengths of time without damaging their minds. Solitary confinement is counterintuitive to rehabilitation.

I'd go a step further. College isn't for most people. We raise kids as if they're all going to be doctors and lawyers and shit, and that's just... not realistic AT ALL.

Now, ongoing education? That IS for everyone. But education doesn't necessarily have to involve college.

This weird practice where we take naive kids and encourage them to take up massive amounts of debt to enter useless/impossibly competitive fields has GOT to stop. Stop treating tech school like an ALTERNATIVE education option... It should be the default.

The message to kids should be, "It's okay to go to college. But unless you really really want to, you probably shouldn't."

A tempting enforcement, but the law simply cannot be trusted with that kind of power. The government would find some way to completely muck that system up and it would either be ineffective or lead to some sort of horrific injustice.

That being said, yeah, people with serious inheritable disabilities who then deliberately use their own DNA to make a baby? I don't get it. Do you feel the need to validate your family by your genes? Like a breeding animal? You are not your genes. You are your ideas. And your ideas can be passed on to ANY kid. Ideally one of our ridiculous number of orphans.

Unless you're ALSO in favor of combining all men and women divisions together, you have absolutely no grounds to defend a trans woman utterly dominating a competition filled with people who can have up to 40% less muscle mass.

You just need to look at the footage yourself if you don't believe me. It's downright comical.

People who are less prejudiced may be happier than more prejudiced people, but to claim it's NECESSARY? Really? You don't think there's ever been such things as a racist who was perfectly content with who they were?

MOST powerful, modular inventions are dangerous. And what, today, is more powerful or modular than a smartphone?

I'm comfortable with my male body and identity, and I think my quality of life would go down if I got to be reborn as a woman. So why would I do it?

Because we don't have ANYONE on this planet with that kind of perfect knowledge. A person who has fully experienced the full perspective of both a man AND a woman, from birth?!

The scientific and social implications of that are pretty substantial! Why is no one talking about this?

As opposed to getting mind swapped for three days with an ugly girl?

Is merely recognizing this opinion even exists "stoking race hatred"? Look at the votes. The racist side is getting destroyed.

I doubt intellect has much to do with race, but there's plenty of other recognizable differences between people of varying races. White people are slightly more likely to die of skin cancer. Black people are slightly more likely to be born with sickle cell anemia. Asian people have slightly higher incidents of strokes. There's TONS of these little advantages and disadvantages.

What I wonder though (as controversial as it is to even bring it up) how much genetics play into temperament. I consider all dogs equal, but a rottweiler on average just doesn't have the same temperament as a french bulldog. I have to think that races that spend enough time by themselves as they historically did would evolve into their own, slightly different, more optimized temperament, depending on their environment. It may be that the difference between a dog breed's temperament to another's is like 20% where humans is like 1%, but I doubt that race has a 0.0% impact on temperament.

It's not the state's business to dictate our sex lives. I'm blown away that "disagree" is so popular. I'd love to hear why... hello? Anyone?

I feel like pointing out pedophiles often practice polygamy is a lot like pointing out that school shooters tend to have toothbrushes in their bathroom.

I mean.. I GUESS it's true... But the implication that toothbrushes therefore LEAD to school shootings? That'd be a bit much to jump to.

This is a bit malformed and it's leading to a very weird split of people agreeing and disagreeing.

This "opinion" isn't an opinion. It is a FACT that one party states can avoid democratically induced delays. The real question is, does this fact make a one party system worth it? The answer is NO...

It would be like if someone said, "Dictatorships have the highest potential to get the most done." And that's absolutely true. Look at how much Hitler got done. What's your point?

Every billionaire I can think of is unethical, and maybe being an ethical billionaire is even impossible. But the act of BEING a billionaire is not, in and of itself, unethical.

Never mind that teaching entire generations of kids to take their work home with them is a TERRIBLE LESSON... Having the ability to control a kid outside of school is WAY too much power. Teachers can not be universally trusted to be reasonable with their homework. So yes, I actually like the word "banned" here.

It is EGREGIOUS what some teachers have assigned me. Various homework practices did incredible amounts of damage to my growth and emotional wellbeing. The idea that homework is necessary for most subjects is laughable. I honestly can not think of a single time that homework enriched me in any way. You know what DOES enrich me? Being free to spend what little I have left of the rest of the day, doing ANYTHING but school. Just let kids be kids damn it. Stop saddling them with things that don't benefit them. You're acting like their time isn't valuable. As if time spent on things they want to do besides school is simply being "wasted". It disgusts me.

Edit: If absolutely nothing else, the ability to control students outside of school should not be something that is permitted as a standard thing to just any old teacher. They need to prove that they are incredibly critical about avoiding wasting their student's time. When you have like 7+ new teachers ever year and they ALL have the ability to control you outside of school, the odds of one of them ruining your entire year with their radically inflated sense self worth of their pet subjects is WAY too high.

I recognized that homework can be effective because RESEARCH is effective, and it's the ultimate way to learn. Some things really only CAN be done in homework format. But the power to control a kid outside of school is just... handed to every single teacher of every single subject by default with almost no regulation whatsoever. Students that speak out about specific, cruel homework conditions are typically brushed off as lazy, whiny children. The amount of damage this does to kids makes me sick to think about.

I disagree. I don't think "banned" is an overkill word at all.

We hand the power to literally control kids outside of school to every single teacher like it's NOTHING. I'm not discounting the value of homework as a whole, but it should be a semi-uncommon practice used only in specific subjects, and possibly even be a privilege teachers need to earn, is limited, is regulated, and can be ripped away from them if they misuse it, not to be returned to them until they can prove that they are once again worthy (AND have absolutely necessary need) of that tier of power.

I know that sounds kind of unreasonable, but that's cause the ability to control a kid outside of school is so significant. So if a system like that can't reasonably exist? Then ban homework.

Cheating on your spouse is wrong, but I wouldn't call being in a polygamous relationship where two married people may enjoy/permit their partner to fuck other people, "cheating".

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with promiscuity itself.

But there IS a lot wrong with violating someone's trust. If you want to have sex with people outside of your marriage, then don't marry someone who doesn't feel similarly.

(And if you reach a point in your monogamous marriage where you feel you HAVE to cheat to fulfill a desperate sexual/romantic need? That's not invalid, friend, but as painful as it is, you NEED to communicate this to your spouse, and either work on a compromise together or recognize that you might not be right for each other).

Well, of course. But why the focus on polyandry instead of polygamy?

Polyandry is covered under polygamy. Polygamy is the thing that should be legal.

You're right in that it's largely something men do more often than women, but the individual acts themselves are equally ugly, regardless of the person's sex.

Domestic violence isn't a male issue. It's an aggressive issue. Aggression is the male issue. That's why we are where we are.

Try telling that to a guy who just got physically abused by his girlfriend. (A guy who's more likely to be told he's a bitch ass excuse of a man for being upset by being assaulted by his girlfriend.)

A man abuses a woman, a woman abuses a man. The former is more common than the latter, but the individual situations themselves are NOT different in severity (at least not because of gender details). The social reaction is different but that doesn't matter. You don't get to call a turkey sandwich being held by a different person something other than a turkey sandwich.

The fact of the matter is, a fetus is life, it's got human DNA, and abortions end them. So as a matter of fact, this specific aspect of the abortion argument isn't actually up for discussion.

Now, does abortion end a PERSON'S life? No. It doesn't have hopes and dreams. It doesn't have relationships. It doesn't have opinions. It can't even form lasting memories yet.

Arguing from the position of bodily autonomy is easily the most overrated way of trying to defend abortion.

The issue is that the opposition believes it's a person. Let's assume this is actually true (it's not). WOW! The implications of that would be huge actually. As a matter of fact we CAN force people to lend their body. It's illegal to stop CPR once you have started. You're gonna get sued and you're gonna deserve it. If you walk into the court room like, "Hey! It's MY body and MY right to not continue CPR. Just because I started CPR doesn't mean I consent to following through with it". They're gonna be like, "lol that's nice." and throw the book at you.

That's why this argument never works on people against abortion. It completely misses our opposition's point.

It's not invasive to legally force someone to work extremely hard at something for a long time for no pay? It "doesn't compromise the interests of the person performing it"? Um... speak for yourself. It's a medical emergency. It's a stressful period of time that most people only face a few times in their life. Some people literally get PTSD over stuff like this. We shouldn't just blow off a direct violation of someone's free will as irrelevant.

My point wasn't that forced CPR is like... equitable to pregnancy (it's not). My point was that there ARE times where the stakes are high enough for the free will of 1 person to matter less. And if a fetus was literally a person the way you and I are people? Then yes. Pro life people would be on the righteous side, and something as petty as 9 months of your life, the permanent disfigurement of your body, and even risk of death outright may indeed be reasonably justified when the alternative is the guaranteed murder of an innocent person who has equal value to the mother.

Which a fetus does not. Which is the point that needs to be focused on. I really can't stress enough, you will NEVER change anyone's mind if you keep appealing to autonomy, because pro-life don't see that as the issue. I guess you can keep trying to argue in this way, but you'll be preaching to the choir for your entire life.

Power is the root of all evil. Money happens to be powerful.

Situational.

Prisons should be reformed

Yeah. Probably. We're screwing ourselves here population-wise. We really need to slow down.

That being said, you can't control other people's lives SOOOO..... It might be unethical, but it doesn't really matter, because it would be unethical to interfere with that. All we can do is encourage people to go the adoption route I suppose.

We gotta be careful here with the wording of the question. Homosexuality is not a choice, but that's not the question.

I really doubt that there is a literal "gay gene" so to speak.

Oh my god yes. I really don't feel like humans are currently even really supposed to be living into their 90s, let alone thousands, millions, billions, or trillions.

BMI is flawed due to the nature of muscle's extra weight. But is it discriminatory? No. You may feel offended that someone would suggest you are, in scientific fact, overweight, but that doesn't make it any less true, and its your healthcare provider's job to give you the bitter truth if it means saving or improving your life.

I absolutely agree with your assessment that acting as though karma exists can make people better people, but that really has no bearing on whether or not it actually exists.

If the beauty products are dangerous, I really wanna know that BEFORE humans are exposed to it. If the beauty products are safe, then what's wrong with using them on animals?

The ability to control a kid OUTSIDE of school is just not the type of power teachers should ever be allowed to have.

edit: At the very least, we shouldn't be handing it willy nilly to any old teacher of any old subject. I understand that you can't dedicate the school day to reading an entire book; They need to take it home. Some science research can only be done outside the school. Some art projects, like involving paint that must dry, are best worked at intermittently over time in a home environment. But homework in compulsory schools should be a practice used very sparingly, only with certain subjects, and only with teachers who have proven themselves especially respectful with their students time. Remember, we're talking about the literal, and unregulated ability to control a kid outside of school. We take this reality WAY too lightly.

When you get 7+ new teachers each year, all giving homework with basically 0 regulation to its fairness, the odds that one of them will singlehandedly ruin your entire year with their overinflated sense of worth of their pet subject is WAY too high. Some of the homework practices I needed to endure were downright cruel and I really really didn't need to lose my entire childhood to this bullshit.

I should emphasize, this is for compulsory school. You know, the one that's 40% education and 60% babysitting... You already consume a ludicrous amount of a child's time. You shouldn't have the power to ruin a kid's entire day AND their entire evening, every single day. Fucking pick one.

At least a schoolday can END... There is no way to escape from the agony that is a ludicrously unreasonable homework assignment. You will be anxiety ridden until you either complete it at which you will be exhausted so fuck the rest of your day I guess, or resign to not fully completing it, take the loss to your grade, and suffer the fate of having everyone in your life call you a bad student because you couldn't emotionally cope with a fourth page of trinomial equations.

The problem with teachers, is that most of them liked school growing up. That's not your only demographic, teachers. You are literally hurting people with your unethical homework practices and any time anyone tries to talk about it they get called whiny. Talk about a feeling of powerlessness.

If we get rid of the cruel conditions of factory farms, veganism would have very little to defend itself with.

Turn it into an industry. An industry where prostitutes are treated with dignity. Put these pimps out of work.

What's immoral about having sex for money?

If I want sex, and they want money, provided I treat them with dignity and respect, what could possibly be wrong with us having sex?

Parents may have careers, but their first duty is to be home makers.

(This does not especially apply to mothers or fathers)

Just because some prisoners are bad people doesn't mean we get to pretend like it's acceptable to treat them any way we want.

It would be monumentally arrogant to suppose life is exclusive to our planet. We can plainly see that we are made up of VERY common ingredients, which are spread all throughout the universe.

I'm sorry, how is me banging my girlfriend destroying the underlying fabric of society? We're very happy together.

It's easy to be "accurate" if you lower the bar enough.

I disagree with you, but I hit you with a 'Good point' because I think you and I are on the same team here. You're absolutely right that guns have the potential to be beneficial when held in the right hands, especially when placed in the hands of someone that might otherwise become a victim. (Women. Black people. Gay people. Anyone that might have an anonymous enemy come beat them up, really.)

My point of contention is that alcohol is NOT destructive all the time. Sometimes, it's harmless. It contributes to our economy. It creates jobs. It can hurt relationships, but it can also reinforce them.

This question seems to be posing this as if we should choose between banning either alcohol OR guns. I don't think it'd be good for us to do either.

Very nice.

Well, that should definitely be their primary directive. But school should equip kids with some other things too. For example, they should have a thorough understanding of the tax system. They should know when to call 911 vs when its safe to tough it out. They should all have a thorough understanding of fallacies, and how to avoid and expose them. There's lots of tasks that school would be especially good at that they're not doing.

Oh, but this insane practice where we waste MASSIVE amounts of time on impractical shit? I went through like 12 years of social studies and I still don't know shit about America. It wasn't a good use of my time.

I vehemently disagree with the idea of strict dress codes, let alone school uniforms. That being said, if you ARE going to have a bunch of stupid fucking rules, you'd better at least be consistent.

If we were talking about a Minecraft server, I might agree with you. But this is Earth. And Earth is a finite amount of space that can be designated to a person at any given time.

If land was NOT scarce? Sure, I'd agree.

Not... intrinsically anyway. There are plenty of people with jobs where money manipulation is difficult and requires true work and expertise.

Depending on the specifics of the situation, I might still be okay with that.

This REALLY depends. You're almost never justified taking a luxury/convenience product (e.g. a TV). You also aren't justified to, say, steal a starving family's only loaf of bread (even if your family is also starving).

But if you're asking me, for example, if I would point police to a homeless man who stole what is clearly either food, water, necessary medicine, a simple blanket, etc? No. I wouldn't. I would not report such a person.

But I would TOTALLY report a homeless person going over and stealing something from another homeless person (again, still depending on several factors).

"Oh no, we took a thing that we have a use for, and made it more convenient to access. We must be dumb" Gimme a break. Nobody's making you buy bottled water.

For what it's worth, I totally grasp the sort of ironic poetry of trying to simplify our access to something as natural and plentiful as fucking WATER... and thereby creating an incredibly complex and unnecessary industry that powers evil corporations that lobby from the perspective of their business interests against the interests of the consumers that they're supposed to support. But that goes for literally ANY product that you will buy in a store, ever.

I have no idea why you're dropping medical stats of how long a human can live without water as if the bottle industry merely existing somehow stops people from accessing water in other ways.

"Pride" as applied to un-earned things is an incredibly toxic word.

I'm proud to be an artist. I'm proud to have made changes with my drinking. I'm proud of my safe driving habits.

I am NOT "proud" to be a man who's attracted to other men. I'm not "proud" to have been born in America. I'm not "proud" to be Puerto Rican. I have no shame in these things, but I had no hand in making these things happen. These things just sort of "happened" to me. How could I be proud of them?

No, because you had nothing to do with that.

You didn't make your country. You didn't choose to be born there. You don't even necessarily contribute to its betterment (or you might, I don't know you).

The act of being born in a country is in and of itself not enough of a reason to be "proud" of it.

Whether you support trans people or not is irrelevant. If gender and sex mean exactly the same thing, then we're just gonna need to invent a new word to describe what we mean when we refer to "gender". Seeing as language evolves over time, adding nuance between the words "sex" versus "gender" is just useful.

The most important thing is that everyone understands what everyone else is saying. Differentiating sex and gender helps us do this better.

Granted, but then you don't get to dictate how people react if you misgender them.

This is what I'm hearing from you: 'Gender' is being treated as a very complex subject. 'Sex' is dead simple and completely objective. If we could just all agree that gender and sex are synonyms, then we'd get to avoid a whole lot of needless frustration and confusion.

I... agree that the subject is complex. I even agree that I don't feel like dealing with it. But if you make these two words synonyms, we're just gonna need to invent another word, because we NEED a word that means what gender mean (as opposed to sex).

Regardless of how you feel about trans issues, you have a lot of use in differentiating between "sex" and "gender".

With special emphasis being placed on educating students on the nature of fallacies and how to avoid and expose them.

Don't let your family take advantage of you.

Treating people the same is not the same as treating people equally. Not everybody has the same needs.