51 votes

Hey, Tildes, what's a strong opinion you hold, but which you also feel like is the minority opinion?

pretty much anything goes (exercise common sense, obviously). i find questions like this interesting to ask and usually interesting conversations come from them, so let's give it a spin.

230 comments

  1. [21]
    Ellimist
    (edited )
    Link
    Police officers do not exist to make life hell for minorities, specifically the black community. Absolutely, there are bad eggs that need to be tossed and the system has failed in various ways but...
    • Exemplary

    Police officers do not exist to make life hell for minorities, specifically the black community.

    Absolutely, there are bad eggs that need to be tossed and the system has failed in various ways but it’s not just the police officers responsible for that system.

    I come from a law enforcement family and work as a 911 Dispatcher. I work closely with white officers, black officers, Hispanic officers, women officers, gay officers. ....everyone of them I’ve spoken to has offered the same “worst fear”

    Killing someone. Even justifiably.

    The vast majority of police officers do not want to draw their gun for any reason, let alone kill someone.

    Even a justified shooting gets an IA investigation, court proceedings, possible lawsuit by the family etc. Every bit of their lives will get laid bare and every single action or inaction will be investigated under the microscope. Every officer I’ve ever met feels that if they kill someone, even justified, that even the slightest mistake of the moment may land them in jail or fired. They may avoid criminal charges but that doesn’t mean it’s all hunky dory for them.

    I’ll admit, I’m biased. As I said, I’ve grown up in a family of law enforcement and work in the field.

    But I’ve also seen firsthand how much even a justified shooting can affect an officer when my father went through it.

    My father was an 8 year combat veteran of the USMC prior to becoming a police officer and has done that for the last 23 years. He’s been on the bomb squad for the last 15 years. For 20+ years, I’ve watched my father leave knowing full well that he may not return in the morning.

    One day, I get a call from my stepmom that my dad had been involved in a shooting and killed someone. My dad was alright but the suspect died.

    I’m ashamed to say that my first thought was “Was the guy black?”

    He wasn’t. He was a white guy. High on meth with an extensive criminal history and just hours before had beaten and stolen an elderly of their cash and car. And came at my dad with a crowbar.

    Fortunately, being a vet, he stayed calm and collected, after verbal commands were ignored, he went to his taser that had no effect. Then he pulled his gun and fired one round.

    My dad could’ve easily been killed that day. A crowbar is a deadly weapon. But I was more relieved to know that the man he killed wasn’t black. My dad’s character would not be questioned, he wouldn’t be called a racist, and it wouldn’t be chalked up as another instance of a white officer killing a black man.

    This was before Michael Brown or Eric Garner but after Trayvon Martin. Even then, you could see the divide growing between law enforcement and their reputation as honorable men and women who place the safety of their communities above their own personal safety.

    And now? They’re called animals with badges. Bullies in uniform.

    People fear the police. Is it ALL the fault of the police? No. As with all things, there’s three truths. Your truth, my truth, and somewhere in the middle is the actual truth.

    Again, I’m not saying there aren’t bad apples. And police officers do have a brotherhood that causes them to look the other way on things that they shouldn’t.

    But very, very few officers ever go to work HOPING to kill someone. I can’t say all don’t because I don’t know. Maybe some of them genuinely hope they get that chance.

    But the vast majority? 99.999999% of them? They just want to go home to their families too. They aren’t out to kill anyone. They aren’t out to put black people in the ground or in jail just because they want to or because they can

    43 votes
    1. [6]
      Algernon_Asimov
      Link Parent
      Yes, it is the police's fault. Even if the racist violence committed by police is only the result of a few bad apples, those few bad apples have been allowed to exist, and even thrive, within the...
      • Exemplary

      People fear the police. Is it ALL the fault of the police?

      Yes, it is the police's fault. Even if the racist violence committed by police is only the result of a few bad apples, those few bad apples have been allowed to exist, and even thrive, within the police force. Shooting a black teenager just for wearing a hoodie is never a person's first racist act. There will be hints of an officer's racism long before it comes to shooting someone. They'll make racist jokes, and use racist language, and behave in other racist ways. However, if that racist officer is not called out on their everyday racism by their fellow officers, and instructed to "cease and desist" by their commanding officers, then they will take that silence as implicit approval of their racism. So, when they find themselves in a situation where they're faced with a choice to shoot a defenceless black teenager, they won't have any reason to think twice.

      The police force - the commanding officers, the instructors, and the local forces - all need to actively locate and neutralise the few bad apples among them. Silence is complicity.

      71 votes
      1. Akir
        Link Parent
        This is almost exactly what I was going to say. The issues people are having with police aren't with the whole concept. I would say that for most, the problem is with a set of police departments...

        This is almost exactly what I was going to say. The issues people are having with police aren't with the whole concept. I would say that for most, the problem is with a set of police departments where racism has become so powerful it has become an unwritten policy. That is the environment that nutures the kind of person who will commit this unspeakably evil act.

        11 votes
      2. Flargus
        Link Parent
        An Apple Who Sees Other Apples Turning Rotten Without Speaking Up May Not Be That Great Of An Apple After All

        An Apple Who Sees Other Apples Turning Rotten Without Speaking Up May Not Be That Great Of An Apple After All

        8 votes
      3. [3]
        emar
        Link Parent
        If I were to change all the references in your post from referring directly to the police into pronouns referring to a generic Other, I think it would demonstrate why I find this type of position...

        If I were to change all the references in your post from referring directly to the police into pronouns referring to a generic Other, I think it would demonstrate why I find this type of position to be unproductive towards building a more inclusive and just world.

        It can be used against any perceived hostile-minority-in-the-majority and implicitly escalates and enlarges any extant cycle of violence. When anyone opens a door to reconciliation and understanding, this type of rhetoric slams it back shut immediately. If the end goal is to eliminate or find ways to resolve the conflict, unilaterally rejecting truces and peace overtures is generally unproductive to those ends.

        This position makes it easier, not harder, to amplify and escalate persecutory stereotypes about entire categories of humans. Instead of reducing the incentives for the groups involved to treat the humans involved as individual humans each living separate lives with unique experiences, it produces social goads towards treating people inhabiting roles solely as those objectified roles. Hierarchies, power, violence, fear, and ignorance all generate constraints on what people feel is possible to achieve and express in their daily lives and social circles. Without recognizing that people are constrained by these through no agency of their own, it's difficult if not impossible to produce better outcomes. Context and subjective experiences inform and determine how individuals operate in the world rather than prescriptive roles. Attributing liability to individuals for failing to uphold ideal normative roles is a path moving away from an inclusive society rather than towards one.

        This position also, if read by a member of the addressed group, generally reduces good faith rather than increasing it and that reduction in good will echoes towards any group that could be construed as hostile to it. On the Internet, no one knows that you're a dog and consequently, no one knows who is a mailman. When someone is perceived to be attacked, that person will instinctively attempt to identify the attacker. When that group isn't explicitly identified, the attacked will start offloading that sense of victimhood onto any group that is perceived as unfriendly. This, as a rule, increases the amount of hostility and violence in the world and ratchets-up the effort required to defuse the conflict before it can be resolved.

        So generally in summary, I agree that reducing discrimination and wanton violence is a goal that should be pursued, but I disagree that the position outlined above is the way (if a way at all) to get there.

        4 votes
        1. [2]
          Algernon_Asimov
          Link Parent
          So, it's okay for police officers to condone racism because their culture condones racism, and they need to conform to their culture? People are the only entities with agency. It is only people...

          Hierarchies, power, violence, fear, and ignorance all generate constraints on what people feel is possible to achieve and express in their daily lives and social circles.

          So, it's okay for police officers to condone racism because their culture condones racism, and they need to conform to their culture?

          Without recognizing that people are constrained by these through no agency of their own, it's difficult if not impossible to produce better outcomes.

          People are the only entities with agency. It is only people who can make the necessary changes.

          I bet if we read the police forces' own in-house documentation, we'd find lots of nice statements about how racism is not acceptable, and police officers should not discriminate. That's nice.

          However, words on paper are not a culture. People in interaction with each other make a culture. The culture of a group is formed by the people in that group. If the people don't change their own culture, nothing else will do it for them.

          If individual police officers will not change the culture of racism within the police force... who or what else will?

          6 votes
          1. emar
            Link Parent
            Based on your response, I don't think our experiences or communication methods are compatible enough to reach a common ground to discuss this topic in a productive manner. I hope that you find the...

            Based on your response, I don't think our experiences or communication methods are compatible enough to reach a common ground to discuss this topic in a productive manner. I hope that you find the world that you're seeking.

            1 vote
    2. [4]
      Hypersapien
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      You can't say that it's just a few bad eggs when the good eggs get actively driven out of the force for trying to do the right thing (as in trying to de-escalate a situation instead of just...

      You can't say that it's just a few bad eggs when the good eggs get actively driven out of the force for trying to do the right thing (as in trying to de-escalate a situation instead of just shooting a guy). Hell, there's a police department out there that screens prospective officers with an IQ test and rejects them if they score too high.

      As with all things, there’s three truths. Your truth, my truth, and somewhere in the middle is the actual truth.

      I'm sorry but this is just flat out untrue. The truth doesn't always lie between any two differing positions. It is entirely possible for one side to be completely right and the other side to be completely wrong.

      27 votes
      1. [3]
        Wayfarer
        Link Parent
        I'm not necessarily in disagreement with you, but do you know this is true, or is it just something you heard somewhere on the internet?

        Hell, there's a police department out there that screens prospective officers with an IQ test and rejects them if they score too high.

        I'm not necessarily in disagreement with you, but do you know this is true, or is it just something you heard somewhere on the internet?

        1 vote
        1. sam4ritan
          Link Parent
          It's an old story, but appears to have actually happened: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 And assuming that their hiring practices have not changed since...

          It's an old story, but appears to have actually happened: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836

          And assuming that their hiring practices have not changed since then (after all, they were not deemed illegal by the court, so why should they change) it goes on to this day.

          3 votes
    3. Greg
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I think very few take the argument to either of those extremes. Perhaps I am just picking on details here, and (as you so rightly said) neither of us can say "all" because we don't know, but the...

      Police officers do not exist to make life hell for minorities, specifically the black community.
      [...]
      But very, very few officers ever go to work HOPING to kill someone. I can’t say all don’t because I don’t know. Maybe some of them genuinely hope they get that chance.

      I think very few take the argument to either of those extremes. Perhaps I am just picking on details here, and (as you so rightly said) neither of us can say "all" because we don't know, but the points I generally hear aren't suggesting that the police want to do these things, but that too often they do too little to avoid them. To me, that distinction is meaningful - it's saying "here is a problem that we can and should fix", rather than painting the police as a dehumanised adversary.

      My father was an 8 year combat veteran of the USMC prior to becoming a police officer and has done that for the last 23 years.

      This means that your father was trained in de-escalation and the appropriate use of force, where many police officers are not. I wholeheartedly believe that instituting that training for all officers would be an enormous positive change.

      Again, I’m not saying there aren’t bad apples. And police officers do have a brotherhood that causes them to look the other way on things that they shouldn’t.

      On this, my view is absolute, and I admit that perhaps that makes me naïve. An officer who covers for a bad officer is themself a bad officer. I have seen some truly sickening videos of police behaviour, and while I try to understand that they do not represent the whole, I have also seen the officers in those videos defended time and again by the unions and by their fellow officers.

      I'll end this by saying that, while there are extremes on both sides, I feel that there's actually a lot of space for agreement. If both the police and their critics came together to advocate for better training, more community engagement, body cameras for all, and honest and independent oversight reform, I think a lot of old wounds on both sides would start to heal.

      18 votes
    4. spit-evil-olive-tips
      Link Parent
      I firmly agree that the vast, vast majority of law enforcement officers get into it for the right reasons, and are just trying to do their job the same way everyone else is. Where I think it...

      I firmly agree that the vast, vast majority of law enforcement officers get into it for the right reasons, and are just trying to do their job the same way everyone else is.

      Where I think it breaks down is the "thin blue line" of officers protecting other officers, even when it's clear to the non-law enforcement public that certain actions weren't justified. When good cops defend the actions of bad cops, it reduces the public's trust in good cops, even when they're defending the actions of other good cops.

      For a small, concrete example, here's a short cell phone video of a protest a few years ago, in my hometown of Seattle:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjsAuLn5OM

      Officer randomly pepper-sprays a bystander walking past a protest. The punishment that Seattle PD's Office of Professional Accountability recommended for the cop? A one day suspension.

      And that punishment turned out to be too harsh - the police chief downgraded it to an "oral reprimand".

      So suppose the type of officer-involved shooting you describe your father being in happens in Seattle. There's an investigation, and the Office of Professional Accountability decides the shooting was justified. Why should I trust them? I already have a datapoint that they'll make ridiculous excuses for idiotic behavior by police.

      I want to trust the police. But time and time again, the police have shown they're unwilling or unable to police the bad apples from within their own ranks.

      14 votes
    5. [6]
      Amarok
      Link Parent
      As the Vorlons would say, understanding is a three-edged sword. :) My confusion with all of this is why the good cops allow the bad apples to persist among themselves. Surely there are ways for...

      As with all things, there’s three truths. Your truth, my truth, and somewhere in the middle is the actual truth.

      As the Vorlons would say, understanding is a three-edged sword. :)

      My confusion with all of this is why the good cops allow the bad apples to persist among themselves. Surely there are ways for the police to oust the bullies and racists and criminals in their midst. Why cover for the troublemakers who are giving the rest of the police force such a terrible reputation? Is there anything that can be done to make it easier for the cops to keep their own house clean?

      8 votes
      1. [4]
        Ellimist
        Link Parent
        Often times, it's because the police profession has given rise to a sort of a "brotherhood in blue". Police officers don't generally see each other as co workers to rat out but family members to...
        • Exemplary

        Often times, it's because the police profession has given rise to a sort of a "brotherhood in blue". Police officers don't generally see each other as co workers to rat out but family members to protect. Similar to the military or fire fighting, officers spend so much time together going through the Academy to being rookies on the streets that very strong bonds are formed. These officers believe that, when the shit hits the fan, they'll back each other up. Not just because it's their job but because that's what family does. Two of the officers I work with cannot stand each other. They work opposite sides of town, don't take short breaks together, don't take long breaks together. But when one of them had to draw his gun on a murder suspect, the first one there to back him up was the officer he couldn't stand. Absolutely no hesitation on his part and he came from across town to do it.

        When my dad had his shooting, a dozen of his buddies from the department, all of them guys he had gone to the Academy with, were at his house within hours. Some of them he hadn't seen in years. Some had moved on to different agencies or jobs within the department. One had retired. But as soon as they could, they were there for him.

        Growing up, I remember how my dad and his PD buddies would join recreational softball and hockey leagues. I remember playing with those guys, always treating me like one of them, within reason of course. They didn't trash talk me the way they did each other lol. But each one went out of his way to make me feel included.

        My first car accident, the first two officers on the scene were friends of my dad. Officers I had known for years. I should've gotten a ticket for the accident. I rear ended someone. But I didn't. There's an unwritten rule that you don't write tickets to the wives and children of other officers. When my brother and his girlfriend got caught doing the deed in a movie theater parking lot, the officer let him go without a ticket and then called my dad to let him know it had happened.

        I remember having pool parties at my house and one of my dads buddies would bring his wife and daughter and the adults would joke about how my little brother and their daughter were going to be married in an arranged marriage. It never happened, of course, but it was a frequent joke.

        I received a scholarship to play football out of high school. Why? One of my dads Academy buddies was brother in law to a defensive coordinator at the school. Put in a good word for me during a family get together and the Coordinator reached out.

        Many officers and their wives and children get to know the other officers and their wives and children. The policing profession has become a sort of insular world of people who believe that they must be there for each other, no matter what.

        If officers try to force the firing of another officer, they're not just punishing him/her. They're punishing that officers family as well. They're taking the livelihood and means of supporting a family away. And it's a high probability that those officers and their families have enjoyed the company of the officer they just forced out and his/her family.

        And because of those strong bonds, officers have looked the other way at questionable or illegal activity by their brethren. It's not because those officers are inherently bad too. Things are never as black and white as that. Morality is not clear cut. But it's a harder choice to do the right thing when you know innocent people may suffer for it.

        And again, for many officers, their line of work is not just work. It's a brotherhood. A calling. No one puts on a badge just for a paycheck. They don't get paid that much as it is. But for them, reporting another officer for bad behavior is akin to tattling on a sibling. "Snitches get stitches" if you will. On the flip side, they don't want to see a brother/sister go down for a bad decision.

        It's not out of maliciousness or racism. It's trying to protect a friend, co worker, brother, sister, or mentor in the same way we might lie to cover up for a sibling or buy beer for a little brother because I'm the cool big brother.

        I know this comes across as trying to defend this sort of behavior. I'm not. At least not in the case of the truly bad apples. They need to be dealt with as a step towards mending the relationship between police and the public. I'm just trying to offer up a different perspective. That "thin blue line" is more than just officers not reporting each other for bad behavior. It's family trying to protect family.

        And alot of the "bad apples" aren't always so blatantly bad. Cops have dark senses of humor. Racist comments are often ignored as being nothing more than jokes, especially when the black officers are laughing right along with them. I think, to an extent, it greatly alters the perception of what is seen as acceptable.

        7 votes
        1. [3]
          Wayfarer
          Link Parent
          That's... kind of a huge part of the problem, right there. Doing things of this nature creates another, higher "class" that gets special treatment when the rules really should apply to everyone. I...

          There's an unwritten rule that you don't write tickets to the wives and children of other officers.

          That's... kind of a huge part of the problem, right there. Doing things of this nature creates another, higher "class" that gets special treatment when the rules really should apply to everyone. I get that everyone does it (people who work in a movie theater will get friends in for free etc), but this isn't really a thing that should happen in police departments. I don't think it's a problem for truly minor things (sex in a parking lot, peeing in an alley, a low-end speeding ticket), but it does seem to me like it would create a precedent that could open the door to forgiving worse offenses that maybe shouldn't have been forgiven.

          To put it another way, those wives and children are being put 'above the law.' The truly unfortunate thing is that someone like myself, who would absolutely not take relationship to an officer into account, would get treated like dog-shit by the rest of the force for breaking that unwritten rule (I'm making some assumptions on limited knowledge, but everything else you've been saying seems to reinforce that this would hold true) and possibly get fired, looked over for promotions or punished in some other way for doing things correctly.

          I think I'm rambling, so I'm just gonna stop there, but hopefully I've made my point.

          6 votes
          1. [2]
            Ellimist
            Link Parent
            I should’ve been more specific but as it was always explained to me by my dad, that unwritten rule only applies with three general conditions The offense is minor in nature. Lower speed speeding...

            I should’ve been more specific but as it was always explained to me by my dad, that unwritten rule only applies with three general conditions

            1. The offense is minor in nature. Lower speed speeding tickets for example. A cop isn’t likely to let off the wife who is doing 60 in a 30. 40? 45? Probably. But 50 or 60? Someone’s kid gets caught with a beer at a party? Probably not getting a citation for MiP but the parent is definitely getting a phone call. Severe offenses though? Drinking and driving? Stealing? Assault? Nah that’s not gonna fly.

            2. Only applies to the city in which the spouse or parent works. I wouldn’t expect to drive to a neighboring city and get out of a ticket because of my dad. They don’t know him, they don’t know if I’m telling the truth.

            3. They’re not a frequent offender. Cop let’s me off on a speeding once? Maybe twice? Probably no one cares. But if I’m repeatedly getting pulled over? Nah.

            What I’m getting at is that, while your concern is absolutely valid, the unwritten rule isn’t treated like a “Get Out of Jail Free” card either. An officer might be more lenient on a spouse or child depending on the offense but they are still police officers sworn to uphold the law. It’s absolutely case by case and generally a courtesy to a fellow officer, not a requirement

            3 votes
            1. spit-evil-olive-tips
              Link Parent
              What you're calling "professional courtesy" I would call disregard of one of the foundational principles of our legal system: Sure, it's not a get out of jail free card. But it's one of the many...

              What you're calling "professional courtesy" I would call disregard of one of the foundational principles of our legal system:

              "the principle whereby all members of a society (including those in government) are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes"

              Sure, it's not a get out of jail free card. But it's one of the many hidden ways in which your wealth, family, or status in society changes how the laws apply to you.

              If I get a ticket for going 45 in a 30, I can't exactly take it to court and challenge it on the grounds of "this same officer gave someone else a warning for doing 45 in a 30 on the same street, only because they were another officer's kid".

              You've seen the statues of Lady Justice, right? She's blindfolded, and for a damn good reason.

              3 votes
      2. Archimedes
        Link Parent
        A tragic part of the situation is that cops who don't cover for their brethren (even the bad ones) are frequently driven out or face serious repercussions for trying to do the right thing.

        why the good cops allow the bad apples to persist among themselves

        A tragic part of the situation is that cops who don't cover for their brethren (even the bad ones) are frequently driven out or face serious repercussions for trying to do the right thing.

        6 votes
    6. noah
      Link Parent
      Without taking a stance on either side, I really enjoyed listening to season 3 of Serial by This American Life. It talks about the issues we have with both police and the judicial system, focusing...

      Without taking a stance on either side, I really enjoyed listening to season 3 of Serial by This American Life. It talks about the issues we have with both police and the judicial system, focusing mainly on the issues minorities have with 'the law.'

      1 vote
    7. Mumberthrax
      Link Parent
      Thank you for sharing this.

      Thank you for sharing this.

      1 vote
  2. [6]
    unknown user
    Link
    That there is one group of humans: all of them. I think that all nations and peoples and cultures and what not are all a mix of prejudice and tradition, and that one needs to let go of all of...

    That there is one group of humans: all of them. I think that all nations and peoples and cultures and what not are all a mix of prejudice and tradition, and that one needs to let go of all of these in order to be totally free and totally human. It includes all sorts of group identity, like nation, religion, race, gender (not sex), social classes, stereotypes, folk traditions, and so on. I refuse all of this. But not necessarily the entirety of what they contain (e.g. refusing the "man" social role is one thing, being a male human that's attracted to females is another; refusing all sorts of tradition is one thing, but treating entire gamut of traditions as a depot full of nice things to pick and choose or research into is another; the refusal is about identifying with these and being bound by these). I think this is a minority opinion; even the most "progressive" people today are incredibly eager to attach themselves to ideas or traditions or stuff. Gay marriages in churches are an interesting example, for me. Abrahamitic religions have been incredibly hostile to any sort of deviation from heterosexual reproductive sex in wedlock all throughout its history, homophobia, misogny, xenophobia, racism, dogmatism, and many other evils are deeply rooted in all of them; and still, same sex couples go to churches for weddings to get married, all three concepts deeply linked to this tradition of anti-humanity.

    In saying the above, I do not imply anarchism. I think world needs order, and that most humans can not handle this sort of intellectual freedom, and even if it did (it possibly will eventually), we'd still need some social order (i.e. governments and economy) in order to have time to learn such intellectual freedom and probably survive.

    30 votes
    1. [5]
      spit-evil-olive-tips
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      My unpopular opinion, along those same lines, is that I want national borders to go away. Not "open borders" as the current immigration debate frames them, but to recognize that national...

      My unpopular opinion, along those same lines, is that I want national borders to go away. Not "open borders" as the current immigration debate frames them, but to recognize that national boundaries are a social construct that have only existed for 500ish years.

      I want one over-arching world government, for all of humanity. Not the United Nations but an actual world-wide government, doing things like collecting taxes on carbon emissions in order to fund space exploration. Then local/bioregional governments to organize the day-to-day trash collection, local police, and so on. I don't believe "middle management" government at the nation-state level is useful anymore. And we certainly shouldn't pick a handful of those middle managers and give them control of nuclear weapons.

      28 votes
      1. nsz
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I agree with having no borders as well as individual countries, it's redundant and unnecessarily restrictive but I don't agree on one world government, I think everything should just split apart...

        I agree with having no borders as well as individual countries, it's redundant and unnecessarily restrictive but I don't agree on one world government, I think everything should just split apart and govern its self, at a city or canton level. With a master AI painting the broad brush strokes needed to keep cohesion and avoid conflict, so I guess in a way there is some central decision making but none of the baggage that comes with a flesh a blood government. I'd envision the ai more as a set of protocols that must be followed by each city with no exception, this would by necessity have to include some sort of wealth redistribution, but it's tricky to figure out how or following what criteria.

        I get that it's pretty unrealistic but I kind of think it comes closest to the idealistic philosopher king.

        Your comment on borders being just a recent idea I think is technically correct but implies a freedom of movement that was not possible.

        This is a bit of rant, but I just think the Romans were so damn interesting.
        The ancient Romans had a very strong idea of what their territory was, with pre-war rituals that involve throwing a spear into enemy territory.

        Caesar basically fabricated a reason to attack the Helvetii and kick of his invasion of Gaul: he built a wall/trench then attacked them when they crossed it, claiming a defence against an invasion — the Romans liked to think their wars were defensive. Of course, the Helvetii were fleeing from invading Germanic tribes and had asked permission for passage, it's only after stalling them for 15 days — enough time to build the wall, that he responded with a no. I always found it kind of interesting how oddly reminiscent of our modern world this seems.

        The Romans also loved to conquer land, each time they did they would expand the city limits with a religious ritual, forever cementing the conquest as theirs. It was inconceivable to lose territory, the gods would not simply not allow it.

        Hadrian's wall as built in part to establish a physical point where the empire stopped and didn't need to grow further. It's around this time (early 2nd century) it became apparent to the emperors that the continual expansion was not sustainable. Another reason for the wall was to establish points where taxes could be levied on the local population as they moved about.

        Part of the wonder of the Roman empire is the freedom of movement it afforded, for the first time it became possible for a Syrian to travel to and live in Britain or a Namibian to check out Germany, especially if they were part of the army. It's not really until the modern day that people have been able to do that.

        Imo we have never had as much freedom of movement as today, even if we go back to the bronze age and earlier it would have been damn dangerous to travel through another tribes territory.

        Having borders require a nation-state, which is a relatively new concept, but before that, it would have been warlords and their retinue, tribes, or empires, but in each, there is a strong concept of my land v. your land and power is projected by controlling your land and passage through it.

        8 votes
      2. unknown user
        Link Parent
        That's basically city-states revived, and that's quite similar to what I desire. For me, the world would ideally be a league of leagues of city-states. But "ideally" is the key word there,...

        That's basically city-states revived, and that's quite similar to what I desire. For me, the world would ideally be a league of leagues of city-states. But "ideally" is the key word there, unfortunately. There are too many hostile actors out there that, if such a thing ever happens, it'll take lots of time. But also, with globalism, it seems to me like as if we're converging to something similar eventually.

        6 votes
      3. thisonemakesyouthink
        Link Parent
        Good idea on paper. Same way I feel about communism. But corruption is FAR too easy. Think now, if the US goes corrupt, there's still Canada, the UK, all the Scandinavian countries... so many more...

        Good idea on paper. Same way I feel about communism. But corruption is FAR too easy. Think now, if the US goes corrupt, there's still Canada, the UK, all the Scandinavian countries... so many more good first world countries. If a world government makes some bad decisions, or a bad world prime minister is elected? EVERYWHERE is fucked, you can't run from that. What if, another big war happens? Think another genocide, but this time there are no other countries to intervene. Far too many ways for this to go horribly wrong.

        5 votes
      4. PopeRigby
        Link Parent
        I feel like the problem with one big world government is, if you're not happy with the government, you're out of luck. I think it's important to have the option to move to a different country if...

        I feel like the problem with one big world government is, if you're not happy with the government, you're out of luck. I think it's important to have the option to move to a different country if you don't like how things are being run in your current one.

        1 vote
  3. tnkflx
    Link
    Privacy is the foundation of our freedom and should be protected at almost all costs.

    Privacy is the foundation of our freedom and should be protected at almost all costs.

    27 votes
  4. [10]
    alyaza
    (edited )
    Link
    mine is pretty straightforward: tumblr is by a pretty wide margin the best of the big name social media websites. at face i feel like that's not a very controversial opinion and it's probably one...

    mine is pretty straightforward: tumblr is by a pretty wide margin the best of the big name social media websites. at face i feel like that's not a very controversial opinion and it's probably one that plenty of people share, but the number of people who share that sentiment that i know is exactly zero, so at least in my circles, it appears to be in the vast, vast minority.

    admittedly, it's somewhat difficult to explain why exactly i think tumblr is good, but i think it boils down to the fact that for all the shitty rap it gets and all the shitty people who inhabit it, i can't name a single website which does what tumblr does better than tumblr does it. it's so customizable (god, remember when most social media websites were like that?) and generally versatile, and there are so many little subgroups to stumble upon that inhabit tumblr that it's pretty much impossible to not find something in tumblr that's worth your time.

    on some level for me there's also just a zeitgeist with tumblr that's been lost on other websites--it feels a lot more like what the internet "was" before social media really took off than other social media sites do. a lot of social media just feels cold and sterile compared to the earlier days of the internet that i caught the tail end of, and at least on tumblr, those feelings are mitigated. it's one of the only social media sites i can name which still allows almost complete creative control over what your particular account looks like.

    25 votes
    1. meghan
      Link Parent
      If the exact codebase of tumblr was ported to a new name and used real names instead of usernames, it would be incredibly popular. tumblr is leagues above facebook

      If the exact codebase of tumblr was ported to a new name and used real names instead of usernames, it would be incredibly popular. tumblr is leagues above facebook

      8 votes
    2. unknown user
      Link Parent
      It's really easy to get discovered in Tumblr. If you consistently post on certain topics using certain tags, you can start from scratch and build a following. Say if I wanted to start a blog about...

      It's really easy to get discovered in Tumblr. If you consistently post on certain topics using certain tags, you can start from scratch and build a following. Say if I wanted to start a blog about intersting quotes, I'd definitely either do it on Tumblr alone or mirror to there. Because if you're consistent, you'll get some eyeballs soon, and likes and follows will follow. It's also a proper blog, with proper comments, and a proper lightweight theme if you want. Yes there's lots of porn on it, but there's porn everywhere (every communication channel will be repurposed for sex eventually), and porn is not bad (I think it can be very good and educational for society actually, but unfortunately you can't get to good stuff without digging in and most producers produce totally disgusting overtly stereotypical deeply caricaturised and absurd stuff).

      6 votes
    3. [5]
      spctrvl
      Link Parent
      What do you consider the big name social media websites?

      What do you consider the big name social media websites?

      1. [4]
        alyaza
        Link Parent
        i'd say the big players are facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, and tumblr, plus youtube, which is a sorta one-foot-in site as far as social media goes.

        i'd say the big players are facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, and tumblr, plus youtube, which is a sorta one-foot-in site as far as social media goes.

        2 votes
        1. [3]
          spctrvl
          Link Parent
          Oh, among those tumblr is definitely the best. I was just wondering if you included reddit. Despite its many, many problems, I think it's better than tumblr because it can be used in a similar way...

          Oh, among those tumblr is definitely the best. I was just wondering if you included reddit. Despite its many, many problems, I think it's better than tumblr because it can be used in a similar way to aggregate content, but it's much more suitable for hosting long-form discussions should they arise.

          1 vote
          1. alyaza
            Link Parent
            reddit's a weird one because it's very debatably social media at this point--but that social aspect takes place in the framework of glorified link aggregation. if it eventually starts to model...

            reddit's a weird one because it's very debatably social media at this point--but that social aspect takes place in the framework of glorified link aggregation. if it eventually starts to model itself after other social media websites and that overtakes the aggregation aspect, i'd be more inclined to call it a social media site, but i think most people kinda consider reddit its own thing and i would be inclined to agree with that take.

            3 votes
          2. Flargus
            Link Parent
            imo reddit is rly good for aggregation, just that whatever aggregate that can be connected to politics/history/self-identity generally turns fecal.

            imo reddit is rly good for aggregation, just that whatever aggregate that can be connected to politics/history/self-identity generally turns fecal.

    4. StellarTabi
      Link Parent
      Tumblr is awesome. I can't even think of a truly material change it's had in the last ten years.

      Tumblr is awesome. I can't even think of a truly material change it's had in the last ten years.

    5. Flargus
      Link Parent
      Imo the format of it is rly ideal for social media most of all - longposts w mixed-media, whose primary method of interaction is circulation. Twitter's got the second w/o the first, F*cebook's got...

      Imo the format of it is rly ideal for social media most of all - longposts w mixed-media, whose primary method of interaction is circulation. Twitter's got the second w/o the first, F*cebook's got the first w/o the second. First is a fast-circulating flow of limited depth, second is largely tidepools w/ only occasional interaction. Tumblr happened upon the way to mix the two to make smth much more dynamic, and more than likely ass-first given how incompetent the staff & administration tend to be. Like 99% of the stereotypes do exist somewhere, but the majority are vaguely almost normal

  5. [10]
    Adys
    Link
    Oh boy. All this talk about politics, gun control, taxes etc got nothing on this. You ready for this? Tabs > Spaces. I'm actually a Python dev so it's even more of a minority opinion (which is...

    Oh boy. All this talk about politics, gun control, taxes etc got nothing on this. You ready for this?

    Tabs > Spaces. I'm actually a Python dev so it's even more of a minority opinion (which is weird, because tabs are even more important in a language where indentation matters).
    I like tabs for two reasons. #1 is accessibility control: You get to set the indentation level you like, no matter which one helps you read best.
    #2 is declarativeness: the ease at which it's possible to detect indentation. In other words: You can easily go from tabs to spaces, but going from spaces to tabs can be a destructive operation.
    I don't understand why spaces got popular in the first place. The reason I keep hearing in favour of spaces is that "alignment with tabs is bad" and all I can think about is that in 15 years of programming, I've never had to align anything. Alignment is diff-noisy, so I actively avoid it, but even if I had to I would use spaces. Golang manages just fine with tabs for indent, and spaces for alignment (automatically updated by gofmt).

    24 votes
    1. [2]
      bee
      Link Parent
      To even think that anyone could be in the minority with the opinion that tabs are better than spaces make me shudder. I doubt I'll be able to sleep tonight with this knowledge.

      To even think that anyone could be in the minority with the opinion that tabs are better than spaces make me shudder. I doubt I'll be able to sleep tonight with this knowledge.

      8 votes
      1. Adys
        Link Parent
        I'm so sorry.

        I'm so sorry.

        1 vote
    2. [3]
      unknown user
      Link Parent
      I don't think either tabs or spaces will solve this argument – there are valid points on both sides, just like with every other formatting dispute. Rather, I think we need to acknowledge that a...

      I don't think either tabs or spaces will solve this argument – there are valid points on both sides, just like with every other formatting dispute. Rather, I think we need to acknowledge that a single shared text file is a fundamentally shitty way to represent code; there are simply too many different ways to represent the same thing for everyone to be happy with a single style.

      I've had an idea brewing for a while to write a git smudge filter that can perform transforms on code on checkout and commit, so you could (for example) read and write code with K&R braces, but have them automatically committed in Allman style, I just haven't had time to make any progress on writing it.

      3 votes
      1. Adys
        Link Parent
        Automatic formatters are the way forward IMO. Prettier does an excellent job for several languages already. Black is ok for Python (but no tabs, grr. I forked it with Tab support since I can't...

        Automatic formatters are the way forward IMO. Prettier does an excellent job for several languages already. Black is ok for Python (but no tabs, grr. I forked it with Tab support since I can't just change the style of everything I work with).

        5 votes
      2. MacDolanFarms
        Link Parent
        It would be cool to have files that just stored an AST, that your editor could display however you want. That would end need for most formatting conversation; you can represent your code however...

        It would be cool to have files that just stored an AST, that your editor could display however you want. That would end need for most formatting conversation; you can represent your code however you feel like, and it doesn't affect me. This could also lend itself to semantic diffs.

        5 votes
    3. MacDolanFarms
      Link Parent
      I completely agree. Tabs seem better to me in almost every way. People often say that it might not look the same on everyone's screen, but that's the point. For some people 8 characters is way too...

      I completely agree. Tabs seem better to me in almost every way. People often say that it might not look the same on everyone's screen, but that's the point. For some people 8 characters is way too much indentation, and for some 2 is way too little. Tabs let people choose what they want to see instead of pushing your preferred amount of visual spacing on others.

      While I've found Python code style tools that let you allow tabs, I've never found any that let you enforce tabs. Do you know of any?

      This also bugs me with Lisp. I'm not really a fan of the mixed indentation-and-alignment style, and 99.9% of Lisp code is indented with spaces.

      1 vote
    4. [2]
      Mumberthrax
      Link Parent
      My preferred IDE lets me press tab and it puts out two spaces. I can also shift+tab to de-indent. I like it that way because all whitespace is the same, and i don't have to worry about mistaking a...

      My preferred IDE lets me press tab and it puts out two spaces. I can also shift+tab to de-indent. I like it that way because all whitespace is the same, and i don't have to worry about mistaking a tab for a space or a space for a tab.

      1. Adys
        Link Parent
        A lot of people find two-spaces code to be very hard to read, myself included. If you were using tabs, you could configure them to be two spaces and it'd be the same for you, but your code would...

        A lot of people find two-spaces code to be very hard to read, myself included. If you were using tabs, you could configure them to be two spaces and it'd be the same for you, but your code would be readable by everyone :)

    5. AshySlashy
      Link Parent
      Tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment. It's fairly easy to set up most IDEs and text editors to handle this for you.

      Tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment.

      It's fairly easy to set up most IDEs and text editors to handle this for you.

  6. [6]
    Nitta
    (edited )
    Link
    Physical contact between friends shouldn't be socially unacceptable. Romantic partners and friends of any gender combinations and even numbers of people in a group (polyamory if romantic) should...

    Physical contact between friends shouldn't be socially unacceptable. Romantic partners and friends of any gender combinations and even numbers of people in a group (polyamory if romantic) should freely hold hands, cuddle or sleep in one bed without fear when it's bonding and pleasure, sexual (in some cases) or not (in other cases).

    Friendship can be as close and important in life as romance, including with whom you choose to live together. Presence or absence of sex is just a preference, like playing or not playing split screen video games together.

    Human pregnancy is physiologically terrifying and damaging, and brings fundamental inequality to billions of relationships. Artificial wombs must become available in order to ease social tension and unfairness a lot. Then men and women will have truly equal opportunities in life and won't be opposed much anymore.

    Periods in women are unneeded struggle for the majority of life and should be somehow easily turned off, also for gender fairness and well being.

    P.S. I'm a guy

    20 votes
    1. [4]
      unknown user
      Link Parent
      Unfortunately, we're animals. Is it really true that friends don't touch each other in the West/US?

      Human pregnancy is physiologically terrifying and damaging, and brings fundamental inequality to billions of relationships. Artificial wombs must become available in order to ease social tension and unfairness a lot. Then men and women will have truly equal opportunities in life and won't be opposed much anymore.

      Periods in women are unneeded struggle for the majority of life and should be somehow easily turned off, also for gender fairness and well being.

      Unfortunately, we're animals.

      Physical contact between friends shouldn't be socially unacceptable. Couples and friends should freely hold hands, cuddle or sleep in one bed without fear when it's bonding and pleasure, sexual (in some cases) or not (in other cases).

      Is it really true that friends don't touch each other in the West/US?

      6 votes
      1. [3]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        Yes and no. Especially among male friends in western cultures, the acceptability of physical contact seems to be directly related to the visibility and acceptability of homosexuality. I have a...

        Is it really true that friends don't touch each other in the West/US?

        Yes and no.

        Especially among male friends in western cultures, the acceptability of physical contact seems to be directly related to the visibility and acceptability of homosexuality. I have a theory about this (no dancing demons). Homosexuality seems to go through three phases:

        1. Invisible and unknown. Homosexual men exist, but they hide themselves because homosexuality is seen as bad.

        2. Visible and not accepted. Homosexual men decide to make themselves known, but society does not approve of them.

        3. Visible and accepted. Homosexual men are known and accepted.

        In phases 1 and 3, physical touch between straight men is acceptable. In phase 1, male affection is fine because it's not seen as gay because gay people don't exist. In phase 3, male affection is fine because, even if it is seen as gay, being gay is good.

        In phase 2, physical touch between straight men is not acceptable, because it's seen as gay - and being gay is not fine at all. Straight men will not touch each other because they do not want to be seen as gay, because being gay is bad.

        7 votes
        1. [2]
          unknown user
          Link Parent
          That's interesting. I'm from Turkey, where it's sort of a #2 society according to your definitions (though there's a long standing pederasty culture, still not completely dead; and also while...

          That's interesting. I'm from Turkey, where it's sort of a #2 society according to your definitions (though there's a long standing pederasty culture, still not completely dead; and also while homosexuality is quite present, there's also lot of hate), but same sex heterosexual physical contact is quite common. But we're also a very handsy people, maybe has to do with that.

          4 votes
          1. Algernon_Asimov
            Link Parent
            It is only my own personal theory. And it's limited to western Anglophile cultures. So it's probably not applicable to Turkey.

            It is only my own personal theory. And it's limited to western Anglophile cultures. So it's probably not applicable to Turkey.

            3 votes
    2. CALICO
      Link Parent
      I hope society gets better about this in the West, and in my personal experience at least it seems to be. I'm polyamorous, and open about it among all of my friends. I do dread the day coming out...

      I hope society gets better about this in the West, and in my personal experience at least it seems to be.

      I'm polyamorous, and open about it among all of my friends. I do dread the day coming out to my folks about it though, and I'm pan-as-fuck as well. Should be fun. Although I have been easing them into it what with having an "open relationship", and they're working on wrapping their heads around that for now.

      I'm very into intimacy among friends as well. Hand-holding isn't so much of thing between us, but I'll hug and cuddle and sometimes share a bed with friends, tell them I love them and all of that. It's really nice. My close friends are as much my family as my blood relatives, sometimes closer, and being able to express that is such a wonderful feeling.

      There's an emotional literacy that comes with the package as well, which I find utterly invaluable.

      4 votes
  7. [6]
    nacho
    Link
    The US electorate is getting exactly the destructive and dysfunctional congress, government and partisan politics we deserve. The values that guide American society just don't add up to the...

    The US electorate is getting exactly the destructive and dysfunctional congress, government and partisan politics we deserve.

    The values that guide American society just don't add up to the completely unrealistic results most Americans expect should emerge.

    To me it's cheap to blame anyone or anything but the electorate. We're responsible. If we've broken the system through our naive votes, we're responsible for fixing it through future uses of the ballot box.

    18 votes
    1. Devin
      Link Parent
      This episode of freakonomics hit a nerve on that topic. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/americas-hidden-duopoly_radio/

      This episode of freakonomics hit a nerve on that topic.

      Season 8, Episode 10

      We all know our political system is “broken” — but what if that’s not true? Some say the Republicans and Democrats constitute a wildly successful industry that has colluded to kill off competition, stifle reform, and drive the country apart. So what are you going to do about it?

      http://freakonomics.com/podcast/americas-hidden-duopoly_radio/

      10 votes
    2. Archimedes
      Link Parent
      I agree we get what we deserve much of the time, but the first-past-the-post voting system is not a great method as it nearly always eventually leads to a two-party duopoly that has a stranglehold...

      I agree we get what we deserve much of the time, but the first-past-the-post voting system is not a great method as it nearly always eventually leads to a two-party duopoly that has a stranglehold on the system and tends to polarize the populous into an ever more divisive tribalist mentality.

      Once this duopoly is in place it is nearly impossible to break the cycle through the ballot box as it serves the interest of the duopoly to maintain this division rather than forming bipartisan coalitions. The us-vs-them mentality takes hold party-over-country becomes the standard at the expense of the general public and there's nothing the public can do except pick which color they dislike the least and hope things work out better the next cycle.

      5 votes
    3. Flargus
      Link Parent
      Things have largely come about due to how people vote, but the general populace doesn't excercise meaningful control over the creation of the capital-m media we consume, nor for the most part the...

      Things have largely come about due to how people vote, but the general populace doesn't excercise meaningful control over the creation of the capital-m media we consume, nor for the most part the choices to choose between on the ballots.

      Sure the electorate is responsible, but how did we become responsible?

      3 votes
    4. [2]
      ev0lv
      Link Parent
      The system is also inherently broken as well, though. There are way too few house reps (~700,000 per one rep, not much representation eh? Maybe we should try 100k-200k per rep.), the Senate is...

      The system is also inherently broken as well, though. There are way too few house reps (~700,000 per one rep, not much representation eh? Maybe we should try 100k-200k per rep.), the Senate is simply an unfair system as it gives more power to land than the American people, the Electoral College is an ancient system by now that serves no real purpose, it only gives favor-ability to swing states, while small states just vote the same way every time, first past the post is also flawed from its concept on a scale like this, it's good when there's only two options, but any more and it begins to break down (see: the outbreak of the Civil War)

      Gerrymandering is also a massive problem, a majority (over 50%) voted for Democrats in NC for example, yet only got 3 out of 13 house seats, 23% of the total. This is in a year where the use of the ballot box shot through the roof as well. We do need to fix it through our future uses, but the reason it dived down this far is because we're using outdated systems, because we're lazy and hate change.

      2 votes
      1. spit-evil-olive-tips
        Link Parent
        If you want a glimpse of how bad this is going to get: I try to be optimistic...but I have trouble seeing how the US can remain a functional country with such a severe power imbalance.
        1 vote
  8. [13]
    spctrvl
    Link
    This one is pretty contentious even on the far left, but I just don't think markets are how we should be doing resource allocation. Sure, there are situations where they do a decent job, and the...

    This one is pretty contentious even on the far left, but I just don't think markets are how we should be doing resource allocation. Sure, there are situations where they do a decent job, and the market economy is more efficient than many of its predecessors, but it's ultimately driven by mindless, naturalistic processes that lead rational human beings into acting like bacteria, with short term thinking dominating and countless resources and lives being wasted in economies stuck in high level equilibrium traps, even as its ideology of infinite growth at all cost is violently driving our society off the cliff that is the finite nature of our world.

    My thoughts along these lines pretty closely mirror those of Iain Banks, and he lays his out pretty eloquently in the essay A Few Notes on The Culture:

    Let me state here a personal conviction that appears, right now, to be profoundly unfashionable; which is that a planned economy can be more productive - and more morally desirable - than one left to market forces.

    The market is a good example of evolution in action; the try-everything-and-see-what- -works approach. This might provide a perfectly morally satisfactory resource-management system so long as there was absolutely no question of any sentient creature ever being treated purely as one of those resources. The market, for all its (profoundly inelegant) complexities, remains a crude and essentially blind system, and is - without the sort of drastic amendments liable to cripple the economic efficacy which is its greatest claimed asset - intrinsically incapable of distinguishing between simple non-use of matter resulting from processal superfluity and the acute, prolonged and wide-spread suffering of conscious beings.

    It is, arguably, in the elevation of this profoundly mechanistic (and in that sense perversely innocent) system to a position above all other moral, philosophical and political values and considerations that humankind displays most convincingly both its present intellectual [immaturity and] - through grossly pursued selfishness rather than the applied hatred of others - a kind of synthetic evil.

    Intelligence, which is capable of looking farther ahead than the next aggressive mutation, can set up long-term aims and work towards them; the same amount of raw invention that bursts in all directions from the market can be - to some degree - channelled and directed, so that while the market merely shines (and the feudal gutters), the planned lases, reaching out coherently and efficiently towards agreed-on goals. What is vital for such a scheme, however, and what was always missing in the planned economies of our world's experience, is the continual, intimate and decisive participation of the mass of the citizenry in determining these goals, and designing as well as implementing the plans which should lead towards them.

    Of course, there is a place for serendipity and chance in any sensibly envisaged plan, and the degree to which this would affect the higher functions of a democratically designed economy would be one of the most important parameters to be set... but just as the information we have stored in our libraries and institutions has undeniably outgrown (if not outweighed) that resident in our genes, and just as we may, within a century of the invention of electronics, duplicate - through machine sentience - a process which evolution took billions of years to achieve, so we shall one day abandon the grossly targeted vagaries of the market for the precision creation of the planned economy.

    17 votes
    1. [4]
      StellarTabi
      Link Parent
      It's weird to me how free market extremism is so popular of an opinion. If the free market is so much more efficient than central planning, then why does nearly all corporations use central...

      It's weird to me how free market extremism is so popular of an opinion. If the free market is so much more efficient than central planning, then why does nearly all corporations use central planning? I'm not even trying to say we should abolish freemarkets in general, it's just crazy how prevalent the extremist views are "free market everything" and how that narrative obviously benefits the wealthy. Everyone's idea of efficiency is the econ101 supply/demand chart but never "were the resources actually distributed efficiently?" And apparently bringing up ethical considerations somehow means you don't understand that basic chart.

      8 votes
      1. Archimedes
        Link Parent
        The free market is great under perfect competition when (among other assumptions) barriers to entry are low, perfect information exists among all parties, and externalities are negligible....

        The free market is great under perfect competition when (among other assumptions) barriers to entry are low, perfect information exists among all parties, and externalities are negligible.

        Industries like healthcare are not well-suited for a free market approach, especially when taking into account ethical considerations.

        7 votes
      2. Flargus
        Link Parent
        That chart is so fetishized as eternal & god-granted, but they never get around to questioning why Supply intersects Demand at the point it does. S&D can explain events which happen...

        That chart is so fetishized as eternal & god-granted, but they never get around to questioning why Supply intersects Demand at the point it does. S&D can explain events which happen quantitatively, sure, but what happens when S&D are in equilibrium? Descriptive frameworks which rely on S&D as a cornerstone stop being able to explain anything about the price, & tadah the Invisible Hand is born. Ironically even Adam Smith didn't center that aspect of it:

        The value of any commodity, [...] to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities

        They focus on the little moving dot as opposed to its gravitational center. It's a fundamentally geocentric view of Political-Economy

        4 votes
      3. harrygibus
        Link Parent
        To your point about free market ideals inside companies I offer this

        To your point about free market ideals inside companies I offer this

        1 vote
    2. [5]
      Amarok
      Link Parent
      Feudalism was a guttering torch, capitalism is an out of control wildfire, and the next step will be a focused laser. ;)

      Feudalism was a guttering torch, capitalism is an out of control wildfire, and the next step will be a focused laser. ;)

      7 votes
      1. [4]
        spctrvl
        Link Parent
        Science fiction writers might be an unorthodox place to go for political and economic ideas, but damned if Banks didn't lay down one hell of a vision. Dunno if it's the utopian dream being out of...

        Science fiction writers might be an unorthodox place to go for political and economic ideas, but damned if Banks didn't lay down one hell of a vision. Dunno if it's the utopian dream being out of fashion or what, but none of the other post-singularity authors quite compare.

        4 votes
        1. Amarok
          Link Parent
          Frankly, I think he's the only one that hit on a natural, rational, and possible process for building a galactic utopian civilization - and somehow saw through the chaos of how it all comes...

          Frankly, I think he's the only one that hit on a natural, rational, and possible process for building a galactic utopian civilization - and somehow saw through the chaos of how it all comes together to form a society. His vision is the best one out there because that man did his goddamn homework. I'm glad someone got the reference. :D

          4 votes
        2. [2]
          CALICO
          Link Parent
          Which of his works do you mean specifically? The Culture novels, or something else? Banks has been on my list for a while but I don't think I've yet to read any of his stuff.

          Which of his works do you mean specifically? The Culture novels, or something else?

          Banks has been on my list for a while but I don't think I've yet to read any of his stuff.

          2 votes
          1. spctrvl
            Link Parent
            Yeah the culture novels are what I'm talking about. Haven't read his other stuff yet but it's on the list.

            Yeah the culture novels are what I'm talking about. Haven't read his other stuff yet but it's on the list.

            1 vote
    3. [3]
      BuckeyeSundae
      Link Parent
      Do you think the Chinese are moving in that direction already? And doesn’t this active-intervention approach require enorous government control over human action?

      Do you think the Chinese are moving in that direction already? And doesn’t this active-intervention approach require enorous government control over human action?

      2 votes
      1. [2]
        spctrvl
        Link Parent
        I don't think they are, China is still above all else a market economy with government intervention, albeit more than the norm in the current day and age. The massive infrastructure investments...

        I don't think they are, China is still above all else a market economy with government intervention, albeit more than the norm in the current day and age. The massive infrastructure investments they're making and state projects and the like are in service to the market, not in competition with.

        Regarding the whole control over human action stuff, I don't really think planned economies would be particularly more repressive than market economies, which require massive state paramilitaries and bureaucracies to maintain the sanctity of private capital. Quite the opposite in fact. In the current system, while we may nominally live in a democracy, we sign away half or more of our waking hours to labor in small private fiefdoms at the behest and for the benefit of unelected capitalists, in exchange for the privilege of survival. In addition to the efficiency and foresight, I think of economic planning as a way to bring democracy into the economy and the workplace.

        I mean it is obviously possible to have a planned economy without a democracy, but that's not what I advocate and I think it's an endeavor doomed to failure, like the Soviet bloc states. The entire idea after all is to give people more control over production and the goals of production than they have in a market economy. From the passage above:

        What is vital for such a scheme, however, and what was always missing in the planned economies of our world's experience, is the continual, intimate and decisive participation of the mass of the citizenry in determining these goals, and designing as well as implementing the plans which should lead towards them.

        5 votes
        1. StellarTabi
          Link Parent
          Yeah, it totally blows my mind that people are so strongly against government power but also trip over themselves to defend Amazon's right to even more power.

          Yeah, it totally blows my mind that people are so strongly against government power but also trip over themselves to defend Amazon's right to even more power.

          3 votes
  9. [3]
    unknown user
    Link
    Compassion should be the Guiding Principle. Whether it's personal relationships, workforce ethics, or international politics. Not science (although I am a big fan), not religion, not some abstract...

    Compassion should be the Guiding Principle. Whether it's personal relationships, workforce ethics, or international politics. Not science (although I am a big fan), not religion, not some abstract set of values. Awareness and compassion are enough.

    16 votes
    1. unknown user
      Link Parent
      Compassion is a human virtue that's easiest to exploit by adversaries. It's one of the least reasonable parts of us. If it's the guiding principle, it means people have passwordless root access to...

      Compassion is a human virtue that's easiest to exploit by adversaries. It's one of the least reasonable parts of us. If it's the guiding principle, it means people have passwordless root access to your mind over rsh.

      6 votes
    2. Mumberthrax
      Link Parent
      If i have compassion for my sister and compassion for her rapist, and compassion for society - I think my compassion for my sister and society win out over compassion for her rapist, who deserves...

      If i have compassion for my sister and compassion for her rapist, and compassion for society - I think my compassion for my sister and society win out over compassion for her rapist, who deserves death. Not only to prevent him personally from harming others, not only as retribution or vegeance, but to show other potential rapists there are consequences for that crime.

      Similarly, I may have compassion for a burglar, and that does not mean I should leave my door unlocked at night, nor live in poverty where I am unable to be as productive for society.

  10. [15]
    moonbathers
    (edited )
    Link
    I don't like American gun culture. I'm not worried about self-defense, nor do I think everyone having a gun would help against a tyrannical government. No one who uses that argument defends the...

    I don't like American gun culture. I'm not worried about self-defense, nor do I think everyone having a gun would help against a tyrannical government. No one who uses that argument defends the guy who shot a couple police officers in Dallas a year or two ago (I do not condone what he did, he just uses the same argument). Guns are for killing people, but the way people talk about them you'd think they're as important as food and water. Thirty thousand Americans die from guns every year and it's a tragedy.

    Edit: It very well may not be a minority opinion and I'm ok with being called out on that. My personal experience and being on reddit led me to think it was a minority opinion.

    12 votes
    1. [4]
      Algernon_Asimov
      Link Parent
      This isn't a minority opinion outside of the USA. If you step outside the USA's borders, you'll find yourself in the majority. This is just plain common sense to us non-Americans. This is a...

      I don't like American gun culture.

      This isn't a minority opinion outside of the USA. If you step outside the USA's borders, you'll find yourself in the majority. This is just plain common sense to us non-Americans.

      This is a minority opinion only within the USA but, luckily, the USA doesn't make up the majority of the world.

      11 votes
      1. [2]
        spctrvl
        Link Parent
        I don't even think it's a minority opinion within the USA. The overwhelming majority of Americans of all political affiliations support much stricter regulations on firearms, but the opinions of...

        I don't even think it's a minority opinion within the USA. The overwhelming majority of Americans of all political affiliations support much stricter regulations on firearms, but the opinions of the overwhelming majority of Americans don't particularly matter in the age of unlimited anonymous campaign finance and a multi-billion dollar gun lobby.

        4 votes
        1. alyaza
          Link Parent
          the amount of support really depends on the level of gun control (for example universal background checks are almost unanimously supported, but the sort that you normally see floated in...

          the amount of support really depends on the level of gun control (for example universal background checks are almost unanimously supported, but the sort that you normally see floated in congressional bills poll closer to 53-47 in favor) but yeah, it's very much debatable whether dislike of american gun culture or strict gun control are minority opinions in the US

          2 votes
      2. moonbathers
        Link Parent
        Yeah, I really should have been more clear about disclaiming it. All I know is a whole lot of people die needlessly from guns.

        Yeah, I really should have been more clear about disclaiming it. All I know is a whole lot of people die needlessly from guns.

    2. [8]
      Grendel
      Link Parent
      So this is tough for me. I understand the arguments for gun control, and I can see it has some good points. I grew up in gun culture (a strong one at that) and I own multiple guns myself. In fact...

      So this is tough for me. I understand the arguments for gun control, and I can see it has some good points. I grew up in gun culture (a strong one at that) and I own multiple guns myself. In fact I have a license to carry a concealed weapon. I feel like there are some merits to both views on guns.

      I struggle with conflicting feelings on in this area.

      4 votes
      1. moonbathers
        Link Parent
        I grew up somewhere that going hunting was an excused absence from school, but neither I nor my parents have ever owned any guns. I really don't have an answer for what to do about it. I just...

        I grew up somewhere that going hunting was an excused absence from school, but neither I nor my parents have ever owned any guns. I really don't have an answer for what to do about it. I just think they cause more trouble than they're worth.

        2 votes
      2. [5]
        calcifer
        Link Parent
        I live in a country with strict gun laws and for the life of me, I can't think of a single reason why either a person chooses to concealed carry, nor why a government should allow it. So I guess...

        In fact I have a license to carry a concealed weapon

        I live in a country with strict gun laws and for the life of me, I can't think of a single reason why either a person chooses to concealed carry, nor why a government should allow it. So I guess my question is, why do you think you need to carry a concealed weapon on you and why do you think a government should allow you to be a public risk?

        1 vote
        1. [4]
          Grendel
          Link Parent
          I choose to carry my weapon because I feel that it would aid in my protection should another person threaten my life. Put bluntly, bad guys have guns here and that's not going to change anytime...
          1. I choose to carry my weapon because I feel that it would aid in my protection should another person threaten my life. Put bluntly, bad guys have guns here and that's not going to change anytime soon. Even if strict gun control laws were declared today, it would take decades to actually decrease the number of guns owned and used by criminals.

          2. Where I live you have to take a class to get certified to be able to carry a weapon. It's not perfect, but it should cut down public risk. Personally I have also received extra training from a law enforcement officer. I hope that I never have to use my gun but if I ever do it will be for the safety of the public.

          1. [3]
            calcifer
            Link Parent
            Doesn't have to be. Australia, for example, confiscated 650,000 weapons which cut down firearm homicides by 50% and suicides by 74%. Where there is a will, there is a way.

            it would take decades to actually decrease the number of guns owned and used by criminals.

            Doesn't have to be. Australia, for example, confiscated 650,000 weapons which cut down firearm homicides by 50% and suicides by 74%. Where there is a will, there is a way.

            2 votes
            1. [2]
              Grendel
              Link Parent
              Sure, but in the US that wouldn't even scratch the surface. According to gunpolicy.org there are at least 265 million guns in the us. So 650,000 guns wouldn't even be 1%. I'm not saying it...

              Sure, but in the US that wouldn't even scratch the surface. According to gunpolicy.org there are at least 265 million guns in the us. So 650,000 guns wouldn't even be 1%.

              I'm not saying it couldn't be done, I'm saying it would take a lot to get it done.

              1. spit-evil-olive-tips
                Link Parent
                Are you saying it shouldn't be done? Something I've seen frequently with regards to debates about gun regulation in the US is that if some small change is proposed, it gets dismissed as "that...

                I'm not saying it couldn't be done, I'm saying it would take a lot to get it done.

                Are you saying it shouldn't be done?

                Something I've seen frequently with regards to debates about gun regulation in the US is that if some small change is proposed, it gets dismissed as "that won't do anything, so why even bother". And if a large change gets proposed it gets a reaction of "that's too big / too far-reaching, so it's unrealistic".

                2 votes
      3. Mumberthrax
        Link Parent
        Do you believe the 2nd amendment is an important deterrent against tyranny?

        Do you believe the 2nd amendment is an important deterrent against tyranny?

    3. [2]
      jkflying
      Link Parent
      I believe that the USA is extraordinarily diverse, and trying to have one set of rules that works both in downtown NYC as well as the rural midwest is a recipe for trouble. There are places where...

      I believe that the USA is extraordinarily diverse, and trying to have one set of rules that works both in downtown NYC as well as the rural midwest is a recipe for trouble.

      There are places where the police will have over an hour response time, and telling those people they cannot defend their family from a meth-head who thought they look like easy meat is a great way to get them to call you an out-of-touch city-slicker. In rural areas, yes people do actually have hunting licenses for eg. deer, without which the deer would actually overpopulate and demolish the forest regrowth, since we've killed all of the natural predators.

      However, once you have a high enough population density, I totally agree, safety is the police's job and hunting isn't a real past-time. In this case, regulate the hell out of guns.

      2 votes
      1. moonbathers
        Link Parent
        See my response to @Grendel, it's basically the same as I would respond to you.

        See my response to @Grendel, it's basically the same as I would respond to you.

  11. [4]
    jlpoole
    Link
    Refraining from profanity in forums.

    Refraining from profanity in forums.

    11 votes
    1. germ
      Link Parent
      Personally I’m a fan of cursing online, it adds a extra sense of humanity to a online forum. Half of the comments on HN, while well written, are extremely sterile for this reason. That and the...

      Personally I’m a fan of cursing online, it adds a extra sense of humanity to a online forum. Half of the comments on HN, while well written, are extremely sterile for this reason. That and the extra caution taken to be inoffensive.

      I love plumbers for this reason, they know exactly what they’re doing and anthropomorphizing pipes while dropping cbombs everywhere. Extremely friendly people

      1 vote
    2. [2]
      Comment removed by site admin
      Link Parent
      1. nacho
        Link Parent
        To me, a lot of swearwords are simply so overused they've become weak. You can call someone horrendous slurs/swears face-to-face without getting a reaction, but words like silly or childish can...

        To me, a lot of swearwords are simply so overused they've become weak.

        You can call someone horrendous slurs/swears face-to-face without getting a reaction, but words like silly or childish can cause someone to explode.

        10 votes
  12. [17]
    Diet_Coke
    Link
    I'm 100% for a draft, men and women, however I'd like to see it with minimal exemptions. I think we'd be a lot more cautious about going to war.

    I'm 100% for a draft, men and women, however I'd like to see it with minimal exemptions. I think we'd be a lot more cautious about going to war.

    11 votes
    1. [9]
      Algernon_Asimov
      Link Parent
      Given that the people making the decisions to go to war are not the same people who'll be drafted for those wars, your proposed solution won't solve anything. It's easy to decide to go to war when...

      Given that the people making the decisions to go to war are not the same people who'll be drafted for those wars, your proposed solution won't solve anything. It's easy to decide to go to war when other people are going to do your fighting for you - and with a widespread draft in place, you know there'll always be fresh cannon fodder available!

      I've seen it proposed that the politicians who decide to go to war should be forced to serve themselves. If a President or Prime Minister has to serve on the front line themself, maybe they'll think twice before voting to start a war.

      19 votes
      1. [3]
        Nitta
        Link Parent
        That would probably be really dangerous for the chain of command though, and strength of command as a whole. Higher ranking officers need more physical safety. That's unfair sure, but it is...

        That would probably be really dangerous for the chain of command though, and strength of command as a whole. Higher ranking officers need more physical safety. That's unfair sure, but it is effective. Fairness and effectiveness are often the opposite things. And in wars effectiveness is very important, or the cost is higher chance of defeat.

        3 votes
        1. [2]
          Algernon_Asimov
          Link Parent
          I don't give a shit about the chain of command. If you're the leader of a country and you want to go to war, then you go to war. Don't send other people to do your fighting for you. If your cause...

          I don't give a shit about the chain of command. If you're the leader of a country and you want to go to war, then you go to war. Don't send other people to do your fighting for you. If your cause is good enough for other people to die for, then it's good enough for you to die for.

          8 votes
          1. Nitta
            Link Parent
            And this is fair

            And this is fair

            2 votes
      2. [5]
        Diet_Coke
        Link Parent
        Vietnam is exactly when the American government realized it needed to move to a volunteer army. Morale was terrible in the armed forces, the act of killing one's commanding officer was evidently...

        Vietnam is exactly when the American government realized it needed to move to a volunteer army. Morale was terrible in the armed forces, the act of killing one's commanding officer was evidently common enough to earn a name - fragging. Massive protests, lead by young people who were at risk of being drafted, eventually brought the war to an end. The people making the decisions on when to go to war aren't going to war now, but the effect of the draft would have long since brought an end to Afghanistan and Iraq IMO.

        1. [4]
          Algernon_Asimov
          Link Parent
          We had massive public protests here in Australia when Prime Minister John Howard threatened to commit Australia to join President George W Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" to invade Iraq after...

          the effect of the draft would have long since brought an end to Afghanistan and Iraq IMO.

          We had massive public protests here in Australia when Prime Minister John Howard threatened to commit Australia to join President George W Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" to invade Iraq after the terrorist attacks in New York in September 2001. They were part of a worldwide coordinated day of protest on 15th February 2003, in which millions of people around the world participated, including half a million people here in Australia - but the Prime Minister dismissed those protests and signed us up to the Iraq war anyway.

          And, despite this "largest protest event in human history", President Bush went ahead regardless.

          Protests did not stop the Iraq invasion.

          1. [3]
            Diet_Coke
            Link Parent
            Protests were very strong at the beginning of the Iraq invasion, but petered out. When was the last one? We're still there. Protests continued for the duration of the Vietnam war until eventually...

            Protests were very strong at the beginning of the Iraq invasion, but petered out. When was the last one? We're still there. Protests continued for the duration of the Vietnam war until eventually the only option was to pull out.

            1. [2]
              Algernon_Asimov
              Link Parent
              Why would people keep protesting against the Iraq invasion? They organised a big, worldwide, coordinated protest in which millions of people participated - and were ignored. The invasion happened...

              Why would people keep protesting against the Iraq invasion? They organised a big, worldwide, coordinated protest in which millions of people participated - and were ignored. The invasion happened anyway. Why protest to stop something happening after it happened?

              1. Diet_Coke
                Link Parent
                Well, that's a great question - and exactly why following the Vietnam war policies to create a volunteer army were implemented. It's been great for the military-industrial complex, not so much for...

                Well, that's a great question - and exactly why following the Vietnam war policies to create a volunteer army were implemented. It's been great for the military-industrial complex, not so much for the rest of us.

                Another pernicious effect of a volunteer army is that the military gets a marketing budget. This has contributed to a good deal of the ugliness in the American psyche. The backlash against Colin Kaepernick, for example, who was kneeling during a ceremony started in 2012 with military marketing budget dollars. Some people think (not sure I completely agree) that our country hasn't moved forward on public healthcare or college is because these are big tools for military recruitment.

    2. [4]
      Devin
      Link Parent
      There is another reason for conscription. Moving young people around the country let's them experience different viewpoints and is conducive to mixing up the gene pool.

      There is another reason for conscription. Moving young people around the country let's them experience different viewpoints and is conducive to mixing up the gene pool.

      3 votes
      1. [3]
        unknown user
        Link Parent
        I'm from a compulsory conscription contry. Fuck compulsory conscription. There's no justice or justification to stealing a persons time, forcibly if they refuse, to teach them how to kill. As for...

        I'm from a compulsory conscription contry. Fuck compulsory conscription. There's no justice or justification to stealing a persons time, forcibly if they refuse, to teach them how to kill.

        As for moving youngsters around, that can well be done with camps or sending teachers around &c. Without creating a country full of professional killers.

        8 votes
        1. [2]
          Devin
          Link Parent
          Something like the Corp of engineers to fix up infrastructure or something would be a better idea.

          Something like the Corp of engineers to fix up infrastructure or something would be a better idea.

          1 vote
          1. spit-evil-olive-tips
            Link Parent
            There is something a bit like that already in the US, called Job Corps. I think it gets looked down upon a fair bit though, seen as a sort of last resort job training for people with criminal...

            There is something a bit like that already in the US, called Job Corps.

            I think it gets looked down upon a fair bit though, seen as a sort of last resort job training for people with criminal records, or who dropped out of college, etc. That's unfortunate, and where having it be mandatory in some way or another might be useful. If it's something everyone does, or a significant portion of the population, it goes a long way towards erasing any stigma about it.

            3 votes
    3. jkflying
      Link Parent
      I'm for it as well, but for another reason: social mixing. Having people from cities and country, rich and poor, all thrown together and forced to work together, is a formative experience IMO, and...

      I'm for it as well, but for another reason: social mixing. Having people from cities and country, rich and poor, all thrown together and forced to work together, is a formative experience IMO, and something I wish I'd had the chance to do.

      And it doesn't have to be for military. It could be for park and nature conservation, coast/lifeguard, ambulance, elderly care. The important part is being forced to work together with people from other social backgrounds.

      3 votes
    4. pleure
      Link Parent
      I strongly disagree with this, but I do strongly feel a "draft" for a local community militia that would replace the police force would be amazing.

      I strongly disagree with this, but I do strongly feel a "draft" for a local community militia that would replace the police force would be amazing.

      2 votes
    5. spctrvl
      Link Parent
      Do you think said draft should necessarily be military? I can see the benefits to social cohesion that would come from universal service, but I think the military is an ungodly enormous waste of...

      Do you think said draft should necessarily be military? I can see the benefits to social cohesion that would come from universal service, but I think the military is an ungodly enormous waste of time and money for all involved, and would much rather have a resurrection of the WPA or CCC than further balloon our already bloated armed forces.

      I don't buy that a draft would increase caution about going to war. The war in Vietnam burned through hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of drafted American soldiers and trundled on for nearly two decades in spite of massive protests.

      1 vote
  13. [28]
    papasquat
    Link
    Things that don't directly harm other people shouldn't ever be illegal under any circumstances. This includes every type of drug, not wearing your seatbelt, and not wearing your helmet on a bike...

    Things that don't directly harm other people shouldn't ever be illegal under any circumstances. This includes every type of drug, not wearing your seatbelt, and not wearing your helmet on a bike or motorcycle. This must be coupled with extremely good education about these things, regulation to make them as safe as possible, and support for when people hurt themselves from doing them. The government forbidding a grown person from doing anything for their own good is oppressive and wrong.

    11 votes
    1. [3]
      nacho
      Link Parent
      I feel we have a moral responsibility towards the loved ones around us, and to society. Then there's the reality of us humans being irrational animals. Most of us can't balance the risks of normal...
      • Exemplary

      I feel we have a moral responsibility towards the loved ones around us, and to society.

      Then there's the reality of us humans being irrational animals. Most of us can't balance the risks of normal choices fairly.

      Further, the consequences of unregulated society show how necessary it is to protect adults from ourselves both individually and collectively.


      When I selfishly don't wear a seatbelt, or have my pet wear a seatbelt in the back of a car and either of us become a living projectile that can kill or maim someone in the front seat, I'm putting them in a position of immorally high danger/risk compared to the poor reasons for not wearing my sealtbelt.

      When society at large has invested so much in my education, well-being, in me, it's immoral for me to risk throwing that all away because I don't want to wear a helmet.

      That's nothing to say anything about the harm I'd knowingly cause to my loved ones. Friends, family, colleagues, random strangers who have no choice in seeing my shocking and terribly self-destructive, potentially gory demise.


      It's simply not true that every type of drug doesn't directly harm other people.

      Drugs are also addictive, behaviors from drug use change brain path-waves. Taking drugs has consequences for you and everyone around you. Always. Whether that's legal pain medication, tobacco, alcohol, all of it.

      The idea that drug addiction is a "victimless crime" or you're the only victim is simply an unreasonable claim. I wish it were true. Boy how empowering that'd be and what unrestrained freedom I'd have to do what I want without having to think about how it affects others. But that's not the case.


      The consequences from letting adults do terrible things they don't understand the (potentially permanent) consequences of are simply unreasonable.

      Doing away with minimum wages (you should let adults engage in binding contracts that exploit them unfairly), corporate restrictions to systematically manipulate you (say, exploitative gambling designs or pyramid schemes where you should know better but get dragged into a spiral it's impossible to get out of) or agreements or products we simply don't understand (ToS, complicated financial products etc.) and the like are clearly all terrible ideas.

      Even though all those laws are there simply to forbid grown people from irreparably ruining their own lives.


      We're all part of something larger than ourselves whether we like it or not. Society comes with responsibility to others around us.

      18 votes
      1. Gaywallet
        Link Parent
        False. Some drugs are addictive. Also false. Some drugs change brain morphology (the vast majority simply affect how many receptors there are and how sensitive they are and most of those drugs...

        Drugs are also addictive

        False. Some drugs are addictive.

        behaviors from drug use change brain path-waves.

        Also false. Some drugs change brain morphology (the vast majority simply affect how many receptors there are and how sensitive they are and most of those drugs only do so temporarily), many do not.

        2 votes
      2. papasquat
        Link Parent
        Humans are the ones writing the legislation restricting us from doing things. Why is marijuana being illegal while alcohol and cigarettes are multi billion dollar industries considered a rational...

        Then there's the reality of us humans being irrational animals. Most of us can't balance the risks of normal choices fairly.

        Humans are the ones writing the legislation restricting us from doing things. Why is marijuana being illegal while alcohol and cigarettes are multi billion dollar industries considered a rational choice? Why would a blanket law be better qualified to weigh risk for 8 billion individuals, all with unique physiology, skills, and risk appetites than those individuals themselves?

        When society at large has invested so much in my education, well-being, in me, it's immoral for me to risk throwing that all away because I don't want to wear a helmet.

        That's a dehumanizing concept. You're not an object. You have no moral duty to society to continue existing because you're not a piece of stock on a shelf.

        That's nothing to say anything about the harm I'd knowingly cause to my loved ones.

        That's your choice to make. As much as dying hurts people around you, their right to not grieve doesn't trump your right to end your existence. It's one of the few things that almost every person has total control over.

        The idea that drug addiction is a "victimless crime" or you're the only victim is simply an unreasonable claim

        I never made that claim. I said it doesn't directly harm other people. It may indirectly harm other people by causing other crimes, and those crimes should obviously be illegal. Outlawing something because it may have the possibility of inducing other crimes is authoritarian though. If we're going by that standard, there's a good case for making alcohol, high performance cars, unlocked doors, and leaving piles of money on the ground illegal too

        The consequences from letting adults do terrible things they don't understand the (potentially permanent) consequences of are simply unreasonable.

        I agree with that, which is why we should make sure everyone understands the consequences of risky behavior far better than we do now. When I was a kid in the north US, we had a class that taught us about 10 or 15 different types of recreational drugs, what they looked like (including samples passed around the room), their effects, their potential side effects, and their potential for abuse. When I moved to the south, or drug education consisted of someone saying "Drugs will turn you into a sex crazed homicidal maniac". I think you can guess which class went on to have more drug issues.

        Doing away with minimum wages

        Doing away with minimum wages directly harms other people. I think you may have misread my statement to mean that we shouldn't have any laws. That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying we shouldn't have laws that exist solely to protect people from themselves, or the nebulous concept of "stopping them from becoming a burden to society"

        We're all part of something larger than ourselves whether we like it or not. Society comes with responsibility to others around us.

        Agreed. Part of that responsibility is trusting people with decisions that affect themselves. Anything less is treating them as cattle.

        1 vote
    2. [2]
      nsz
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Had to watch this video when getting a license. That's kind of the essence of these laws that appear to be in place to protect just you. Really they are there to protect others around you. A...

      Had to watch this video when getting a license.

      That's kind of the essence of these laws that appear to be in place to protect just you. Really they are there to protect others around you. A seatbelt does not just protect you, not wearing a helmet harms any dependants as well as society when the medical bills come.

      It's not fair for society to have to pay for one person's stupidity, even if education is amazing, nothing is as effective as a law.

      But I kind of agree it's annoying to have such an overbearing government, I'm just not sure where the balance should be.

      7 votes
      1. papasquat
        Link Parent
        I support you having watched the video. I think that we should make sure that people have accurate, effective information about the risks involved in the choices they make. I just don't think that...

        I support you having watched the video. I think that we should make sure that people have accurate, effective information about the risks involved in the choices they make. I just don't think that we have any right to make those choices for them. I don't know how common or likely the scenario in the video you posted is. If it's something that happens all the time, it might make sense to make wearing seat-belts in a car with two or more people mandatory, because at a certain point the incidence level of something happening crosses the threshold from "indirectly" to "directly" harming other people (drunk driving for instance meets this criteria for me). If it's something that happens 1% of the time though, people should be informed of the risks (as you were) and they should be allowed to make their own choices.

        1 vote
    3. [14]
      unknown user
      Link Parent
      Some types of drugs indeed don't harm anybody but the user (and not even them in some cases with moderate use; and also every food is harmful in one way or another, almost nothing is totally %100...

      Some types of drugs indeed don't harm anybody but the user (and not even them in some cases with moderate use; and also every food is harmful in one way or another, almost nothing is totally %100 good for health), but some others are a burden on the society. The users might cause all sorts of trouble, and cost quite a bit to the society. I don't see why the society should invest its valuable time and money into someone expressly and consciously harming themselves.

      Same goes with safety precautions: when you are hurt more, fixing you costs more, both more money and more time. I don't think the society can be required to invest the time and money to fix you for not taking the basic safety precautions.

      Things don't only directly harm, but also indirectly harm. For example when many people do not take basic safety precautions while riding, it's harder for parents to make sure their kids do instead.

      4 votes
      1. [6]
        cfabbro
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Especially in countries with social safety nets and universal healthcare. However even with that in mind, I am actually for legalization of all illicit substances, but I also want to see them...

        but some others are a burden on the society

        Especially in countries with social safety nets and universal healthcare.

        However even with that in mind, I am actually for legalization of all illicit substances, but I also want to see them heavily regulated and taxed (to counteract their cost to society) as well as manufactured, tested and distributed via crown corporations (Canadian state-owned enterprises) or public-private partnerships. I also want to see the money generated from that taxation used to create more safe injection sites, needle exchanges, and expanded mental health and addiction counseling services. Basically, think Portugal's model of decriminalization but taken even further.

        People will continue to do drugs no matter how severe you make the punishment, so we might as switch to a model that focuses purely on mitigating the harm that drug use does to society instead. This would also have the added benefit of cutting off a huge portion of the various drug cartels revenue streams so the countries where they are located (e.g. Mexico, Columbia, etc) also see some benefit. The people in those countries have been suffering due to our appetites and the inaction of our governments for far too long now.

        I absolutely don't agree with papasquat about removing safety regulations like seat-belt and helmet laws though since, as you said, that would be detrimental to society (e.g. more deaths and serious injuries which would increase the burden on the public healthcare system and social safety net) with no real way to counteract it, unlike taxation of drugs sales can.

        3 votes
        1. [4]
          unknown user
          Link Parent
          Absence of them in developed countries is hard to comprehend TBH. Alcohol is heavily taxed in Turkey. To give you a perspective, it's possible to inefficiently produce decent shit beer at home for...

          Especially in countries with social safety nets and universal healthcare.

          Absence of them in developed countries is hard to comprehend TBH.

          I am actually for legalization of all illicit substances, but I also want to see them heavily regulated and taxed (to counteract their cost to society)

          Alcohol is heavily taxed in Turkey. To give you a perspective, it's possible to inefficiently produce decent shit beer at home for around TRY2/bottle (DDG says USD1 = TRY5.35), but a bottle of crap beer (brands: Tuborg, Bomonti) costs TRY11 ATM. I'm actually really desiring a couple bottles, but it's so stupidly expensive that I can't go buy a couple bottles w/o feeling guilty and ruining the experience. If I was a little less lazy, I would already have started making beer at home. And I think I'll end up doing so. Also, there are many people doing it, I read. I don't see why heavy taxation wouldn't cause blackmarket and/or homemade drugs just like it's becoming the case here. We also had a huge epidemic of cheap fake liqueurs with the wrong kind of alcohol a few years ago, many ended up blind.

          I think the best approach is to legalise a subset of drugs that don't turn the user into braind-dead zombies. Marijuana seems to be fine. IDK much about drugs, but maybe there are a few others. Legalise them, people will mostly gravitate towards them anyways.

          1 vote
          1. [3]
            cfabbro
            (edited )
            Link Parent
            Black markets exists with or without taxation when prohibition is in place, but legalizing, regulating and taxing can at least strip some customers away from it who are willing/able to pay the...

            Black markets exists with or without taxation when prohibition is in place, but legalizing, regulating and taxing can at least strip some customers away from it who are willing/able to pay the increased cost for all the benefits that comes with. Black market drugs can also be incredibly dangerous, which is why I wanted to see the government involved in the manufacturing, testing and distribution, to ensure the products they put out don't contain any harmful impurities or dangerous additives (e.g. Fentanyl). That added safety alone can probably ensure a significant portion of addicts make the switch to the legitimate government sources, even if it comes at a slight cost premium.

            1 vote
            1. [2]
              unknown user
              Link Parent
              Totally agree, my point was that heavy taxation can cause problems even when the substance is legal. The prices can be set so that people are encouraged to take llighter, less harmful drugs like...

              Totally agree, my point was that heavy taxation can cause problems even when the substance is legal. The prices can be set so that people are encouraged to take llighter, less harmful drugs like alcohol or marijuana, while heavier stuff are made just expensive enough to discourage, but not too much that it becomes an object of class distinction. If prices are too high, even if the product is safe and quality, people will seek alternatives, especially the buyers of cheaper products.

              1 vote
              1. cfabbro
                Link Parent
                Yeah, I think we're largely in agreement... it's all a balancing act. Too much taxation and people swarm to the black market, but not enough and you don't offset the cost to society. That's a good...

                Yeah, I think we're largely in agreement... it's all a balancing act. Too much taxation and people swarm to the black market, but not enough and you don't offset the cost to society. That's a good point and idea about keeping the cost intentionally lower for the less harmful stuff too.

        2. Algernon_Asimov
          Link Parent
          It also cuts off a major revenue stream from local organised crime: the importers and distributors. They use the money they get from importing and selling drugs to buy more guns and weapons, to...

          This would also have the added benefit of cutting off a huge portion of the various drug cartels revenue streams so the countries where they are located (e.g. Mexico, Columbia, etc) also see some benefit.

          It also cuts off a major revenue stream from local organised crime: the importers and distributors. They use the money they get from importing and selling drugs to buy more guns and weapons, to commit more crime. Why should a drug user give their money to a criminal organisation, to fund its criminal acts?

          1 vote
      2. [4]
        papasquat
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Maybe, but that's part of what comes with living in a free society. Not every choice that an individual will be in the interest of the greater good. Restricting individual choices based on their...

        The users might cause all sorts of trouble, and cost quite a bit to the society.

        Maybe, but that's part of what comes with living in a free society. Not every choice that an individual will be in the interest of the greater good. Restricting individual choices based on their utility to society is authoritarian and wrong. If something directly harms other people, like shooting off a gun in a crowded place, or driving drunk, then it makes sense to make it illegal. It infringes on other people's safety. Drug prohibition infringes on a person's liberties far more than it protects other people's rights though.

        If there were a drug where a significant amount of the times you took it you went on a murderous rampage, I would support making it illegal, but there's not much other than that that makes a compelling argument to me. Once you start making things illegal because of their burden of society, you can start making arguments for a lot of intrusive and controlling policies that dehumanize people.

        Whether a policy is good nor not can't be solely boiled down to how much it costs. I'm sure it would be cheaper to house everyone in huge soviet style concrete projects and put our offices in the same building and have us all eat the same mass produced nutritional supplement and make all leisure activities illegal, but then what would be the point of it all? (A gross exaggeration for effect, but you get my point).

        Besides that, from a utilitarian perspective, if high quality drugs were cheap and widely available, and education of various drugs and their negative and positive effects were widespread, there would be very little reason for people to resort to drugs that would gravely risk their health.

        2 votes
        1. [3]
          unknown user
          Link Parent
          That's also in conflict with and Engaging in purposefully reckless behaviour that causes self-harm and the immediate quote above is in conflict if we also accept the second quote. It's not about...

          Maybe, but that's part of what comes with living in a free society. Not every choice that an individual will be in the interest of the greater good. Restricting individual choices based on their utility to society is authoritarian and wrong.

          That's also in conflict with

          Things that don't directly harm other people shouldn't ever be illegal under any circumstances

          and

          support for when people hurt themselves from doing them

          Engaging in purposefully reckless behaviour that causes self-harm and the immediate quote above is in conflict if we also accept the second quote. It's not about greater good, it's direct harm to other people (or maybe indirect, but harm is harm, I don't really think it's much different). Banning leisure and stuff is indeed too much exaggeration, but I think people suffering from diseases and other stuff that they did not purposefully bring on them should be more prioritised for support from society, than those who're essentially actively murdering themselves. E.g. if biker X has the liberty to ride a fixie w/o a helmet, then doctor Y should have the liberty to tell them to go pay to fix themselves. And then there's the traffic a dead or heavily injured person waiting an ambulance on a road causes. Also, that ambulance could've gone to help some other person who's not consciously and actively harming themselves out of totally selfish reasons. Same with heavy drugs. Not really affecting the biker/user/individual subject, really. I don't say that things should be banned, laissez-faire, except extremes, but if you're harming yourself selfishly, you'll have to be responsible for fixing yourself later (that's a generic you BTW).

          2 votes
          1. [2]
            papasquat
            Link Parent
            I don't see how they're in conflict. Note that I said other people. If someone wants to hurt themselves, you can ensure that they know all the risks, ensure that they don't have a condition...

            I don't see how they're in conflict. Note that I said other people. If someone wants to hurt themselves, you can ensure that they know all the risks, ensure that they don't have a condition negatively impairing their judgement, but you can't stop them from doing it.
            You can't murder yourself. Protecting people from themselves by restricting their choices is one of the hallmarks of authoritarianism. Who is the government to tell people what is and is not too much of a risk? Who sets that risk threshold? If helmets are mandatory, why is riding a motorcycle legal at all? Why allow jetskis or hang gliding or alcohol or any other risky behavior that provides no "greater good"?
            Restricting these things is inherently dehumanizing. It reduces human beings to a bunch of assets and liabilities when a person should transcend that stuff.

            1. unknown user
              Link Parent
              Government is the people. You're having a conversation with yourself, ignoring what everybody's saying, putting words in our mouths. Nobody's talking about greater good. Just that if someone's...
              • Exemplary

              Who is the government

              Government is the people.

              You're having a conversation with yourself, ignoring what everybody's saying, putting words in our mouths. Nobody's talking about greater good. Just that if someone's determined to mess their life up, it better only affect themselves, and do not expect anybody to support them or clean up their bullshit. If you fly out of the front window of your car in a crash, assuming you killed nobody but yourself, there is lots of things that needs to follow like cleaning the mess of you from the asphalt, lots of paperwork, putting your guts together and burying you, etc. Then there's the emotional burden to many people. Witnesses, your family, etc. If you don't die, then it's worse, because lots of tax money and lots of labour will be spent. Just because taking some precautions is oppressing to you. But nobody is supposed to clean up your mess, so the government, as the representative of the people, has the right to take precautions to ensure that you do not pose a risk or unnecessary burden on the rest of the society, and it's quite justified to require that you do reasonable things.

              Your definition of freedom is extremism. If you're going to excercise that in the middle of a desert, miles from the nearest human settlement, then go ahead. But if you're living in a society, the society will want to make sure that you don't hurt them with your irresponsable behaviour. And expecting people to be reasonable is simply idiotic, because people are idiots. Even the smartest of us is simply an idiot. Check out Einstein for example. He's definitely smarter than you and I, but essentially an idiot. We're merely better than other animals, but we're nowhere near good.

              5 votes
      3. [3]
        Devin
        Link Parent
        Treatment options are magnitudes cheaper then incarceration.

        Treatment options are magnitudes cheaper then incarceration.

        1. [2]
          unknown user
          Link Parent
          Where is it that people are incarcerated because they don't put on a helmet or fasten their seat belts?

          Where is it that people are incarcerated because they don't put on a helmet or fasten their seat belts?

          1. Devin
            Link Parent
            You are correct. I did not address that point. Education would be a good start. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Naix-f6KSIg

            You are correct. I did not address that point. Education would be a good start.

            https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Naix-f6KSIg

    4. [6]
      calcifer
      Link Parent
      What if you go into a drug induced craze and attack someone? Why was your freedom to take that drug more valuable than your victim's life? What if you crash into something, fly out the windshield...

      every type of drug

      What if you go into a drug induced craze and attack someone? Why was your freedom to take that drug more valuable than your victim's life?

      not wearing your seatbelt

      What if you crash into something, fly out the windshield (since you are "free" from a seatbelt) your body-turned-projectile hurts someone? Why was your freedom to not wear a seatbelt more valuable than your victim's life?

      1 vote
      1. [5]
        papasquat
        Link Parent
        What if you hit someone with your car (way more likely)? That doesn't mean we should ban cars, that means we should try to make driving cars safer. Wouldn't that incredibly unlikely scenario also...

        What if you go into a drug induced craze and attack someone?

        What if you hit someone with your car (way more likely)? That doesn't mean we should ban cars, that means we should try to make driving cars safer.

        What if you crash into something, fly out the windshield (since you are "free" from a seatbelt) your body-turned-projectile hurts someone?

        Wouldn't that incredibly unlikely scenario also suggest that we should make it illegal to carry anything not strapped down in a vehicle?

        1 vote
        1. [4]
          calcifer
          Link Parent
          Sorry, "there are other bad things that could happen so we shouldn't ban any bad things" isn't a valid argument for me. Also you've still didn't answer my question, despite asking twice. Why is...

          Sorry, "there are other bad things that could happen so we shouldn't ban any bad things" isn't a valid argument for me.

          Also you've still didn't answer my question, despite asking twice. Why is your freedom to do stuff more valuable than someone else's right to not die from it?

          2 votes
          1. [3]
            papasquat
            Link Parent
            It isn't. They're equally valuable. That means that in order to determine whether something should be allowed or not, you should look at the likelihood of someone else dying from it vs the...

            Why is your freedom to do stuff more valuable than someone else's right to not die from it?

            It isn't. They're equally valuable.
            That means that in order to determine whether something should be allowed or not, you should look at the likelihood of someone else dying from it vs the frequency its used and the happiness someone derives from doing it.
            Because its incredibly unlikely for my flying body to kill someone else in a car crash, it should be allowed despite the ability to not wear a seat-belt not being something most people get a ton of joy out of.
            In the case of drugs, a drug induced homicidal craze is more likely, but a lot of people also really like doing drugs, so they should also be legal.

            1. [2]
              unknown user
              Link Parent
              Not at all. A dead person or a person killed is stripped of all rights and liberties that are possible, most of which they didn't even know existed. Someone's right to live is way more valuable...

              It isn't. They're equally valuable.

              Not at all. A dead person or a person killed is stripped of all rights and liberties that are possible, most of which they didn't even know existed. Someone's right to live is way more valuable than another person's right/freedom to anything.

              Also, you're deeply in conflict with your statement that (paraphrasingly) anything should be permissible as long as it does not harm other people directly. If a substance might cause homicidal craze, or any other sorts of violence, then, with that principle, it should be banned.

              4 votes
              1. papasquat
                Link Parent
                Speak for yourself. I would absolutely rather be dead than live in a society where my rights were entirely stripped away and I had zero choice in my own destiny. Heavily restricting people's...

                Not at all. A dead person or a person killed is stripped of all rights and liberties that are possible, most of which they didn't even know existed. Someone's right to live is way more valuable than another person's right/freedom to anything.

                Speak for yourself. I would absolutely rather be dead than live in a society where my rights were entirely stripped away and I had zero choice in my own destiny. Heavily restricting people's choices, to me, strips life of the things that actually make it valuable.

    5. [2]
      tesseractcat
      Link Parent
      I agree with this, I'm honestly surprised how many people support the government saying exactly what a private citizen is allowed to do on their own personal time that only affects themselves.

      I agree with this, I'm honestly surprised how many people support the government saying exactly what a private citizen is allowed to do on their own personal time that only affects themselves.

      1. Rocket_Man
        Link Parent
        We shouldn't get into it, but often the issue that comes up is that other people are directly/indirectly effected. Then there's a question about peoples ability to make rational decisions in some...

        We shouldn't get into it, but often the issue that comes up is that other people are directly/indirectly effected. Then there's a question about peoples ability to make rational decisions in some circumstances. In general it just gets a lot more messy when all things are considered, not wrong just more complicated.

        5 votes
  14. [15]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. [10]
      Amarok
      Link Parent
      Only if they are rational. There are plenty of humans who would go 'just because it's there' and need no other reasons. That unquenchable thirst to touch the next frontier is one of our finer...
      • Exemplary

      Space exploration and colonization is not economically viable enough to entice most intelligent life to conduct it.

      Only if they are rational. There are plenty of humans who would go 'just because it's there'
      and need no other reasons. That unquenchable thirst to touch the next frontier is one of our finer characteristics, and likely one evolution took great care in crafting. If only we could learn to stop burning it all down after we get there...

      A vast majority, well over 99% (assuming its occurrence is common), of all intelligent life will destroy itself before leaving its local planetary system and the species that do manage to pierce that filter will inevitably destroy each other given a long enough time frame of contact.

      I agree with the former, but the latter seems rather unlikely. There are few reasons to wage war once your civilization reaches a post-scarcity economy. The only thing any race could possibly want or need from another is culture - there are so many resources out there that fighting over them is pointless, especially if intelligent life is twice-in-a-galaxy rare, which it likely is.

      It is so unlikely that a species can even expand across its own galaxy that it has never happened yet, at least in the Milky Way.

      It's a young universe - 13.7 billion years with quadrillions of years in front of it, we aren't even in diapers yet. Most planets in the entire universe haven't been around much longer than ours, plus or minus a couple billion years - and by all accounts Earth is an unparalleled paradise blessed by a history of miracles that defy probability to the point of it being borderline evidence of divine intervention, so it's unlikely anyone else out there has it better than us, environment-wise.

      I do think the odds of intelligence developing the capability are exceptionally rare - and that most of them would rather turn inward to virtual worlds than explore the cosmos, given the difficulty and inconvenience of living in reality when you can experience millions of years-per-second in a simulation with powers that would make any god jealous. Why deal with reality when you have the power of unfettered creation and eternity-on-demand to put it to use?

      Exploration beyond a local galaxy is physically impossible.

      Von neumann probes would disagree. Presuming we survive climate change we'll be able to make them in a century at most.

      Forgetting that, the Milky Way is set to merge with Andromeda, then they'll merge with the Local Group, and eventually that group will get pulled into The Great Attractor. That's a melting pot of several million galaxies that will all come to share the same general neighborhood as us over the next several billion years - so if we want to visit other galaxies, all we need to do is sit back and wait for them to come to us. These superclusters will become the dominant structures in the next phase of the universe's life cycle.

      Connecting between two superclusters is very nearly impossible, though - the space between them is expanding at a rate faster than light, so the only way to link up is to send billions of probes at .99c and hope someone in the next supercluster over is doing the same thing sending them your way, so that you can someday meet in the middle. There's nothing out in that void but what you bring with you, so energy is going to be a big, big hurdle - and you're fighting your own supercluster's gravity all the way there, so it's an uphill battle.

      Humans will never develop FTL.

      I'm so with you on that one. FTL is an addled crack addict's pipe dream. The only hope of besting that barrier is finding a way to fold space at two points where you have engineering marvels already built and a shit ton of energy, so that you can open up a highway - but you still need to go there at light speed and set up those endpoints. If the universe turns out to be much more multi-dimensional than we think that may also open up other avenues to travel outside of space-time and its limitations - but all the theory there is pipe dreams on paper, we've zero evidence for extra dimensions in the lab at this point (and not for lack of trying, though it is early days). Once we crack gravity wide open we'll have a better idea what's possible.

      Even if that network were to get built, eventually it'd collapse if for no other reason than energy starvation, and we'd be back to isolated pockets again. Building even a single-galaxy civilization seems like an impossible challenge, to say nothing of multi-galaxy or even multi-supercluster civilizations. There's a reason nearly all science fiction ignores these cold hard facts - the truth is rather depressing.

      Out of all of that, it remains strangely easy to send a single ship from one side of the galaxy to the other, with the crew only experiencing a few years of real time for the entire trip, even though that trip takes a hundred thousand years of normal time. Makes the psychology and resources much easier to deal with - no space voyage is longer than a few years no matter how far you go, so you could cross the entire universe in your own lifetime, using engines we have right now to do it. Colony ships remain one of the easiest options.

      6 votes
      1. [10]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. [9]
          Amarok
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          Well, they all have to be self-sufficient, since it's not likely there could exist any functional 'trade' given the timescales involved in the travel between them. Reaching self-sufficiency...

          I am very curious how post-scarcity could be achieved across, let's say, multiple star systems, over the course of thousands of years.

          Well, they all have to be self-sufficient, since it's not likely there could exist any functional 'trade' given the timescales involved in the travel between them.

          Reaching self-sufficiency requires you to have total control over your habitat, and in a nutshell, it also means you can't live on the surface of a planet, as planets themselves are not conducive to long-term stability on epoch time scales - as we're discovering on Earth right now.

          Reusable rockets come first, those lead to building orbital rings, and those lead to large-scale orbital habitats that will support stable environments and easy access to both space's resources and solar energy. They also don't depend on the host planet's ecosystem, so it's an escape hatch from climate catastrophe. They also provide phenomenal launch speeds that make travel within the solar system almost trivial - weeks to get to any planet without rockets.

          The population migrates from planet-bound cities to living in orbit, likely burning up most of the planet's natural resources in the process. Next is conquering your biology and taking control of it (nano/biotech) which eliminates disease, aging, and radiation risks, making you rigorous enough to handle more hostile environments. Nuclear and solar take care of all power needs. You also need to get excellent at farming and recycling your resources, as close to zero-waste as you can. Indoor farming boasts 10x gains over outdoor right now, that's how you feed the population.

          That gets you a stable orbital civilization, and you can keep on building until you finish a shell around the entire planet if you want, so available space isn't really an issue, and neither is population, provided you keep some sane growth controls in place (and that may not be easy). You can also send construction crews and materials out to any point in your own solar system, and make a decent launch speed at nearby stars using just the orbital ring energy. These rings can even interconnect moons - you could take a train from the surface of the earth directly to the surface of the moon, and make that trip in a day.

          Orbital rings are the next step towards space. The science is very, very clear on this and it turns out they really aren't that hard to build. We can start as soon as Elon's rockets are ready, we already have everything else we need. You can do some crazy cool things in orbit from an engineering perspective including living up there in full gravity. Presuming all of our climate damage control fails, that's our only way out of this mess. That video covers the how of it all.

          The real post-scarcity comes when you master femtotech. For lack of a better word, it's magic - the original goals of alchemy realized, the ability to turn any form of matter into any other form of matter. It's all one raw resource, matter and energy are the same, no matter what state you find them in, you can use them.

          How would the replication process even work?

          You fire a coke-can sized object (made of nanobots and a control unit) at any chunk of matter such as an asteroid (or program it to hunt down its own resources). On arrival the bots wake up and convert it into whatever you need, first by building larger swarms of nanobots and then by molecule-level manufacturing. You basically bootstrap from raw rock all the way up into habitats and space ships (and maybe wormhole engines), and it's a fire-and-forget process.

          A portable construction crew that can be sent anywhere and can build anything you can dream up, with zero chance for error. The time it takes is surprisingly short, too, since the number of workers can scale geometrically as they build more of each other - that old adage about doubling a penny every day making you a millionaire in a month. This does require some fairly high-level AI to drive the process. You can get an overview from this video about probes. It'll also help answer some of your other questions about the probes.

          Am I understanding expansion and red shift right? Is the rate of expansion between individual galaxies even enough to make light-speed travel impossible, or is that specifically occurring only in the space between superclusters?

          Galaxies are all part of large-scale gravitational structures. This short intro to Laniakea shows our own and one of our neighbors. You can also check out this video on dark flow and the great attractor.

          Some galaxies are moving towards us, some are at a relatively static distance, others are moving away from us. Others are so far away that the universe's expansion (the creation of new/more empty space between them and us) generates new space faster than light can cross it, so the trip can never be completed, regardless of how they are moving.

          It might be possible, for a short window of time, for two civilizations on either side of such a void to reach each other in the middle if they both send lightspeed probes toward each other, effectively allowing the gap to be closed at 2x light speed - but as the expansion accelerates, that becomes increasingly difficult, and eventually impossible. If contact and some form of wormhole or extra-spatial travel isn't established by then, those regions of the universe will be closed off from each other forever.

          I'm assuming you're referencing time dilation, but how exactly does the scale of the trip stop scaling with the experienced time of the voyager?

          You can calculate it for yourself right here. There's nothing preventing you from traveling at 99.999999999% the speed of light (though that acceleration will take a while and quite the engine). When you're going that fast, time for the ship and everyone on it is moving at 0.0004%. So, if you want to cross the entire Milky Way at those speeds, it'll take you a hundred thousand years to make the trip, but for the crew, only a half a year passes, plus some small extra amount for the acceleration/deceleration phases where you aren't at those percentages of light speed.

          For any given trip, you can simply continue to accelerate until you dial time down inside the ship to whatever you need it to be to make the trip in a reasonable time frame.

          Now, for a fun thought experiment - what if you take a wormhole with you on that trip? ;)

          3 votes
          1. [8]
            spctrvl
            Link Parent
            Worth mentioning that the realistic upper limit for space travel is quite a bit lower than 99% of light speed. Once you get above a certain speed, the relativistic collisions with hydrogen atoms...

            Worth mentioning that the realistic upper limit for space travel is quite a bit lower than 99% of light speed. Once you get above a certain speed, the relativistic collisions with hydrogen atoms in the interstellar medium starts generating significant amounts of radiation, and as you get higher still, that hydrogen is radiation. The effect can be mitigated with shielding of course, but once you get past .50c, you very quickly need to make most of the mass of your ship shielding. This isn't something that can be sidestepped with an upload civilization either, radiation cooks electronics as well as flesh.

            3 votes
            1. [7]
              Amarok
              Link Parent
              Sounds like a good fuel source waiting to be captured and used rather than deflected. Wonder if something like that would be possible.

              Sounds like a good fuel source waiting to be captured and used rather than deflected. Wonder if something like that would be possible.

              2 votes
              1. [2]
                CALICO
                Link Parent
                Now that's a really interesting thought. If we're already working in velocities of ≥0.5c, then we're assuming a level of technology and energy above our current ability. Perhaps there's a...

                Now that's a really interesting thought.

                If we're already working in velocities of ≥0.5c, then we're assuming a level of technology and energy above our current ability. Perhaps there's a manipulation of fields that could be done with which to capture these particles if you throw enough energy and know-how at the problem.

                2 votes
                1. Amarok
                  Link Parent
                  Presumably the onboard interstellar engine would be a highly advanced fusion pulse drive. It wouldn't have sustained fusion reactions, just bursts that provided a long tail of acceleration - NASA...

                  Presumably the onboard interstellar engine would be a highly advanced fusion pulse drive. It wouldn't have sustained fusion reactions, just bursts that provided a long tail of acceleration - NASA has a working prototype for this already. Hydrogen is its natural fuel source.

                  Seems like the hard part is that you're moving at relativistic speeds encountering particles that are in near standstill. You've got femtoseconds to interact with the hydrogen in some way that accelerates it into your own frame without also annihilating it from a collision. We also need to know if the net energy gain from collection and use as fuel is higher than the energy needed to enable that capture - presumably by generating some intense, high power energy fields.

                  The structure of the ship might need to be designed just to accommodate this, provide more area and time for interactions, or be shaped to support the energy field structure needed in some way.

                  Bonus points for a solution that uses the incoming at-rest hydrogen in some way that it impacts the reactor core and uses that difference in inertia to overcome the Coulomb barrier and enable the fusion directly.

                  1 vote
              2. [4]
                spctrvl
                Link Parent
                What you're talking about is a bussard ramjet. It was proposed in the seventies, but as was discovered fairly recently with improved knowledge of the density of the interstellar medium, the...

                What you're talking about is a bussard ramjet. It was proposed in the seventies, but as was discovered fairly recently with improved knowledge of the density of the interstellar medium, the capture process produces more drag than the burning process produces thrust. Even if it didn't, fusion drives don't produce nearly enough thrust to reach half the speed of light anyway, you need to use antimatter or laser pumped light sails.

                On the bright side, while useless for acceleration, ramjets have great potential for braking.

                1 vote
                1. [3]
                  Amarok
                  Link Parent
                  Good to know. How dense is the gas expected to be in the void-like areas between superclusters, outside of galaxies?

                  Good to know. How dense is the gas expected to be in the void-like areas between superclusters, outside of galaxies?

                  1 vote
                  1. spctrvl
                    Link Parent
                    I don't know the numbers, but far less dense, which is bad for the ramjet but good for top speed. We're nearly in the middle of one of the galactic spiral arms, so it doesn't get much denser than...

                    I don't know the numbers, but far less dense, which is bad for the ramjet but good for top speed. We're nearly in the middle of one of the galactic spiral arms, so it doesn't get much denser than what we've got.

                  2. Algernon_Asimov
                    Link Parent
                    If you haven't already, you should read 'Tau Zero' by Poul Anderson. It's a science-fiction story about a runaway space ship powered by a ramjet - and it addresses these matters directly.

                    If you haven't already, you should read 'Tau Zero' by Poul Anderson. It's a science-fiction story about a runaway space ship powered by a ramjet - and it addresses these matters directly.

    2. lordpipe
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Call it file-sharing, not piracy. Piracy is bad, but only Lessig's definition in Free Culture, i.e. the actual definition, not Big Media's definition: Two pages later Lessig pulls into question...

      Piracy (the digital kind) isn't stealing. It doesn't actually hurt anyone or meaningfully damage profits and is, by and large, a good thing to have in a capitalist economy.

      Call it file-sharing, not piracy. Piracy is bad, but only Lessig's definition in Free Culture, i.e. the actual definition, not Big Media's definition:

      All across the world, but especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, there are businesses that do nothing but take others people’s copyrighted content, copy it, and sell it—all without the permission of a copyright owner. The recording industry estimates that it loses about $4.6 billion every year to physical piracy (that works out to one in three CDs sold worldwide). The MPAA estimates that it loses $3 billion annually worldwide to piracy.

      This is piracy plain and simple. Nothing in the argument of this book, nor in the argument that most people make when talking about the subject of this book, should draw into doubt this simple point: This piracy is wrong.

      [..some arguments against actual piracy..]

      But as the examples from the four chapters that introduced this part suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all “piracy” is. Or at least, not all “piracy” is wrong if that term is understood in the way it is increasingly used today. Many kinds of “piracy” are useful and productive, to produce either new content or new ways of doing business. Neither our tradition nor any tradition has ever banned all “piracy” in that sense of the term.

      This doesn’t mean that there are no questions raised by the latest piracy concern, peer-to-peer file sharing. But it does mean that we need to understand the harm in peer-to-peer sharing a bit more before we condemn it to the gallows with the charge of piracy. For (1) like the original Hollywood, p2p sharing escapes an overly controlling industry; and (2) like the original recording industry, it simply exploits a new way to distribute content; but (3) unlike cable TV, no one is selling the content that is shared on p2p services. [These differences distinguish p2p sharing from true piracy.] They should push us to find a way to protect artists while enabling this sharing to survive.

      Two pages later Lessig pulls into question the harm of file sharing. This is the argument that pulled me towards supporting the liberation of IP law, and—by extension—legalizing all non-commercial filesharing of IP.

      File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different kinds into four types.

      A. There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD, these users simply take it. We might quibble about whether everyone who takes it would actually have bought it if sharing didn’t make it available for free. Most probably wouldn’t have, but clearly there are some who would. The latter are the target of category A: users who download instead of purchasing.

      B. There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing it. Thus, a friend sends another friend an MP3 of an artist he’s not heard of. The other friend then buys CDs by that artist. This is a kind of targeted advertising, quite likely to succeed. If the friend recommending the album gains nothing from a bad recommendation, then one could expect that the recommendations will actually be quite good. The net effect of this sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased.

      C. There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the transaction costs off the Net are too high. This use of sharing networks is among the most rewarding for many. Songs that were part of your childhood but have long vanished from the marketplace magically appear again on the network. (One friend told me that when she discovered Napster, she spent a solid weekend “recalling” old songs. She was astonished at the range and mix of content that was available.) For content not sold, this is still technically a violation of copyright, though because the copyright owner is not selling the content anymore, the economic harm is zero—the same harm that occurs when I sell my collection of 1960s 45-rpm records to a local collector.

      D. Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away.

      How do these different types of sharing balance out?

      Let's start with some simple but important points. From the perspective of the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful. Type B sharing is illegal but plainly beneficial. Type C sharing is illegal, yet good for society (since more exposure to music is good) and harmless to the artist (since the work is not otherwise available). So how sharing matters on balance is a hard question to answer--and certainly much more difficult than the current rhetoric around the issue suggests.

      Whether on balance sharing is harmful depends importantly on how harmful type A sharing is. Just as Edison complained about Hollywood, composers complained about piano rolls, recording artists complained about radio, and broadcasters complained about cable TV, the music industry complains that type A sharing is a kind of "theft" that is "devastating" the industry.

      While the numbers do suggest that sharing is harmful, how harmful is harder to reckon. It has long been the recording industry's practice to blame technology for any drop in sales. The history of cassette recording is a good example. As a study by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young put it, "Rather than exploiting this new, popular technology, the labels fought it." The labels claimed that every album taped was an album unsold, and when record sales fell by 11.4 percent in 1981, the industry claimed that its point was proved. Technology was the problem, and banning or regulating technology was the answer.

      Yet soon thereafter, and before Congress was given an opportunity to enact regulation, MTV was launched, and the industry had a record turnaround. "In the end," Cap Gemini concludes, "the 'crisis' . . . was not the fault of the tapers--who did not [stop after MTV came into being]--but had to a large extent resulted from stagnation in musical innovation at the major labels."

      7 votes
    3. Exalt
      Link Parent
      Have you read The Three Body Problem?

      A vast majority, well over 99% (assuming its occurrence is common), of all intelligent life will destroy itself before leaving its local planetary system and the species that do manage to pierce that filter will inevitably destroy each other given a long enough time frame of contact.

      Have you read The Three Body Problem?

      2 votes
    4. Flargus
      Link Parent
      why do hawaiians & alaskans get off so easy? :p

      Lane splitting for motorcyclists should be legal across the contiguous United States.

      why do hawaiians & alaskans get off so easy? :p

    5. Algernon_Asimov
      Link Parent
      These two things are not the same. Refusing to commit violence is not the same as refusing to take sides. I'm a hardcore pacifist who will not commit violence, but I'm very willing to fight...

      strict neutrality, or pacifism,

      These two things are not the same. Refusing to commit violence is not the same as refusing to take sides. I'm a hardcore pacifist who will not commit violence, but I'm very willing to fight non-violently for things I believe are right.

  15. [3]
    demifiend
    Link
    I believe the 2012 apocalypse actually happened, but involved the internet turning into utter shit because of social media, surveillance capitalism, and ignorant techbros who thought their...

    I believe the 2012 apocalypse actually happened, but involved the internet turning into utter shit because of social media, surveillance capitalism, and ignorant techbros who thought their knowledge of JavaScript made them engineers instead of basic code monkeys.

    10 votes
    1. [2]
      germ
      Link Parent
      One nice thing about Canada, using the term P. Eng (professional engineer) is protected by law. Knowing how to cobble together frontends doesn’t make you any more of a Engineer then knowing how to...

      One nice thing about Canada, using the term P. Eng (professional engineer) is protected by law.

      Knowing how to cobble together frontends doesn’t make you any more of a Engineer then knowing how to make an amazing pasta. There is so much more attached to the Engineering practice then raw competency!

      2 votes
      1. jlpoole
        Link Parent
        California regulates how the word "engineer" may be used: California Civil Code: 6732.

        California regulates how the word "engineer" may be used: California Civil Code: 6732.

        2 votes
  16. [6]
    tunneljumper
    (edited )
    Link
    Internet use should be metered and controlled more strictly (in terms of volume, not content). With metered connections, people will use it for actual research and learning instead of refreshing...

    Internet use should be metered and controlled more strictly (in terms of volume, not content). With metered connections, people will use it for actual research and learning instead of refreshing their facebook tab every 45 seconds.

    How's that for a minority opinion?

    edit: I realize that's an opinion that I hold but not very strongly. After some thought, how about:

    Orchestras and other classical ensembles either need to perform new music or not perform at all. There are a billion recordings of Bach/Beethoven/Mozart/Mahler/etc., what does your performance bring to the table that we haven't heard before? Absolutely nothing! Classical music has this dead white male fetish, and the old guard of composers needs to make way for living musicians writing relevant music.

    10 votes
    1. [2]
      wirelyre
      Link Parent
      Since I'm an active classical musician, I'll engage with the music opinion. (At length, apparently. TL;DR: soft agree in spirit, hard disagree on specifics.) I think you're saying that there...
      • Exemplary

      Since I'm an active classical musician, I'll engage with the music opinion. (At length, apparently. TL;DR: soft agree in spirit, hard disagree on specifics.)

      Orchestras and other classical ensembles either need to perform new music or not perform at all.

      I think you're saying that there should be no performances of old music at all, which is quite controversial. But if you instead relax this to "concerts and recitals should always have new music" or even "should focus on new music", this is a common opinion. A surprisingly large minority of programs include music written in the past ten years. Plenty of ensembles, particularly chamber ensembles, perform new music almost exclusively.

      There are a billion recordings of Bach/Beethoven/Mozart/Mahler/etc., what does your performance bring to the table that we haven't heard before?

      Most people don't go to a concert to hear the music. They come to hear a performance. They appreciate the atmosphere and the spectacle. Why see Othello onstage when you could watch a film adaptation? Why go see a famous comedian when you could stream the same jokes in a well-edited special at home? For that matter, why do pop bands do concert tours? They've already recorded the "official" versions of the songs, right?

      Concerts and recitals are simply different experiences from listening to recordings. You are surrounded in sound. You literally face the performers. It's very personal.

      And even if you suppose that the whole goal of performance is to generate recordings, each recording really is quite different. I can't tell you how many times I've been listening to multiple recordings of a particular piece, where I end up with a recording in the past 20 years that just blows me away compared to one from the '60s. Maybe the audio quality is better; or the ensemble is tighter; or the performance makes the musical structure clearer; or the performers are better.

      [T]he old guard of composers needs to make way for living musicians writing relevant music.

      I choose to interpret this as defending orchestral arrangements of modern pop because I get to disagree more. ;-)

      Personally, I perform and listen to music because it's fun. I enjoy the actual mechanical process of live music; and the intellectual process of understanding the music, both in the large while studying a piece, and in the small during a performance.

      And pop music is just. so. boring. It's 90% 8-bar 4/4 measures with verse–chorus and a bridge if you're lucky. I appreciate that songs lose a lot when you remove the lyrics. But as far as musical content goes, you're in a desert. I often (and sincerely) encourage beginners who are showing off whatever piano arrangement of the new song they learned, but, like, no, it doesn't actually sound any different from the last one I heard because you don't have the trap set or steel pans that actually make it distinctive.

      Sorry, got a bit off track there.

      "Relevant", applied to new music, is a bit of a nasty term because of the nature of artistic canon. Music directors program pieces that people enjoy. Sort of by definition. We hear Beethoven's 9th symphony, Haydn 101 "The Clock", or Mozart 41 "Jupiter" so often because they're really good. They're epitomes of the genre, or else groundbreaking somehow. Calling new stuff "relevant" is highly misleading in two senses: it implies that singular new pieces are somehow more important to the genre than those pieces that have informed the landscape for literal centuries; and it obscures that, once, these old pieces were new and relevant and riskily premiered to skeptical crowds.

      When's the last time you saw Haydn Symphony 34 or Mozart Symphony 10 live? Probably never. They're not particularly interesting. The sieve of time lets through only the best "irrelevant" music.

      Classical music has this dead white male fetish

      To some (quite limited) extent this is a tautology. "Western classical music" refers primarily to European stuff since the 17th century, and for a long time, unless you were a white man, good luck getting published. There were a few notable exceptions (who are not objectively better or worse than their contemporaries), but the dominance of white men that we see now is due in no small part to whose music was actually performed at the time.

      And of course most are dead now, because they were born a while ago. So that's that part.

      To the far greater extent that this is a problem with modern directors not bothering to find music by non-white people or women, I agree wholeheartedly. And this is a widely held view.

      7 votes
      1. Akir
        Link Parent
        This is a very good response, and one I will borrow to use for future people who don't understand the appeal of classical music. Personally speaking, I don't buy classical albums because that's...

        Most people don't go to a concert to hear the music. They come to hear a performance.

        This is a very good response, and one I will borrow to use for future people who don't understand the appeal of classical music. Personally speaking, I don't buy classical albums because that's where it gets boring. Listening on the radio, on the other hand, gives constantly changing performances. That's what makes classical music rewarding.

    2. unknown user
      Link Parent
      Whilst I agree that the nigh-unrestricted flow of information caused by the internet has caused new problems, I don't think simple connection metering can solve any of those problems, at least not...

      With metered connections, people will use it for actual research and learning instead of refreshing their facebook tab every 45 seconds.

      Whilst I agree that the nigh-unrestricted flow of information caused by the internet has caused new problems, I don't think simple connection metering can solve any of those problems, at least not without having a significant impact on the purposes you seem to think are valid ways to use the internet. Watching something on YouTube uses exactly the same amount of bandwidth whether it's memes or something educational.

      Orchestras and other classical ensembles either need to perform new music or not perform at all.

      Apart from anything else, playing classical music is fun! I don't believe you should be able to deny people the ability to play music they enjoy playing purely because it's been played before.

      4 votes
    3. Nitta
      Link Parent
      By the way, a new fad of digital well being is being started by big companies like Google and Apple. Gathering stats about how much you use apps on phone, and probably reminding to rest (not sure...

      By the way, a new fad of digital well being is being started by big companies like Google and Apple. Gathering stats about how much you use apps on phone, and probably reminding to rest (not sure about that, my phone isn't up to date).

      2 votes
    4. Cosmos
      Link Parent
      I don't think this is unpopular and even orchestras realize this. They are all well aware that the audience for classical music isn't what it used to be. You see a lot more of them doing things...

      Orchestras and other classical ensembles either need to perform new music or not perform at all.

      I don't think this is unpopular and even orchestras realize this. They are all well aware that the audience for classical music isn't what it used to be. You see a lot more of them doing things like live scores to movies and contemporary music.

      There was a conductor interviewed on 60 minutes a few weeks ago who said he would love to do a concert with Lady Gaga or Pharell.

      1 vote
  17. [10]
    Algernon_Asimov
    Link
    I've been racking my brain to come up with a minority opinion I hold. I know I hold lots of minority opinions, because I often seem to end up with people telling me I'm wrong whenever I venture to...

    I've been racking my brain to come up with a minority opinion I hold. I know I hold lots of minority opinions, because I often seem to end up with people telling me I'm wrong whenever I venture to share my opinions on the internet. However, I've found it strangely difficult to come up with one when I'm being put on the spot like this. So I'm having to review all those times that people have told me off on the internet, to recall the opinions that triggered the criticisms.

    But finally... I worked one out. It's probably the most controversial opinion I hold. I know this because it's the one about which I've been criticised and challenged most often, and the one which I've had to waste the most time defending.

    Violence is wrong. Not sometimes. Not mostly. Always. There is no such thing as a just war or justified violence - even in self-defence. There is always another option.

    Cue the "what if" challenges - and I've seen them all. "What if someone's coming at you with a gun?" "What if someone's going to kill your child?" "What if a tyrant is killing millions of his citizens?"

    It doesn't matter. Violence is always wrong. There is always another option.

    For some reason, a lot of people think that running away from a violent attacker is not a valid option for self-defence. Or just hiding. But they work! More personally, I have stood my ground and talked my way out of being physically attacked a couple of times in my life. I have also broken up physical attacks on other people merely by shouting at the attacker and putting myself physically in their way (and I'm just an average-sized slightly chubby guy - not some great big imposing bodybuilder).

    In more hypothetical situations, one could disarm one's attacker, or smother them in such a way that they can't attack anyone.

    As for "regime change" and "just war", there are other options, such as sanctions, diplomacy, and so on. There is no excuse for invading another country - especially because many of the people you're supposedly trying to save will probably end up being killed as cannon fodder or innocent bystanders.

    Violence is always wrong.

    9 votes
    1. [7]
      bee
      Link Parent
      You seem to be coming at this from a very abstract position, and seem to be disregarding concrete, real-world scenarios as "what-if challenges", as if they merely serve to be an edge-case example...

      You seem to be coming at this from a very abstract position, and seem to be disregarding concrete, real-world scenarios as "what-if challenges", as if they merely serve to be an edge-case example used by those who would condone violence in those situations. Unfortunately we do live with people who are tyrants, and with people who might come at you with a gun. Just because you have personal experiences where talking down someone may have relaxed your situation, this isn't going to the case in every situation. Thus I think your bold "Violence is always wrong" is utterly ridiculous.

      To clarify, I do condone trying to take other options, like talking to someone. However, I don't believe there is always another option one can take.

      9 votes
      1. [3]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        If it wasn't considered an utterly ridiculous opinion by other people, it wouldn't qualify for this thread! :)

        Thus I think your bold "Violence is always wrong" is utterly ridiculous.

        If it wasn't considered an utterly ridiculous opinion by other people, it wouldn't qualify for this thread! :)

        4 votes
        1. [2]
          bee
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          Oh of course, I wasn't suggesting that it wasn't a good post for this thread :) But I'd be interested in seeing what your response to my points might be, if any. Edit: Grammar

          Oh of course, I wasn't suggesting that it wasn't a good post for this thread :) But I'd be interested in seeing what your response to my points might be, if any.

          Edit: Grammar

          5 votes
          1. Algernon_Asimov
            Link Parent
            As well as racking my brain to come up with this controversial opinion, I also had to think long and hard about whether I wanted to post it here. I knew that posting it would cause someone or...

            But I'd be interesting in seeing what your response to my points might be, if any.

            As well as racking my brain to come up with this controversial opinion, I also had to think long and hard about whether I wanted to post it here. I knew that posting it would cause someone or someones to do exactly as you have done, and object. It's inevitable. People just won't accept my opinion at face value, and have to argue against it. They don't understand that when I say violence is always wrong, I mean that violence is always wrong. This is why, as I said, I've seen all the "what if" challenges: everyone has thrown their particular "what if" at me, to try to catch me out (but most of those challenges boil down to one of the three scenarios I listed).

            That's why I tried to preempt any possible objections by explaining how I would respond, and have responded, to various violent situations - because I didn't really want to do it all again. I wanted to share my controversial opinion, but I'm tired of having to defend it every time I mention it. Suffice to say that any response I would give you can be summed up as "responding to violence with violence is matching one wrong with another, and two wrongs don't make a right - and there are always other options".

            Beyond that... I've had this argument dozens of times before on the internet, and I don't really feel like having it again. To me, it's just rehashing old ground, or chewing an old piece of gum that's lost all its flavour.

            Sorry.

            3 votes
      2. [3]
        Nitta
        Link Parent
        If you consider shooting an armed person breaking in not violence but an act of preventing fatal damage, the statement is quite valid actually. If a fire breaks out, you don't hate it, you take a...

        If you consider shooting an armed person breaking in not violence but an act of preventing fatal damage, the statement is quite valid actually. If a fire breaks out, you don't hate it, you take a fire extinguisher and deal with the fire. Same with a robber, just with a gun. Of course that's quite a crude example. Anyway, it's wrong to initiate intentional damage against people, that is violence.

        1 vote
        1. Algernon_Asimov
          Link Parent
          That's not my position, though. Shooting someone for any reason is violence. It doesn't matter what euphemisms you apply to it, such as "preventing fatal damage" or "self-defence" or "preemptive...

          If you consider shooting an armed person breaking in not violence but an act of preventing fatal damage, the statement is quite valid actually.

          That's not my position, though. Shooting someone for any reason is violence. It doesn't matter what euphemisms you apply to it, such as "preventing fatal damage" or "self-defence" or "preemptive defence". Shooting someone is a violent act.

          2 votes
        2. bee
          Link Parent
          Oh, sure. I was more talking about situation where your life is being threatened. I wouldn't say attempting to kill a non-violent robber is justified either.

          Oh, sure. I was more talking about situation where your life is being threatened. I wouldn't say attempting to kill a non-violent robber is justified either.

          1 vote
    2. [2]
      StellarTabi
      Link Parent
      The United States was founded on violent resistance to a violent oppressor. I hate people advocating for fake pacifism in defense of blatant violent oppression.

      The United States was founded on violent resistance to a violent oppressor. I hate people advocating for fake pacifism in defense of blatant violent oppression.

      1 vote
      1. Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        There's nothing fake about my pacifism. I'm here sharing my honest opinion, and you accuse me of fakery? That's a bit rude. And, as I've said repeatedly this thread, there are always other...

        There's nothing fake about my pacifism. I'm here sharing my honest opinion, and you accuse me of fakery? That's a bit rude.

        And, as I've said repeatedly this thread, there are always other options. For example, a recent study has shown that non-violent civil resistance has been more effective at removing oppressive governments than violent revolutions.

        3 votes
  18. [3]
    Emerald_Knight
    Link
    Two things: Flag burning isn't bad. Flags are just cloth. They shouldn't be regarded so religiously. Military service doesn't give you an automatic boost to morality. You don't suddenly become a...

    Two things:

    1. Flag burning isn't bad. Flags are just cloth. They shouldn't be regarded so religiously.
    2. Military service doesn't give you an automatic boost to morality. You don't suddenly become a less awful person nor do you become a more authoritative one.

    This is (probably obviously) coming from an American referring to American culture. The U.S. flag is treated like some kind of religious icon and our armed forces are practically worshipped as saints.

    9 votes
    1. [2]
      spctrvl
      Link Parent
      American political religion is weird. There's also this whole reverence of the constitution as a pseudo-religious text brought down from on high, by the great prophets Jefferson, Madison, and...

      American political religion is weird. There's also this whole reverence of the constitution as a pseudo-religious text brought down from on high, by the great prophets Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton.

      3 votes
      1. Cosmos
        Link Parent
        It's funny how even the prophets knew the constitution shouldn't be regarded so highly and allowed us a way to amend it and fix their mistakes.

        It's funny how even the prophets knew the constitution shouldn't be regarded so highly and allowed us a way to amend it and fix their mistakes.

        1 vote
  19. [2]
    Erik
    Link
    Here, I'll do one that's a bit niche. I don't believe Brett Favre is the best quarterback to ever play for the Green Bay Packers. Or the second best. Or even the third best. Brett Favre is the...

    Here, I'll do one that's a bit niche.

    I don't believe Brett Favre is the best quarterback to ever play for the Green Bay Packers. Or the second best. Or even the third best. Brett Favre is the fourth best quarterback to play for the Green Bay Packers. It speaks to the insane quality the team has had at that position over the years. My power ranking would go:

    1. Bart Starr
    2. Aaron Rodgers
    3. Arnie Herber
    4. Brett Favre

    Herber gets forgotten, but he's an All Pro, Hall of Fame quarterback that won 4 NFL Championships (this was pre-Super Bowl era, so the NFL Championship was, at the time, the top game of the league).

    A lot of football fans and especially Packers fans, give proper respect to Don Hutson for basically redefining the wide-receiver position and really making the forward pass an exciting part of the game. But they almost all seem to forget who was throwing to Hutson for a good portion of his career: Arnie Herber. Herber, for his era, was pretty much a perfect quarterback.

    Plus, he was hometown kid making good.

    8 votes
    1. tunneljumper
      Link Parent
      Herber took the reins on a 12-0-1 championship team in a wildly non-parity-based early NFL in its infancy, and had a receiver who went deep before "going deep" was a thing. I'm all for recognizing...

      Herber took the reins on a 12-0-1 championship team in a wildly non-parity-based early NFL in its infancy, and had a receiver who went deep before "going deep" was a thing. I'm all for recognizing the greats from years past, but comparing them to today's players is apples-to-oranges at best.

  20. [7]
    patience_limited
    Link
    +The personal automobile is an evil which should be abolished. A single U.S. state, Texas, has an annual automotive death count exceeding the September 11 attacks. +The greatest invention in human...

    +The personal automobile is an evil which should be abolished. A single U.S. state, Texas, has an annual automotive death count exceeding the September 11 attacks.

    +The greatest invention in human history was not agriculture or the wheel, but hygiene and sanitation. Every culture and religion has a foundation of rules and taboos which are more-or-less empirical hygiene guidelines.

    +Humans are just animals that over-optimized for ecological flexibility.

    +There are such things as poison ideas, memes so destructive that they set boundaries on freedom of speech.

    How's that for starters?

    8 votes
    1. [3]
      CALICO
      Link Parent
      Your first is something I've thought a lot about. I like to think that in the near future we'll have something like fleets of intercommunicating, autonomous, electric vehicles that work on kind of...

      Your first is something I've thought a lot about. I like to think that in the near future we'll have something like fleets of intercommunicating, autonomous, electric vehicles that work on kind of Lyft/Uber model, as well as vastly improved public transportation systems.
      Would do a great deal in reducing pollution, congestion, and cut down massively on vehicular-related deaths.

      So many cars spend the bulk of their life just sitting idle in a parking lot taking up valuable space, especially in cities. Why not transition to a model in which there are something like hives where autonomous cars go to charge up or remain until needed by somebody?

      Musk's idea of having subterranean transportation tunnels all ~over~ under every city would vastly cut down on the need for cars overall as well. I'm very interested to see how The Boring Company and any competitors develop.

      4 votes
      1. [2]
        patience_limited
        Link Parent
        The organization of urban work/suburban residence and concomitant development needs to change. I'm not going to take up space reviewing all the ways that automotive-enabled spatial culture is bad,...

        The organization of urban work/suburban residence and concomitant development needs to change. I'm not going to take up space reviewing all the ways that automotive-enabled spatial culture is bad, but it's going to require more than just shared autonomous vehicles or mass transit to remedy.

        1 vote
        1. CALICO
          Link Parent
          I thought the late Jacque Fresco and his Venus Project was very interesting in regards to future city planning. The way we do things right now certainly isn't the best we can do, and it's not...

          I thought the late Jacque Fresco and his Venus Project was very interesting in regards to future city planning. The way we do things right now certainly isn't the best we can do, and it's not going to be suited for the future.

    2. Nitta
      Link Parent
      The problems with cars are that they consume a lot of energy (because heavy, and hard to manufacture), time for driving them, and they are basically mandatory in many areas. American suburbs were...

      The problems with cars are that they consume a lot of energy (because heavy, and hard to manufacture), time for driving them, and they are basically mandatory in many areas. American suburbs were build the way that necessitates use of cars, so they aren't going away. But true self driving would at least free up time to read or watch something instead of looking at road.

      1 vote
    3. [3]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. Amarok
        Link Parent
        I think it likely people would just pay for a 'vehicle service' at some flat monthly rate. That'd cover daily commute and some X number of longer-distance rentals per time period - likely with...

        I think it likely people would just pay for a 'vehicle service' at some flat monthly rate. That'd cover daily commute and some X number of longer-distance rentals per time period - likely with plans at differing tiers just like cell service and other industries use today. Frankly, it shouldn't be hard to beat the TCO of a car. The monthly rate will likely be much less than insurance and car repairs and maintenance - and you get the added bonus of never having to deal with a breakdown since the cars are coming from a company pool.

        Build small cars out of lightweight materials like carbon fiber, and run them on electricity from cheap, abundant nuclear power. There are even nuclear-electrical engine designs that ought to last about 60 years between refuelings, if you need bigger engines for beefier vehicles. We can do it all without carbon emissions if we really want to.

        I think someday it's going to become very expensive for humans to drive. I can see premiums in the thousands of dollars range for dealing with flawed human drivers on roads where self-driving cars are all part of a realtime network. Introducing a human into that network disrupts it and brings a host of risks that will get passed on to the human drivers via insurance and other factors. Human drivers might even be banned entirely except in approved areas for leisure - certainly they'll never allow humans to drive during rush hour. ;)

        Cops are going to be so disappointed, and broke - good luck giving self-driving vehicles a ticket when the rental company will answer with a fleet of high priced lawyers armed with detailed logs and video of every alleged incident.

        2 votes
      2. patience_limited
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I'm don't believe bicycles/motorcycles and automobiles should occupy the same lanes, for the same reasons passenger automobiles and freight trucks shouldn't share the same lanes. The physics of...

        I'm don't believe bicycles/motorcycles and automobiles should occupy the same lanes, for the same reasons passenger automobiles and freight trucks shouldn't share the same lanes. The physics of mass and acceleration declare that the lighter vehicle is always going to lose in a collision, and the driver of the larger vehicle will also have poorer visibility, control, and braking time.

        I'm equivocal about the use of motorcycles at all, as long as non-motorcycle users have to share the healthcare costs. There's no way to fully mitigate the rider's injuries in a collision over 20 kph (body armor and helmets promote survival, not freedom from risk). On the other hand, motorcyclists are a useful source of donor organs. /s

        I wouldn't outlaw manual driving, just set a non-autonomous speed limit or bar manually operated cars from roads with speed limits over 50 kph, with very gradual implementation and a cost structure that favors ride-sharing. Denser use of existing transit permits reserving more road space for other options.

        For ardent manual drivers, there could be specially designed Autobahn-like roads where the drivers pay operation and danger premiums, with no access for bicycles, motorcycles or freight.

        But the most important piece of this is a rebalancing of where people live and work. There's no point to mass transit or autonomous vehicle commutes that are hours long, distances too great for any hope of human-powered travel.

        I don't see privately owned transit having reliable incentives to transport people too poor to own vehicles or live near work. That's part of why I'd also like to see mixed-income, mixed-use, higher density, walkable urban development. It's not just about cars.

        2 votes
  21. [5]
    AllMight
    Link
    In most cases our votes don’t count and don’t matter and therefore voting isn’t important. I’m from the US. cola is gross all cola. Pepsi, coke, and any other kind all super gross. There are a lot...

    In most cases our votes don’t count and don’t matter and therefore voting isn’t important. I’m from the US.

    cola is gross all cola. Pepsi, coke, and any other kind all super gross.

    There are a lot of people who are stupid and it isn’t their fault and there is nothing anyone can do to help them. And it’s a major cause of poverty.

    Baseball is as boring as golf and should be taken off television.

    Illegal immigration is illegal and should be prosecuted as a crime.

    We should allow more legal immigration.

    Well now everyone hates me, time to change my username. :)

    6 votes
    1. [2]
      spit-evil-olive-tips
      Link Parent
      There is something we can do. It's practically invisible, so there's almost never political will to do it. But it does work. Get rid of lead. I wouldn't even call this one of my unpopular...

      There are a lot of people who are stupid and it isn’t their fault and there is nothing anyone can do to help them. And it’s a major cause of poverty.

      There is something we can do. It's practically invisible, so there's almost never political will to do it. But it does work.

      Get rid of lead. I wouldn't even call this one of my unpopular opinions, because most people don't think about it enough for it to be unpopular, but the prevalence of lead in the US, clustered in areas poor people live in, is a public health crisis of massive and completely under-reported proportions.

      Worldwide, one of the most important small interventions that could be made is iodizing salt.

      The trick to both of these, of course, is that you have to start doing them, and continue doing them, and be comfortable with waiting 10-20 years before you start to see an improvement in society as a result.

      3 votes
      1. Amarok
        Link Parent
        I've often wondered exactly how much all that leaded gasoline set us back as a species. Just look at the decline in overall violence and murder rates worldwide since we banned it. Politicians love...

        I've often wondered exactly how much all that leaded gasoline set us back as a species. Just look at the decline in overall violence and murder rates worldwide since we banned it. Politicians love to take credit for it via policy, but that trend is immune to policy and location - it was the lead, literally making us into homicidal, stupid maniacs on a global scale.

        5 votes
    2. [2]
      Cosmos
      Link Parent
      football is as boring as baseball. Also, no one hates you. You are entitled to your own opinions.

      football is as boring as baseball.

      Also, no one hates you. You are entitled to your own opinions.

      1 vote
      1. AllMight
        Link Parent
        Haha well I hope that’s true at tildes def not true in real life.

        Haha well I hope that’s true at tildes def not true in real life.

  22. trazac
    (edited )
    Link
    Assassin's Creed 2 is a worse game than Assassin's Creed. A lot of people really hate the original Assassin's Creed because of its many shortcomings. It saw many sales and so a sequel was...

    Assassin's Creed 2 is a worse game than Assassin's Creed. A lot of people really hate the original Assassin's Creed because of its many shortcomings. It saw many sales and so a sequel was developed, which removed anything that was criticized in the first game. What resulted was a game full of things people liked but had lost the thread of its raison d'etre.

    Assassin's Creed was very ambitious. They stared development long before 'next-gen' consoles (the Xbox 360 and PS3) were in development. Just look at other open world games that came before Assassin's Creed, they don't even compare. The vertical and parkour elements were all new and remain to be some of the best parts of the series. It did all this while managing to be beautiful and well produced. The voice acting and graphics are beautiful, and still hold up.

    The problem is that the game had these missions where the player character would collect information for their mark. The content they produce was actually quite good, gave the player a feeling like they were collecting meaningful information. The missions were extremely repetitive and not fun. Several involved standing in a single spot and pushing a single button. Others involved walking behind an NPC and pick pocketing them (which weren't bad, but they were either stupidly easy or frustratingly hard.)

    There was a sense of accomplishment when completing these tasks. The problem is that I'm sure most players didn't notice that they were collecting stuff like maps and other tools. The missions were also a huge time sink, so players felt more like they were running around and sitting on benches more often than being a sneaky assassin, but the missions made the player a better assassin. With the missions complete, the player could more easily plan how they would complete their assassination and their escape.

    Assassin's Creed 2 removed these missions and made assassinations either into minor fights or silly obstacle courses. The preparation step is totally removed and now the assassinations felt more like spur of the moment killings rather than an assassination. Everything else about the game was better, but it lost the thread of what it was.

    5 votes
  23. [10]
    Parameter
    Link
    [Unpopular Opinion] Racism is generally handled poorly by a lot of well-meaning people who don't have nearly as hard of a time confronting their biases because of their circumstances. I think...

    [Unpopular Opinion] Racism is generally handled poorly by a lot of well-meaning people who don't have nearly as hard of a time confronting their biases because of their circumstances.

    I think racism is an innate aspect our biology. When the human civilization was young, racism was likely advantageous to the survival of sub-groups and to the whole of us. At the current point in our reality racism has become a hindrance. Diversity is now a growing part of modern society and as we have the luxury to do so; Everyone has a responsibility to recognize that an aspect of their biology is resulting in negative consequences for other people and amend their cognition and behavior to compensate appropriately.

    I live in a rural area with a lot of well-meaning people that I feel make a lot of mistakes in their racial (& political) perspectives and interactions, in part, as result of their lack of exposure to diversity among other factors.

    If you're living in a diverse, prosperous, and modern city, it is comparably so much easier to not get hung up on racial biases. Just like almost anything a human is exposed to, we quickly adapt to it.

    I'm certainly not making accuses for people who hold these views. It's ignorant, damaging, and they are responsible for what they do as a result. But as someone with, in my opinion, fairly progressive ideals I do feel like I'm in the minority for having patience and understanding when engaging offensive ideas.

    4 votes
    1. [8]
      unknown user
      Link Parent
      I think you're confusing tribalism and racism. A claim like "racism is [possibly] an innate aspect our biology" requires quite a bit of research even before it's a suggestion for discussion. It...

      I think you're confusing tribalism and racism. A claim like "racism is [possibly] an innate aspect our biology" requires quite a bit of research even before it's a suggestion for discussion. It implies race is a biologically viable concept, and that humans have brain-internal organs for perceiving it, like they have various ones for language, etc.

      1 vote
      1. [7]
        Parameter
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3864590/ It is an innate aspect of our biology simply by humans expressing this behavior at all. Yes, eyes allow us to perceive race.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3864590/

        It is an innate aspect of our biology simply by humans expressing this behavior at all.

        It implies race is a biologically viable concept, and that humans have brain-internal organs for perceiving it, like they have various ones for language, etc.

        Yes, eyes allow us to perceive race.

        1. [6]
          unknown user
          Link Parent
          That is not how it works. And the article you linked does not imply that. The word innate does not appear in it. I was referring to an area in the brain. But not all racism is about skin tone. If...

          It is an innate aspect of our biology simply by humans expressing this behavior at all.

          That is not how it works. And the article you linked does not imply that. The word innate does not appear in it.

          Yes, eyes allow us to perceive race.

          I was referring to an area in the brain. But not all racism is about skin tone.

          If you read your linked article, you would know which are the areas associated with race detection and processing, it talks about FFA, amygdala, a few others. Even if it totally supported your view (it does not, it's about learned behaviour), even then, that means that there is one other data point that agrees you. It does not mean it is the correct view.

          1 vote
          1. [5]
            Parameter
            Link Parent
            Yeah, fair enough. My semantics could be more precise. I guess I'm making a big claim that should be adequately supported. What I'm trying to convey is that distinguishing and discriminating by...

            Yeah, fair enough. My semantics could be more precise. I guess I'm making a big claim that should be adequately supported. What I'm trying to convey is that distinguishing and discriminating by skin color is a behavior that stems from our biology. You could apply this to any human behavior, I suppose that's what I mean by innate. Keep in mind, I'm not saying being racist is innate to people but rather that the potential for developing racial bias is innate.

            I was referring to an area in the brain. But not all racism is about skin tone.

            Ha, fair enough. But that's the amygdala, among other regions.

            --

            I agree that this is a single data point and is not conclusive evidence. But in a non-scientific context, my argument seems to well supported by my experience with people. I've experienced racism first-hand and am aware of the history to see this incredibly common pattern of behavior. It seems okay to me to link a common behavior to biology. After all, we are functions of our biology.

            1 vote
            1. [4]
              unknown user
              Link Parent
              When a behaviour stems from your biology, it means that it's innate. What I collect from the linked article is that they've identified certain parts of the brain that activate when processing...
              • Exemplary

              When a behaviour stems from your biology, it means that it's innate. What I collect from the linked article is that they've identified certain parts of the brain that activate when processing information about race. This does not mean that it's innate, biologically caused or that these areas are dedicated to racial information or decisions. In fact, none of the areas' main function is race-related. That's unlike language where we can identify 1) strong tendency to learn language in children and 2) brain areas, like Wernicke's or Broca's, that are dedicated to language (i.e. main function is to deal with language). There's a huge difference between amygdala being active in some process vs. it being dedicated to some function.

              It is true that every abstract mental process is biological underneath. But that does not necessarily mean innateness or "stemming from biology". There's a difference between what's biologically stimulated, like learning a language and maybe ingroup/outgroup distinctions, and what's learned, like racism. And skin-tone racism is not all of racism, not even most of it. Lots of racism is culturally based. Take Turks, Armenians, Kurds, Greeks and Azerbaijanis for example, there is a network of racial animosity among these people, but the individuals are hardly distinguishable by the looks of their body or even genetically. Almost all the Armenians I know here in Istanbul speak impeccable Turkish w/o any sort of accent, but they still face racism. Or take Italy, where parts of the same people group are racist towards one another.

              What we term racism has lots of nuance to it. Some racism is outright mental illness. Some of it is ignorance and unfamiliarity. Some of it is prejudice and reinforcement thereof. Some of it is cultural clashes. Some of it is fed by nationalist propaganda. The term race itself encompasses a wide range of biases and ideas, and North American black/white racism is just a small instance of it in the grand scheme of world history.

              2 votes
              1. [3]
                Parameter
                Link Parent
                This applies to behavior unequivocally but to varying extents. The most application definition of innate is: "Of or produced by the mind rather than learned through experience: an innate knowledge...

                When a behavior stems from your biology, it means that it's innate.

                This applies to behavior unequivocally but to varying extents. The most application definition of innate is: "Of or produced by the mind rather than learned through experience: an innate knowledge of right and wrong." Imagine a tribe of purple people encountering a tribe of pink people while both are expanding territory and competing for resources. They've never seen another race before. No one would need to teach them racism. If two groups are interacting, especially when competing, people from the sub-groups classify others by skin color and began to develop certain expectations that they go on to apply. You were probably right before to classify my perspective on tribalism but really the two are closely related, racism just has a visual indicator that our biology has a strong tendency to consider when thinking about the people within.

                What I collect from the linked article is that they've identified certain parts of the brain that activate when processing information about race. This does not mean that it's innate, biologically caused or that these areas are dedicated to racial information or decisions.

                I do not think the connection between a common behavior and our biology using the term 'innate' implies that a physical region of the brain has a single purpose of race based decision making.

                There's a difference between what's biologically stimulated, like learning a language and maybe ingroup/outgroup distinctions, and what's learned, like racism.

                Human biology evolved to allow us the ability to communicate in complex ways. Facial expressions, the tongue, vocal cords, etc. All of this gives us a natural potential and tendency towards spoken language. Once born, that innate tendency towards language that stems from our biology allows us to be taught systems for language by our parents and or respective social groups. Racism is clearly analogous.

                What we term racism has lots of nuance to it. Some racism is outright mental illness. Some of it is ignorance and unfamiliarity. Some of it is prejudice and reinforcement thereof. Some of it is cultural clashes. Some of it is fed by nationalist propaganda. The term race itself encompasses a wide range of biases and ideas, and North American black/white racism is just a small instance of it in the grand scheme of world history.

                Mental illness degrades people ability to socialize healthily, naturally, and productively: This results in a lessened ability to be logical, fair, and consistent when our innate tribal/racist tendencies arise. I agree that the North American case is small example among an abundance of others stretching from the start of written history to the modern age; This supports my conclusion.

                1. [2]
                  Algernon_Asimov
                  Link Parent
                  This would be more credible if we didn't have evidence of widespread interbreeding between members of Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis (most modern Sapiens have about 2% Neanderthal DNA). If...

                  Imagine a tribe of purple people encountering a tribe of pink people while both are expanding territory and competing for resources. They've never seen another race before. No one would need to teach them racism.

                  This would be more credible if we didn't have evidence of widespread interbreeding between members of Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis (most modern Sapiens have about 2% Neanderthal DNA). If ever there were two tribes of humans who were different from each other, it was the Sapiens and the Neanderthals - and they mated with each other. Of course, we don't know the circumstances of those matings (rape?), or the wider social circumstances of the interactions between the two tribes, but it's not like humans' only reaction to outsiders is to reject them.

                  1. Parameter
                    Link Parent
                    Your point on the natural phenomena of interbreeding does not logically exclude a natural phenomena of racism and thus I see no relevant connection. If I said early humans fish for food would you...

                    This would be more credible if

                    Your point on the natural phenomena of interbreeding does not logically exclude a natural phenomena of racism and thus I see no relevant connection.

                    If I said early humans fish for food would you tell me: "That would be more credible if we didn't have evidence of early humans farming."

                    Arguing that a tendency is natural and occurs often in no way implies that it is the ONLY reaction possible. It is too absurd to think that was a relevant point to make. I can't help but feel that this is another case of you addressing altered versions of my points.

    2. mb3077
      Link Parent
      I do agree that racism has evolutionary origins and is closely related to tribalism. This may be a bit controversial, but I think that there is a similarity to how the Greeks and the Romans...

      I do agree that racism has evolutionary origins and is closely related to tribalism.
      This may be a bit controversial, but I think that there is a similarity to how the Greeks and the Romans labeled other tribes as 'Barbarians' and viewed them as sub-humans, to how Americans and Europeans looked at Asian and African people in more modern times.

      However it should be noted that I don't have any scientific evidence to back any of this up, it's just an observation that I've made, and it could be flawed.

      I believe that with time racism will cease to exist or atleast will become a more minor problem, due to globalization and better education.

  24. [11]
    BlackLedger
    Link
    Taxing corporations is a tremendous drain on society, and we would be better off if they were untaxed but more effectively regulated.

    Taxing corporations is a tremendous drain on society, and we would be better off if they were untaxed but more effectively regulated.

    3 votes
    1. [10]
      unknown user
      Link Parent
      How? Corporations use all sorts of goods and services the society provides (law, security, transport, communications...). Why would that be totally free for them if their main ambition is selfish...

      How? Corporations use all sorts of goods and services the society provides (law, security, transport, communications...). Why would that be totally free for them if their main ambition is selfish (i.e. to profit)? And how do we get healthcare and stuff?

      18 votes
      1. [3]
        papasquat
        Link Parent
        It's actually not as minority of an opinion as you'd think. The idea is this: Corporations are made up of huge swathes of people. Some very rich, others fairly poor. They may have a headquarters,...

        It's actually not as minority of an opinion as you'd think. The idea is this:

        Corporations are made up of huge swathes of people. Some very rich, others fairly poor. They may have a headquarters, but the largest ones are global. This allows them to shift assets around and effectively pay as little tax as possible by limiting their heavily taxable activities to areas with the lowest taxes. It's also ridiculously complicated to figure out if they're playing by the book or not.

        Instead, you just stop taxing them via corporate tax, and increase the taxes on the people that make them up, mainly through progressive income and capital gain tax increases. People generally don't move to another country solely to avoid taxes, even very rich people have a strong bond with their home countries, so it's harder to dodge personal income taxes. It also eases some of the burden on the IRS to audit them.
        The way we treat corporations tax-wise now is very strongly tied to corporate personhood, which a lot of people oppose on other moral and practical grounds.

        20 votes
        1. [2]
          unknown user
          Link Parent
          When put that way that seems to be a very reasonable idea. The OP's sentence is rather laconical to express a nuanced idea like this, unfortunately.

          When put that way that seems to be a very reasonable idea. The OP's sentence is rather laconical to express a nuanced idea like this, unfortunately.

          7 votes
          1. unknown user
            Link Parent
            I've been marking comments which state an idea—but not explain their reasoning—as noise because of this.

            I've been marking comments which state an idea—but not explain their reasoning—as noise because of this.

            4 votes
      2. [2]
        BlackLedger
        Link Parent
        The actual beneficial owners should be taxed more heavily is the short answer. The argument against doing so largely boils down to double taxation (i.e. tax capital gains less heavily as they have...

        The actual beneficial owners should be taxed more heavily is the short answer.

        The argument against doing so largely boils down to double taxation (i.e. tax capital gains less heavily as they have already been taxed once, at the corporate level). However, we have no effective mechanism of punishing a corporation. You can throw a truculent billionaire in prison if they cheat, you cannot imprison a corporation. Additionally, the reason wealthy people are able to avoid this is largely through the use of corporations as tax shelters. Removing taxation at the corporate level would have the paradoxical effect of making this more difficult by making the corporate structure more transparent - the rules are less byzantine and as such it is considerably easier to audit and investigate.

        It is also considerably easier to relocate a corporation than a person. A corporation can exist as a file on a computer in a tax haven, a person must be physically present. I live in such a place, and while money is happy to migrate, people are less willing to do so. Generally speaking, people want the benefits of living in more developed areas, whereas money is ambivalent. Keeping taxation tied to actual people makes it easier to enforce.

        The political aspect is also considerable. The primary anti-tax argument rests on the impact on business - that taxation is a hurdle to business operating. Removing tax removes the argument, and makes it more about who has an actual responsibility to society. In other words, you can't argue a business is harmed because the owner is heavily taxed. As previously mentioned, you remove the argument of double taxation.

        In addition, the largest corporations (the ones you are likely concerned about) demonstrably barely pay any tax anyway. The tax burden largely falls on smaller businesses and makes them less competitive against larger firms, which can afford to employ an army of consultants and accountants to mitigate their tax liability. Doing away with corporate tax levels the playing field against these large firms.

        5 votes
        1. unknown user
          Link Parent
          Thanks a lot for explaining your argument in depth, as I said elsewhere, when explained, this is really reasonable and agreeable. I did not know of this until now (papasquats sibling reply,...

          Thanks a lot for explaining your argument in depth, as I said elsewhere, when explained, this is really reasonable and agreeable. I did not know of this until now (papasquats sibling reply, actually, but this has some interesting details too), so I'm happy you introduced it.

          2 votes
      3. [4]
        spit-evil-olive-tips
        Link Parent
        Planet Money did a segment awhile ago on policies that economists from all political backgrounds agree on but politicians and the general public are squeamish about. Ending the corporate income...

        Planet Money did a segment awhile ago on policies that economists from all political backgrounds agree on but politicians and the general public are squeamish about. Ending the corporate income tax is one of them.

        1 vote
        1. [2]
          calcifer
          Link Parent
          So the people who make money not from work, but from money (investors, traders and so on) think they should be able to make more money from money and the public is squeamish about it? I wonder why...

          So the people who make money not from work, but from money (investors, traders and so on) think they should be able to make more money from money and the public is squeamish about it? I wonder why...

          3 votes
          1. spit-evil-olive-tips
            Link Parent
            I think you're talking about a separate topic - taxing income vs taxing capital gains. I'm in favor of progressive taxation on both. That's different from doing the taxation twice, once when the...

            I think you're talking about a separate topic - taxing income vs taxing capital gains. I'm in favor of progressive taxation on both. That's different from doing the taxation twice, once when the corporation makes it as income, and then a second time when the corporation pays its employees or gives its shareholders a dividend.

        2. unknown user
          Link Parent
          Thanks, that's interesting. I don't know much about money (don't have much experience, if you get what I mean :)), but those are quite reasonable. Especially recreative drugs. It's so obvious that...

          Thanks, that's interesting. I don't know much about money (don't have much experience, if you get what I mean :)), but those are quite reasonable. Especially recreative drugs. It's so obvious that fighthing it makes it worse that I sometimes think govts are doing it on purpose to help drug lords.

  25. [4]
    harrygibus
    Link
    Cheese or plain pizza is not pizza. All pizzas have three things: crust, sauce, cheese You remove the sauce you've got cheese bread. You remove the cheese you've got - I'm just not sure...a...

    Cheese or plain pizza is not pizza.

    All pizzas have three things: crust, sauce, cheese

    You remove the sauce you've got cheese bread.
    You remove the cheese you've got - I'm just not sure...a travesty?
    You remove the crust...what'er you some kind of nihilist or something?

    Being elements that are integral to a pizza's very being, cheese cannot be a topping.
    If you order this type of pizza, you are either cheating yourself or being cheated of a topping.

    Extra cheese is the only possible exception.

    I prefer sausage.

    3 votes
    1. Amarok
      Link Parent
      White garlic with pepperjack cheese and sliced tomatoes has become a recent favorite of mine. :)

      White garlic with pepperjack cheese and sliced tomatoes has become a recent favorite of mine. :)

      1 vote
    2. super_james
      Link Parent
      Tomatoes on toast, it's pretty good.

      You remove the cheese you've got - I'm just not sure...a travesty?

      Tomatoes on toast, it's pretty good.

    3. mb3077
      Link Parent
      I've never eaten an Italian or American pizza. Where I'm from the default topping of a pizza is olives. The concept of plain pizza is unknown here.

      I've never eaten an Italian or American pizza. Where I'm from the default topping of a pizza is olives. The concept of plain pizza is unknown here.

  26. Adarain
    Link
    That the changes we are seing in our languages are not bad and should be embraced rather than shamed. We get told at school over and over that one way of talking is better than another, that there...

    That the changes we are seing in our languages are not bad and should be embraced rather than shamed. We get told at school over and over that one way of talking is better than another, that there is right and wrong… but it’s all arbitrary. Language has been changing continously for longer than history exists. It’s the natural course of action. But people get attached to the way they speak and see the changes happening around them as decay, loss of beauty or ignorance of how things should be. And for what? To feel superior because they know how it should be?

    Similarly, dialects are good; variation in language is interesting; and ridiculing dialects is usually just thinly veiled racism or classism. I’m willing to bet a good sum of money that the reason AAVE (aka “black english”, “ebonics”) is looked down upon primarily because most of its speakers are either black, poor, or both.

    3 votes
  27. [4]
    CALICO
    Link
    Here's a few kind of fringe ideas I currently hold belief in: I think our timeline of early human civilization as currently accepted by academia doesn't go back far enough. Not that the entire...

    Here's a few kind of fringe ideas I currently hold belief in:

    I think our timeline of early human civilization as currently accepted by academia doesn't go back far enough. Not that the entire thing needs to be tossed, just that I think that it arose much earlier. Right now it's accepted that agriculture arose about 12kya in the Levant, and perhaps spread from there through influence, or perhaps independently of one another, and from there we begin to see sedentary societies and civilizations start to develop over the next few thousand years. I've found myself convinced that this happened, to an extent, at least once before and was slapped back by something cosmic.

    Right now it is commonly believed that the Sphinx is dated to roughly 2,500BC and is carved in the likeness of Pharaoh Khafre. In 1989 Dr. Robert Schoch, a geologist, observed the erosion of the walls of the Sphinx enclosure and determined that this was erosion caused by heavy and prolonged precipitation and not by wind and sand. He dates the Sphinx, or parts of it, to approximately 12kya based on this, as the climatic history of Giza from 2,500BC to today has insufficient rainfall to account for the level of erosion. Additionally, a facial reconstruction of the Sphinx done by Frank Domingo of the NYPD determined that the head of the Sphinx was carved in the likeness of a Sub-Saharan African, and bears no resemblance to the likenesses of Pharaoh Khafre. There is a hypothesis that the original head of the Sphinx was that of a lion, as the proportion of the current head is mismatched to the body, and the dating of the Sphinx by Robert Schoch would place the Sphinx in alignment of the Spring Equinox in the constellation of Leo, and not that of Taurus as it would be during the Old Kingdom.
    The dating of Gobekli Tepe to roughly 12kya to me acts as supporting evidence that such a thing would be possible. Whoever created Gobekli Tepe were very clearly talented stonemasons and artisans to have built and carved what they did. If they were capable of such a feat of art and architecture makes it entirely believable that whoever was living in Giza around the same time was also capable of carving the Sphinx from the bedrock. At the time, Giza was not the desert it was today and even now the area is amazingly fertile. It seems entirely plausible that there was a people living there.

    There are two common theories battling it out, but both place global cataclysm to around 12kya, which would have killed much of the population of the Earth and set back any societies that existed. I'm not sure which I find more likely, but there's a Comet hypothesis and a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) hypothesis. The Comet hypothesis states that the North American ice sheet was struck by a stellar object, which liquefied and broke apart the ice causing massive land erosion, flooding, wide-reaching rainfall, and such. The CME hypothesis stating that a solar ejection struck the Earth, bathing the surface in biblical storms, radiation, and global lightning storms and aurora. Both of these correspond to the last Ice Age, as well as the fall of Atlantis as said by Plato.

    I don't necessarily buy the idea of a prior technologically advanced civilization, or Atlantis being anything like what we saw in Disney's film or anything much more than just a city, but I think it's very likely that there was a level of civilization on this Earth that built cities and were talented stonemasons that was set back by whatever it was that came from the sky. I think this event has followed us throughout our history, our religions, and our myths, even if we've lost track of what exactly it was. There are flood myths in many of the ancient religions which I think could be a kind of historical artifact dating back to this time. I think the creation myths of ancient civilizations and religions could show something similar with the global catastrophe which occurred so long ago, and I think "the gods" who bestowed man with agriculture and knowledge were just the leftovers of this talented civilization spreading their knowledge of the sky and stone and raising crops to the people who'd been living as hunter-gatherers and such.

    I know this is fringe, and I know there's only so much physical evidence for it. But our archaeological record is far from complete, and our oceans have risen hundreds of feet since this time which have surely covered any coastal, or low altitude settlements which may have existed. I think if we opened our minds to the possibility enough to fund marine archaeology, to challenge our preconceptions, then I think we might really surprise ourselves. Humans have been biologically modern for about 200,000 years, and neurologically modern for the past 70,000. The idea that we couldn't have done such things before the currently accepted dates seems absurd. The idea there couldn't be an ounce of truth in every pound of myth seems like hot nonsense. Humans are clever, we're tenacious, and I think we don't give ourselves enough credit for what we can do.

    3 votes
    1. [3]
      mb3077
      Link Parent
      Definitely an interesting take, although I have one question: If there was a civilization that is capable of building the Great Sphinx in 12kya, this civilization should've also lived near Giza in...

      Definitely an interesting take, although I have one question:
      If there was a civilization that is capable of building the Great Sphinx in 12kya, this civilization should've also lived near Giza in a relatively large city. Because in order to reach the level of technology to build a structure like the Sphinx, a society must live and thrive for at least a few hundred years in a nearby area.

      The question is: Is there any archaeological evidence of such civilization that lived near Giza around 12kya? Surely if the Sphinx survived that long, then the ruins of some city or town should've also survived along with it.

      This is a genuine question because I don't have much knowledge on this topic. Very interesting nonetheless!

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        CALICO
        Link Parent
        Nothing solid that I'm aware of, although we find new shit in Egypt all the time. There's a lot still to be discovered across the region, I'm sure. Part of the problem is that Egyptologists are...

        Nothing solid that I'm aware of, although we find new shit in Egypt all the time. There's a lot still to be discovered across the region, I'm sure. Part of the problem is that Egyptologists are quick to refuse the idea, and the government of Egypt has restricted a lot of the archaeology in the area, partially because of the damage that Western Archaeologist have caused to the area in the past. Millennia of sand drifts could easily cover any surviving stone structures, and in other areas you'd have to purposefully look deep enough.

        There are seismographs which show a void beneath the left paw of the Sphinx, but the government of Egypt refuses to allow anyone to probe into it to see what's down there. If the Sphinx is so old, and nobody has probed into the chamber in the past, then there's a good chance there's something to be found. Papyrus or similar may be asking far too much, but if there's anything down there which could be dated then I think that might help shed some light on the debate, and perhaps settle it for good.

        As well, some of the pyramids appear to be built over the top of old, much smaller preexisting structures. There are photos of the deep interior of the Red Pyramid at least—I don't recall which others display the same—of perfectly sculpted stones stacked on top of stones which appear to show heavy sand and wind erosion. This implies the pyramid being constructed over something which would have been old to the Egyptians during the Old Kingdom. Perhaps this was of significance to them at the time.

        Wind and sand are real terrible at preserving stone. Even the Sphinx, as large as it is, is heavily, heavily damaged and has been subject to a number of repairs over the years. Any structures on a smaller scale may have been eroded to rubble over the millennia. I have no idea. But I think the possibility of its age being so old is worthy of a proper and honest eye to be turned towards it.

        3 votes
        1. mb3077
          Link Parent
          It really is a shame that the pyramids and surrounding areas remain untouched in modern times. Something else that I thought of is, the ancient cities that existed in 12kya could've been simply...

          It really is a shame that the pyramids and surrounding areas remain untouched in modern times.
          Something else that I thought of is, the ancient cities that existed in 12kya could've been simply salvaged for materials by newer civilizations, or were buried under newer cities that were built on top of it (similar to New Mexico or Kaifeng in China).

          1 vote
  28. [5]
    mb3077
    Link
    I'm seeing some popular 'unpopular' opinions here, so i'll throw out a fairly unpopular one: I judge people who get tattoos on their bodies, especially when they are these cool designs or video...

    I'm seeing some popular 'unpopular' opinions here, so i'll throw out a fairly unpopular one:

    I judge people who get tattoos on their bodies, especially when they are these cool designs or video game characters and such.
    For me it shows a certain level of vanity to put a tattoo on your body, and that it is a form of seeking acceptance from others.

    Really there are only two cases where I would understand a person getting a tattoo:

    1. If it's a prison tattoo;
      Because in this case they have to get the tattoo or they'll likely have a target on their back.
    2. If it's a fairly minimal hidden tattoo of something personal (their mother's name for example);

    What do you guys think on this matter?

    3 votes
    1. [3]
      somewaffles
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Coming from someone with a good amount of visible tattoos, I don't think you're completely wrong with the former. I've always thought tattoos looked cool on people and always wanted to get them on...

      For me it shows a certain level of vanity to put a tattoo on your body, and that it is a form of seeking acceptance from others.

      Coming from someone with a good amount of visible tattoos, I don't think you're completely wrong with the former. I've always thought tattoos looked cool on people and always wanted to get them on my own body. I have a bunch of stuff that matters to me, I don't think there is anything inherently vain about wanting to show off things that you are proud of or even stuff that you find enjoyment in. It definitely comes with a certain amount of being proud with how you look, I don't think there is anything wrong with that to a certain degree. People wear certain clothes because they look better in them, it's kinda the same thing in my eyes. However, everyone is different and there are plenty of people who put way too much stake in what the ink on their body says but I like to think most people don't do that sort of thing.

      As for seeking acceptance from others, I think this would vary person to person, but if they weren't seeking validation with whats on their bodies, they'd be doing it in some other way, so I don't know if I can really agree / see this as a valid complaint. A vapid person is a vapid person.

      Some people would get angry about this sort of opinion but honestly my thought on making permanent body changes is that life is short so why not just do it if that's what you want. It's just another way to express yourself, in my opinion.

      3 votes
      1. [2]
        mb3077
        Link Parent
        That's a good point. At the end of the day there is nothing wrong with making yourself look good to others, otherwise we all would be dressed in monk robes and stop grooming ourselves. Although I...

        I don't think there is anything inherently vain about wanting to show off things that you are proud of or even stuff that you find enjoyment in. It definitely comes with a certain amount of being proud with how you look, I don't think there is anything wrong with that to a certain degree. People wear certain clothes because they look better in them, it's kinda the same thing in my eyes.

        That's a good point. At the end of the day there is nothing wrong with making yourself look good to others, otherwise we all would be dressed in monk robes and stop grooming ourselves.
        Although I think that there is a difference between getting a tattoo to buying a stylish jacket, because as you said a tattoo is a permanent mark on your body.

        I admit that my opinion is a bit outdated, and maybe affected by the fact that I grew up in a more rural area. When I was growing up getting a tattoo was similar to a teenager picking up smoking. It was just something taboo that made you look cool to your peers, however this may not be the case for people who grew up in a more progressive area.

        So I guess that I have to rethink my opinion on this matter. But for some reason that I can't quite articulate, I still feel judgmental whenever I see an athlete with newly inked tattoo sleeves, or a 20 yearold getting a cool tat design that he saw on the internet.

        1. somewaffles
          Link Parent
          Yeah and the aesthetic is a personal opinion, I couldn't hold it against anyone who just personally didn't think it looks good!

          Yeah and the aesthetic is a personal opinion, I couldn't hold it against anyone who just personally didn't think it looks good!

    2. Pilgrim
      Link Parent
      I largely share this opinion but I suspect that for many people, each tattoo has some personal meaning, even if it's of a cartoon character or something of that nature. I imagine several people...

      I largely share this opinion but I suspect that for many people, each tattoo has some personal meaning, even if it's of a cartoon character or something of that nature. I imagine several people right now may be inventing that personal connection as they read this lol.

      My opinion of most people who have tattoos is that they do not use their money wisely (thinking of sleeves, etc) but that ultimately it's their money to do what they want with.

      It only really bothers me when I see someone seeking handouts who has a lot of tattoos (or sneakers, or the newest phone, etc).

      2 votes
  29. mrbig
    (edited )
    Link
    I believe that in most critical situations my direct intervention would either be of no help or have a negative impact. So I just observe and keep a calm state of mind, in case I become useful.

    I believe that in most critical situations my direct intervention would either be of no help or have a negative impact. So I just observe and keep a calm state of mind, in case I become useful.

    2 votes
  30. alyaza
    Link
    meta comment: very glad to see people were interested in this question and the subsequent discussions it spawned to the point where this is now one of the largest threads on the site ever (i think...

    meta comment: very glad to see people were interested in this question and the subsequent discussions it spawned to the point where this is now one of the largest threads on the site ever (i think it's like 13th on the list).

    2 votes
  31. Pilgrim
    Link
    OK I'll go. Citizen's United was decided the right way and it's reversal would be very bad for free speech. Many people seem to have no idea what the case is about - just that the decision was bad...

    OK I'll go.

    Citizen's United was decided the right way and it's reversal would be very bad for free speech.

    Many people seem to have no idea what the case is about - just that the decision was bad and somehow corporations are now people. I totally agree that what came about because of the decision is terrible (the dark money pouring in) but the actual case is pretty clear cut.

    What is behind all of the legalese is a non-profit that created a documentary critical of a particular candidate and wanted to air ads for that documentary near election time. I dislike the non-profit and their "documentaries" but they definitely have a right to make them. Can you imagine if non-profits couldn't make videos calling for political change? There is of course more to it than that, but that's it in essence.

    It's a tricky thing, free speech.

    And I think the best weapon in combating dark money is disclosure - that is something where I think congress can more clearly define political speech and the rules around disclosure.

    Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#Case_summary

    Also the NPR podcast More Perfect did a great episode on it in November of 2017:
    https://www.npr.org/podcasts/481105292/more-perfect

    2 votes
  32. Devin
    Link
    Steve Job's got a full body transplant. He now runs around in the body of a healthy dissident Chinese millennial. Like Nixon in Futurama, he will soon return to run for President with Mark...

    Steve Job's got a full body transplant. He now runs around in the body of a healthy dissident Chinese millennial.
    Like Nixon in Futurama, he will soon return to run for President with Mark Zuckerberg as his Spiro Agnew.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Demikhov

    This was fun.

    4 votes
  33. Comment removed by site admin
    Link