input
stringlengths 114
23.1k
| output
stringclasses 2
values | instruction
stringclasses 1
value |
|---|---|---|
The founding fathers were libertarians. CMV +
+ I believe if you look at the current Libertarian Party, and look at the U.S. Constitution, and the quotes and works of men such as Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Adams, etc. you will find that they are incredibly aligned ideologically. I am not a libertarian nor am I saying America should be a libertarian nation. Times change. Under the founding fathers, women were not allowed to vote. The majority of the founding fathers were slave owners, yet America eventually decided to change with the times. If America wishes to be anything other than libertarian, they must admit that they can no longer purport the ideology of the founding fathers and the constitution and align themselves with more modern thinkers better suited for current times and the current world economy. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe that the only way to end world hunger is to allow those suffering to starve. CMV. +
+ I'm not saying that it's fair or that we shouldn't try to help other countries as much as we can, but an influx of relief (i.e. food and other supplies) from an outside country usually sees a raise in the population of that region. Aren't we ensuring that people are able to reproduce and raise the next generation of starving villagers when we send OUTSIDE sources of food? If the region were able to reach a self-sustainable population (whether by being able to produce food to feeds its people or to afford to import the food itself) would this not solve the problem of world hunger? | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
Two people in a committed monogamous relationship would be happier and more in love than however many people in a polyamorous relationship. CMV +
+ The whole concept of polyamory seems totally alien and a little unnatural to me. I really don't understand how people can be willing to 'share' their partner with others in a romantic/sexual capacity.
Wouldn't there always be crippling issues with jealousy & insecurity tearing at least some segments of the whole tangled relationship(s) apart?
I feel like it would be easier and simpler for two people in a monogamous relationship to communicate and deal with any issues, and I feel like the exclusivity of the relationship would make their feelings for their one partner that much stronger/more meaningful. There also comes the practical issue of time, and someone with just one partner will have more quality time to spend with that partner.
I've been doing a bit of reading on /r/polyamory, and from the personal anecdotes shared, I can see that some people are truly happy living a lifestyle with multiple romantic partners, or having a partner who has multiple other partners - but on a more visceral level I truly don't understand how anyone could ever be happy like this.
I'm open to learning more about this, and possibly changing my views. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe that renewable energy and the push to "go green" are a good thing even if climate change is not a real issue. CMV +
+ I can wrap my head around climate change skepticism but I just don't understand the push back against renewable energy and things like recycling, reusables and trying to reduce pollution. It would seem to me that even if it was widely agreed that climate change was not a threat to humanity, the benefits of such practices would still be rather obvious. Even if coal and oil were the most abundant things on the planet, renewable energy (particularly solar) seems to have the most potential for reducing energy costs in the future. Even if pollution was incapable of causing a world wide catastrophe, it's still a bad thing and worth reducing. can someone at least help me understand the logic of the opposition of this?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: If you're dating someone (who is respectful) and don't feel any chemistry with them, it should be customary to let them know you're not interested - instead of fading away. +
+ I'm not singling out either gender because it happens on both sides and its equally wrong in both cases.
If you go out with someone on a date - be it the 3rd, 5th or even 1st, and you aren't interested in them after the date, you should just let them know via text, especially if they are pursuing you further.
Some people just stop talking to them cold turkey and don't answer their texts. Other times, they'll answer just to be polite and then flake. Aka "Oh. Sunday sounds good." Then on Sunday, "Oh I'm busy."
I think we can all agree that cases where the person is being flat out disrespectful and offensive in some way, shape or form, then yeah, cut off all contact.
But if it's a case of them being a nice person who didn't cause you any problems, why wouldn't you let them know? Instead of having them going back and forth in their mind as to whether you like them or not.
You don't have to debate them, or go into detail about it, but at least let them know.
---
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I Think Targeted Marketing is a Good Thing +
+ The internet has seemingly opposed targeted marketing immensely-the use of cookies, search history, and other means to figure out a users interests generates a lot of privacy concerns.
However, I personally think it results in a better experience for the user. When I try to watch a Youtube video, and get an advertisement for something completely irrelevant to me, it feels not only totally akward, but also a waste of my time. I often cringed back when I would get a video ad for a female hygiene product or some TV show I don't care at all about.
With services like Google that displays ads based on what I care about, I actually am interested in what I see. As a result, I may find games or products I will enjoy, rather than just get flooded with crap that wastes my time.
Regarding the concept of privacy, there's no human actually looking at what you search. It's just a computer program that looks at keywords from searches/cookies, and finds the most relevant ad. Computer software does not judge you. Also, AFAIK, most ad networks do not save your data online, they load your data from cookies/history temporarily to run the search for an ad, but don't save it(clearing cookies or running incognito proves this).
Lastly, targeted marketing improves revenue per impression, due to a higher chance of user interest. Because of this, sites don't need to spam their page with as many ads, or run as many video ads in order to make revenue. For the user, this means less distractions and less barriers behind actually getting to the content they want.
Note this is a different opinion to the other post. I'm referring to targeted marketing, he's talking about advertising/marketing as a whole. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I think semi truck drivers should be penalized for leaving tire scraps on roads. CMV. +
+ Most of you who have done a significant amount of driving on American freeways have certainly noticed the occasional tire scrap laying in the middle of the road. These scraps come off of semi trucks because they retread their tires by reattaching old scraps, and occasionally the tires blow out on the road.
Luckily, I have always been able to avoid them, and I have never actually driven near a truck as they shed their tires. However, it seems quite unsafe, and I can't imagine the kind of stress one would get by driving behind a truck as this happened. It freaks me out just trying to drive around them.
Any normal driver would be penalized for throwing a bunch of trash out of their windows, so why aren't truck drivers penalized for leaving huge scraps of rubber on the road?
However, I do not know enough about trucks to know how much it would cost and how difficult it would be to make tires less likely to blow. So try to change my view!
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Homosexuality is a sin according to the Christian viewpoint. +
+ I was somewhat stunned that there wasn't already a CMV on this. Maybe I used ineffective search terms. Whatever.
I was raised evangelical Christian (Southern Baptist, specifically). All through my life I held Christian viewpoints. I still do, but I am discovering that a lot of the Southern Baptist doctrines are little more than traditions established over the years, and have little to no Biblical basis, or else are based on misinterpretations of scripture.
Recently I've been more and more often pulled into the conflict between the church and gay rights. Now, I've already made my position clear on gay rights: People shouldn't be discriminated against for their sexual orientation, regardless of how we feel as a religion about their actions; it's between two consenting adults and we don't have a right to legislate that, and as Christians we should treat them with love.
Furthermore, as a heterosexual male married to a heterosexual female, I have no personal stake in this. However, I'm finding it difficult to reconcile some parts of my worldview with the idea that homosexuality is morally wrong from God's perspective. I have heard some fairly solid arguments each way. In short, I am on the fence and that's not where I like to be.
I am aware of the following points regarding homosexuality:
1: Something being "natural" or "unnatural" does not have any bearing upon its morality.
2: Homosexuality is overtly condemned in the Old Testament law... along with a lot of other things that modern Christians do not follow due to Christ's example and the release of many of the prohibitions upon Christian gentiles. So OT condemnations don't have any weight unless they come with a convincing argument that the lifting of the limitations doesn't apply to that particular part.
3: There are parts of the New Testament that condemn homosexuality, as well.
So, from the perspective of a Christian, Change My View. Either convince me scripturally that homosexuality is wrong, or that it is not condemned. But keep it within the scope of Christian values, please. I'm not asking whether it's right or wrong. I'm asking whether it's scripturally defensible.
My real question, then, is is homosexuality sin at all? Does God look down on it? Is it harmful to us the same way other sin is? Does it displease the Creator?
Bonus points: Is there any defense for homosexuality being okay with God that doesn't abolish the institution of monogamy, or cause promiscuity to be okay?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: People don't get more conservative as they age, the ideas they find progressive when they were young do +
+ People change of course but not as frequently as perceptions of ideas do. I'm sure older people hear Big Oil and Big Coal and see different things than younger people. The leaders of those industries are not as small-time and innocent as they were back in the days of the Greatest Generation's youth but I think their perception stayed with them. The same can be said of the military industrial complex. Seen as bloated and unnecessary and oppresive by the young, a provider of jobs, liberties, and fighter against fascism by the old (at a time when the United States' military supremacy was new and contested).
I could go so far as to predict that Big Data will be the issue that turns modern liberals into conservatives. The generation that grew up or was born during Google's and Microsoft's ascendance into internet glory would under most circumstances hold the NSA responsible for invasions of privacy. And yet I can already see some instances of it being the fault of Big Business in some more progressive circles.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Anyone protesting for Michael Brown is automatically an idiot. +
+ I am extremely angered when I hear things like Michael Brown was executed. Cops are not secretly serial killers who are just waiting for a chance to get away with killing someone. But that's how these morons are portraying the police. I refuse to believe that a member of the police performed a public execution under scrutiny of other bystanders. The cop isn't mentally ill. His actions must done alongside of some kind of self interest. Shoot an innocent person who poses no danger in the head execution style in public? Really? What possibly way of reasoning could lead to that conclusion? I was 100% confident since the very break of the news that the cop was unlikely to have done anything wrong. These protesters automatically assumed the cop was in the wrong and refused to acknowledge new evidence.
I get pissed off that people think Michael Brown is still a saint after the video of him robbing the store was released. Retards insist that it has nothing to do with the shooting. It has everything to do with it. The reality is that Michael probably thought he got caught, and therefore, his interactions with the cop was likely to be extremely aggressive. I imagine it went something like-
Officer - Hey you're blocking traffic
Michael - I ain't rob no store you fucking pig.
Officer - I didnt say...
Michael - These cigars ain't from the store.
Officer - I didn't ask about....
Michael - Fuck all ya. Always tryin a hold me down
Officer - Ok put your hands in the air!
Michael - Fly high or die tryin!! YOLO!! AHHH [charges head first at cop and gets shot like a retard]
Seriously, if the cop was a sick fuck and gets a boner shooting up black people, he could have done so in a secluded area at night when no one was around. It would have been his word against the world, no witnesses. Somebody please explain to me why people protesting in favor of this dead thief isn't a moron.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I don't hear any musical quality in the screaming vocals found in many genres of metal music. CMV +
+ To be precise, I'm thinking of the vocals heard in black metal, death metal and metalcore. Something like [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Hv0tsvpyU), for example.
I really have tried to keep an open mind with regard to musical taste, but metal is one genre I've had the most difficulty understanding. Why exactly do people enjoy hearing screaming or growling in songs? I find it flattens out any melodic qualities and tends to make songs practically indistinguishable from each other.
I could add that it's fairly close to hard rock, a genre I enjoy, so this isn't a distaste for heavy/loud/agressive music in general.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe that "illegal" is not the right word to use in immigration debate +
+ I will admit my biases here. I think immigration in any country should be relatively painless as long as people fulfil some basic criteria.
I also believe that the world is moving towards a state of borders becoming less relevant as time goes on.
But having admitted my bias, I think the word "illegal" muddles the waters too much.
Homosexuality and integration were illegal, and it would have been accurate to call homosexuals and people who fought segregation through civil disobedience and homosexuals illegal.
It should be fairly clear by now that the fact that something is illegal doesn't mean it is wrong.
But wait - you say - it is a *bad*, unethical thing. Then say that. Say that you believe that these people are doing a bad thing.
It also makes no distinction of the various ways someone can enter or stay in the country illegally.
More contemporarily is everyone's darling cause - drug legalisation. It would be accurate to call people who choose to partake in drugs "illegals", which I don't think most people do.
One of the arguments I've heard is that the pertinent difference here is that the difference between the good thing and the bad thing is a simple matter of just getting legalised.
However - in most cases this is a painful, laborious and expensive process.
As a parallel - the route to getting "legal" drugs may be too difficult or restrictive for some, and I don't see anyone referring to people who smoke marijuana recreationally when it is available legally (or at least quasi legally) as "illegals".
The exploited migrant worker - illegal, the student who overstayed their visa - illegal, the tourist who overstayed their visa - illegal, the person who just entered the country and hoped to stay - illegal, the person whose parents came - illegal.
All of these are different situations, and have different ethical standings - and as such must be treated differently. Yet - these are all technically "illegals".
The only function I see of the word is to add xenophobia to the debate, and dehumanise people.
It is also a blunt tool when a precise one is required and constructs a bogeyman which only serves to confuse the issue.
As such I see no reason to continue to use the term to address the issue of illegal immigration.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Gender (not sex) is a social construct equivalent to religion, and I don't believe in it. Transgender-people who undergo reassignment surgeries go against the belief that "sex =\= gender" +
+ I have a hard time following some of my feminist friends, and would be labeled a trans-exclusive feminist for thinking this way. Feminists work hard to destroy gender rolls and norms. And then, as one example, usually whenever you ask a trans-person how they knew they weren't, say, a male, they say something along the lines of "I never fit in with the girls growing up" ('not like other girls' trope) or "I didn't like wearing makeup" (gender rolls trope).
Gender seems more like a spiritual/religious/horoscope BS type thing to me, and it's damaging to certain feminist movements.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I do not believe in a christian God, and I do not believe in evolution. Both have weak supporting evidence. +
+ It's simple. Both cannot be proven. Both have little to no evidence. Both have bias faith driven people that try and skew any information towards their own. I've spent months and months trying to dissect both atheist sources and theist sources and neither have any concrete proof of anything. It's frustrating and this debate needs to just die because both are faith driven. CHANGE MY VIEW! Good luck finding concrete evidence.
To theists - The bible is great because it documents some pretty remarkable events, however the issue is that no modern day person was there to witness any of those events nor have concrete records. Not to mention there's debate on what's written in the bible in the first place. Now i know not all theists necessarily only look to the bible but in terms of evidence this is the only piece that points to a creator.
To atheists - The biggest problem i have with atheists and evolutionists is that it is all in theory. YES I understand you have "facts" and that you believe it is scientifically proven. The problem is that many of you honestly have only read what was in the textbooks and have not done the real research to understand that many of your "facts" have either been proven incorrect or have fatal flaws that make these claims inaccurate.
To add on further - I believe that the base thoughts of the darwin theory is correct. If you theoretically had a disease that made every other child born from now on have different sexual parts and they could only mate with those of the same kind you would over time have a brand new species. The problem is that nothing like this has ever been documented modern day. There are many assumptions on what MIGHT HAVE happened. My favorite part is when these PHD scientists say " We are assuming " or " our best guess " and the good old classic " However there is huge gaps of information that we cannot further study." Yet these discoveries are seen as scientific undisputable fact.
I do not hate religion, and I do not hate modern day evolutionists, however I do get tired of of these long debates and neither one is correct or giving correct information.
P.S. Please give your thoughts and opinions of why you believe in what you do, or why I should as well. Do not say anything like "PSHH you are seriously uneducated and stupid if you don't think evolution has been proven." It has not been observed period. Don't say anything like " You must just believe in God and feel his presence. " I've asked God several times to just give me anything to believe nights on end and I will even keep it secret and nothing. If there is anything like this or any personal attacks it will be downvoted and I will ask the mods politely to remove said comment. I wrote this all quickly at work so if the grammer or spelling is not 100% correct I am sorry. Discuss please.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Nuclear energy is terrifying! All nuclear facilities ought to be shut down. +
+ I think investing in nuclear energy is one of the most foolish things that mankind has ever done. The sheer amount of energy it yields is certainly enticing, but I do not think it is worth the risks it entails. My primary reason for despising nuclear energy is that in the event of a failure at a nuclear facility, the results are catastrophic. Many people claim that nuclear power plants are safeguarded with redundant forms of security making a meltdown "impossible." I do not buy it. No matter how many safety regulations are implemented, I think nuclear meltdowns are inevitable. These facilities are run by two things: people, and computers. People, even highly trained people are fallible, and I have used computers for far too long to trust that these computers are error proof. What's more, we have historic precedents of nuclear meltdown and the natural turned nuclear disaster in Japan to show us just how naive it is to think that nuclear energy is safe.
When a hydro-electric power plant goes out, people lose power for a while. Huge inconvenience for a lot of people, possibly even a bit destructive, but ultimately not a huge deal. When a nuclear power plant has a meltdown the entire area must be evacuated, people's lives are put in danger, and the environment is polluted with radioactivity for over a century. Nuclear power plants are a threat to the communities they reside in and every nation ought to begin taking steps towards shutting down such facilities.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: A minority person shouldn't be friends with a person who belongs to his people's oppressors, nor the other way around +
+ I can't think how someone who belongs to a minority can befriend someone who belongs to his people's oppresors.
I'll take the example of a black person and a white person, but it applies to women and men, trans* and cisgender, Native and European, atheist and Christian, etc, etc.
Considering how black people think white people put them down, and that all white people enjoy a privilege they don't that gives them an upper hand in life, they are basically entering a relationship with someone they see as their social superiors in terms of status (not that they think they are better than themselves, but that they are in a better position than themselves). Why would anyone want to be in a non-peer relationship?
Adding to that is the fact that this person belongs to the people that oppressed your people. So not only they are in a superior and oppressive position relative to you, they are there *because of you*. And you are in a lower position *because of them*.
Nor I understand how the white person would like to befriend a black one. They'd enter a relationship in which the other party sees them as the cause of all their troubles, that considers their own culture as inferior or oppressive, that considers him at least a bit responsible for the plight of their ancestors, and who can always try to hold them accountable about it. Just tangentially dealing with these issues would be excruciatingly annoying and demeaning, and the only scenario is making him look like a villian, unless he becomes submissive towards the minority friend.
I'll post examples later. But I think a couple of black civil rights leaders held the same belief as me.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: We should be treating r/fatpeoplehate the same way we treat the Westboro Baptists or the KKK. +
+ I've read the subreddit's Wiki, and they attempt to convince me that their hate is "complex" and buried under layers of an important "truth." That "truth" is apparently simply that obesity is unhealthy.
Wow. That really is complex. /s
I just don't understand why this unhealthy behavior deserves any more "hate" than any other unhealthy choice. Reddit glorifies our unhealthy addictions to video games, Netflix, bacon, social awkwardness/fear, trees, PC-obsession, and cats, but I don't see HATE subreddits for these. What's the difference?
The crux of /r/fatpeoplehate[2] seems to be that obesity is a choice. Perhaps they differentiate themselves from haters of race, sexual orientation, or gender because of their target's "choice." But, religion is a choice, right? Westboro Baptist hates people who have made an unhealthy religious choice, in their eyes. The KKK hates Catholics and Jews (supposedly the religious definition, too). These traditional hate groups drape their fanaticism of others' choices in altruism, too.
It reminds me of the proponents of the War on Drugs or abortion restrictions. They totally fabricated society-destroying fears of marijuana use and abortion. They came up with altruistic reasons they needed to shame and control others' decisions and lives. Are we condoning this control-of-others'-lives-and-choices mindset?
If we wish to debunk the concept that obesity is healthy, that seems fine. But, plump folks are choosing to live fewer years due to calorie consumption...who fucking cares? I'm choosing to live fewer years due to cholesterol buildup from deep-fried bacon macaroni and cheese balls. My choice, my life, bitchez!
There seems to be something psychologically-unhealthy about /r/fatpeoplehate[3] . It's an irrationally-strong, disproportionate reaction to another person's behavior/decisions. What /r/fatpeoplehate[4] is saying about themselves seems more clear than what they think they are enlightening us about fat people.
History has shown us that love is much better than hate at improving individuals and societies. Let's condemn /r/fatpeoplehate[5] to the dustbin of history. Put hate and obsessive control of others where it belongs...to shame. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I think that banning downvote brigades from ShitRedditSays is actively harmful to this site. CMV +
+ Reddit has a lot of *really goddamn shitty* anti-women views that while not universal are fairly common. One of the experiences I had going to university was that a lot of my worldviews were challenged very strongly and vocally, and more importantly I learned that some shit I believed in was so not okay that I shouldn't even articulate it unless I'm *really* prepared to defend it. When forced to defend casual statements that people called me out on, I was forced to re-evaluate my views and through this grew and matured as a person.
I can't help but notice that people who I interact with who are under 20 or so and frequent reddit enough to mention it in public for some reason seem to not only hold some pretty strongly anti-woman views ("feminism is evil" without having a tiny grasp of what feminism is, the "friendzone" is a real thing and not an awful manipulative concept, etc.) which they can't even begin to articulate a defence of when called on. I think that tying opinions like this consequence-free to an anonymous internet points community does nothing more than validate these opinions without encouraging critical thinking about them at all, and that to a lot of younger members on this site they're lead to think that these extreme views are the norm and are acceptable.
I do think SRS goes overboard sometimes, I do think that there's an extent to which they miss that sometimes jokes do make fun of people and that's an uphill fight you'll never win. But I also have a huge problem with the idea that they should be totally hands off. Maybe if people want their internet points they should have to contend fairly with gangs of people who, oh, say, think joking about raping babies should be frowned upon in a public place. It's not a freedom of speech issue, it seems like the rule is set up for freedom from consequence of speech where the people who would normally most strongly object are already frequenting the same part of the site and thus most likely to be perceived as "vote brigading" and thus their voice is basically cut off.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Many of my working class and poor facebook friends post things supporting the GOP. I'm about to start voting GOP simply to help these people hurt themselves. "Poor" and vote against your own self interests? Let me help you with that. +
+ I just don't get it. One friend is a single mother of two, just posted something comparing Obama to Hitler. Another friend is a lesbian friend that drifts from job to job and votes GOP. The best one is a person I used to know that is a felon, single mom, and works at Burger King (at the age of 30 manning the drive through). Another dude is a public school teacher. If these people do not want to vote in their own self interest, why should I vote for a party that stereotypically works more to help out the poor and working classes?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: We should stop talking about racism. +
+ the term "racism" is too specific today and there should be a word for discrimination in general. i mean instead of using a different term for every type of discrimination, even with cases where the word sounds stupid (ageism is not pronounced how it looks like), or when there isn't an agreed word (what do you call furry discrimination).
the word racism is not helpful today. a long time ago it was helpful, when there was racism against races. then there is anti-semitism, sexism, homophobia, islamophobia, and so many types without a word. why not just use a word for all. also racism is reducing (it is still a big problem, but not as much as in the American civil war), but it gets drowned in all the other types of discrimination, for example anti-bronism, and (i am not joking) anti-witch.
so either we need to change the meaning of racism to a more general term (like how awful actually once meant awe full, and now it is used differently) or just make up a new word (or use the word discrimination).
TL;DR the term racism is too specific, and should use a more general word instead, for all types of discrimination.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe that the usage of the words "premium", "luxury", and "fresh" should be regulated in advertising. +
+ I think it is pretty clear that all three of these words, especially premium and fresh, are used by businesses in describing products or service in completely misleading ways. That "fresh" fish on the menu has been frozen for weeks. That "luxury" apartment is actually very basic and even needs some repairs. That "premium" car wash just means the add one more kind of soap. I was just walking to work and a cab drove by that said "luxury cab", and sure enough it was a pile of shit.
I'm someone who usually likes to seek out nice products and I'm tired of being mislead. I can't be the only one. I know this will rustle some jimmies in regards to free speech, but this is for the good of all consumers. Other than appealing to the first amendment (because I don't give a shit and it will not CMV), CMV.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: A human society is a collective organism. +
+ A human society grows. It reproduces, or has the potential to reproduce, by forming colonies. It eventually dies. It gains information from the external world via science and responds to that information via collective deliberation and action. It regulates its internal conditions through morality, ethics, and laws. It gains matter and energy from the environment via forestry and harvesting. It metabolizes organic and inorganic compounds into new materials through industrial processes. It gets rid of waste products via garbage dumps and sewers. It outlives its parts. A human society is a single collective organism. CMV
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I think that according to current standards, homosexuality/Tran sexuality must be considered mental illnesses. Please CMV +
+ I have come to this view after following what I consider a logical extension of the current definition of medical illness. However, I still feel HIGHLY uncomfortable with this viewpoint and as such I’d like to see if someone could convince me rationally that I missed something.
I’ll put the tl;dr at the top as I don’t expect everybody to be willing to read all of the text below.
**Tl;Dr: Based on the de facto MEDICAL criteria for mental illness, it appears that as long as things like schizophrenia, psychopathy, and pedophilia are considered mental disorders, so to0 must homosexuality. Again, I’m not looking at the perceived political, sociological or moral relevancies to the topic, simply the seemingly established medical criteria.**
My thought process:
HUGE Block of text incoming.
Why isn’t homosexuality/Tran sexuality considered a mental illness?
**First, let me start by saying that I have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality or homosexuals. I’ve always considered myself very open-minded and suppose I would fit into a more “liberal” mindset. I am only asking this question with regards to how it pertains to my field of study, and not for any particular moral or political stance. Since I work as neuroscientific researcher with ties to the medical field, I think it is important that I understand this issue. I would mention that I think it is primarily a problem of nomenclature and the stigmas that are associated with mental illness, things that shouldn’t but do affect the DSM, as I can’t think of a logical reason that homosexuality isn’t considered a mental illness (based on the conventions below) – end disclaimer**
The definition I find most prevalent in conversations with my colleagues for a mental illness is basically:
**A neural disorder or deviation from the norm that leads to disadvantageous behavior or thought processing, or other negative cognitive effects for the individual.**
As I understand it, the current prevailing belief with regards to the origin of homosexuality is that there is a hormonal error in utero. The fetus isn’t exposed to the correct level of hormones at the proper critical periods that would cause heterosexual development. (If this is wrong, please correct me)
If this is the case, then I don’t understand why homosexuality is thought of any differently than something like schizophrenia in the sense that they are both caused be errors in neural development.
Clearly, homosexuality does not have the inherent aberrant effects on the person’s life that come with schizophrenia so please understand that I don’t believe homosexuality is harmful in this sense. With that understood it seems to me that homosexuality meets the first criteria for medical illness (a deviation from the “normal” development pattern)
Now I don’t think anybody would argue that homosexuality doesn’t have disadvantages. I think the disadvantages to a homosexual person come primarily from the social environment, given that it is often hostile to them. Some people have attempted to use this fact as the reason that homosexuality isn’t considered a mental illness; as the disadvantages aren’t inherent to the development, but I then wonder about things that are considered illnesses for example psychopathy/APD.
All of the data I have seen and case studies that I have reviewed indicate that true psychopaths don’t see themselves as inherently disadvantaged by their personalities. In the same way the prevailing opinion is that homosexuality doesn’t disadvantage the homosexual in an intrinsic sense. It can be argued that Psychopaths have negative effects to themselves and society as a whole but that requires action of some sort on their part.
To me psychopaths that do not in any way act upon their urges could be thought of as not damaging society, in the same way that a non-acting pedophile or murder hasn’t technically done anything wrong. They may think aberrantly but as long as they don’t act (this includes spreading their ideas to incite others to act on them), society hasn’t been affected. However, even a non-acting psychopath or pedophile is considered mentally ill by clinicians. This fact indicates that it is not the action that qualifies one for the label but merely the urge to act upon the differential thought process. If that is the case, then homosexuals would have to be considered mentally ill as well, even if they did not act out upon their sexual urges. Merely the existence of the urge that is different than the established “norm” would lead to that label. As such, just as much as psychopathy/APD is recognized as a “mental illness” it seems to me that homosexuality fits the same criteria. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I am confident that the world is becoming less religious. CMV. +
+ I think that all religious-centric news stories in the media are given heightened coverage, which gives the impression that there is "more" religion in the world than ever, when in actual fact this is just due to increased visibility. I feel as though the industrialisation of modern societies which includes better healthcare, technological advancements and financial security, will cause secularity to rise and seep into other cultures. The amount of atheists/agnostics today compared to 100 years ago is a big factor in why I think the world is definitely becoming increasingly less religious and I honestly don't see how religion could last that much longer. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
America's best days are ahead, not behind CMV. +
+ My first argument is from history. America has seen worse days and within a few decades of those calamities ,America has triumphed beyond all expectations. Decades from Revolution came prosperity. Thirty years after the conflagration of the Civil War, America emerged on the world stage as a true global power. Defeating a 500 year old empire and challenging the world. Just over a decade after Great depression we fought and won our place as a Superpower. Despite the spectre of the Cold War America reached the heights of Science and technology. The calamity of the Vietnam war was part of the catalyst fueled a counterculture and for change for good. The crashes of the 70's faded away to the heights of the 80's. In the 90's the Soviet union was sundered, and we sat alone on the top. Then September 11 happened, the Recession happened. However if patterns are any indication given a few decades we will be beyond where we were in the 90's. Things today are nowhere as bad as they have been. Today's congress is tame compared to the literal battlefield of mid-18th century politics. Cronies like the Koch Brothers look meek compared to the Tycoons of the early-20th century. China is a mere fraction of what the Soviet Union at its height was. Yet we overcame all these things.
My second argument that that change for the good is slowly but surely coming. The economy is precariously improving. Legislative strides have been made in Healthcare and Equality and we are beginning to have a serious discussion about further reforms in those areas and other areas such minimum wage, immigration reform and helping cultivate a thriving middle class.
We live in a pessimistic time, a decade of fear, loss and disappointment have driven that. That pessimism has been driven into almost every corner of the media. People tend to lean towards an image of despair when talking about our future as a nation. However I feel the signs of change for good are slowly but surely appearing and our history as nation shows a clear pattern: It is always darkest before the dawn.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
People who won't admit to their racism are the worst kind of racists. CMV +
+ I think one of the worst and most insidious types of racists are people who deny that something they've said or done is racist or, worse still, complain about being forced to use "P.C." (or, as most us know it, "polite") language. Not only are they showing an aggressive aversion to ever bettering themselves or acknowledging any unconscious racial prejudices and hatred they might have, they actually do more to normalize racist rhetoric and discrimination that people who freely admit to their racism or the "dog-whistle" crowd who don't complain about black people, just "Welfare queens" and "urban violence" Everyone knows what that means and they aren't getting away with anything. I mean the people who act like talking about racism is somehow more racist than whatever racist statement of theirs they're being asked to talk about. They are the worst. As in, actual worst, and perhaps the greatest threat to the integrity and cohesion of a multiethnic society imaginable. I don't believe in criminalizing speech, but we need to accept as a society that that shit is over the line.
This type of racism tends to be *very* popular on Reddit, so I really look forward to some exciting responses! (while keeping it civil, of course) In particular, I'd like to hear anyone who's objected when they were told something they said or did was racist explain why it wasn't/at least wasn't egregious or was in good fun.
ETA: People who talk about living in a "post-racial" society are basically part of this group, if that helps clarify what I'm talking about. The best example I can think of is someone saying that a Chinese food delivery "take too wrong" or that a particular neighborhood or building that's not actually run down is "ghetto" because it's mostly black and then getting angry when they're told that's a super racist thing to do.
Yeah, bro, it does! Talking about people like that here. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe that, were it to be scientifically possible, everyone should be steralized at birth, and you would have to pass a maturity test to be allowed to be "unsteralized". -CMV +
+ Making a baby is one of the easiest things to do in the world, but raising a child is one of the hardest. Too many unwanted children are born and abandonned, or raised by parents who don't give a shit or simply can't provide an adequete childhood. If science developed a method to steralize everyone in a completely reversible method, then I think that people should be steralized at birth and be required to prove they are capable before being allowed to have children.
The test would not include any questions about religion. Anyone of any religion is equally able to raise a child. The test would involve a psychiatric evaluation, in which a panel would decide if someone was mature enough to raise a child, as well as lifestyle evaluation, to determine if someone could provide for a child. You wouldn't have to be rich by any means, but have enough money to ensure that the child won't go hungry.
This would keep drug users from having children they don't give a shit about, keep prostitutes from getting pregnant, keep high school students from making mistakes and bringing yet another unwanted baby into the world.
The test would be designed to make it easy to have children. The requirements would be set only high enough to make sure that only people who wanted children, had the means to provide only the most basic needs to them, and had the maturity to put their children first, would be able to have offspring. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The famous Trolley problem and the related Transplant problem are morally equivalent, in their purest forms. +
+ Please see this link if you're not familiar with the problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
To put the argument in another form, if you would sacrifice one life to save five in one scenario, you must be willing to do so in both scenarios, in order to remain morally consistent.
It's a fairly simple idea, and I would like to note that I am not arguing, in this post, whether they are morally right. If you look at my post history, you will notice that I have argued about the trolley problem in the past, and that I am a Utilitarian in my ethics, and so I consider saving more people to be superior to sparing a single life, regardless of the scenario.
Also please remember that these are "in their purest forms". This means that there aren't really any workarounds, unknown variables, or cheats. The doctor is a world-class doctor, and is sure to perform the surgeries without fail. The train will not explode. You do not communicate with the healthy traveler about your plan to kill him. All of the lives are to be considered to have equal value, since they are simply average humans that we know nothing about.
Now, many people would initially state that you *should* act in the trolley scenario, but you *should not* act in the transplant scenario. It seems abhorrent to murder someone for their organs, but it seems perfectly reasonable to simply switch a lever, when it's a problem that can only be boiled down to 1 life versus 5 lives.
However, as noted in the Wikipedia article, this seems to be nothing but psychology. The "Man in the Yard" scenario pretty clearly reflects this. People give a different answer if presented with that scenario first. My argument is that, when clearly meditated on, your response should be the same in both scenarios.
Please limit arguments to showing how they are *not* morally equivalent. I am using this to help formulate my thoughts on the idea as a whole, as I know many people disagree with my views on the matter. I am not looking to argue, in this thread, at least, whether one action is morally right or not, but *specifically* the equivalence. The two arguments, of course, are not entirely mutually exclusive, I just hope to emphasize the difference.
Remember that these problems are experiments in psychology. Therefore, they are *built* to be equivalent. The difference arises in the terms -- organs and surgery versus tracks and trolleys. I am hoping someone can bring forth an argument that points out how these, then, become different problems, in their very nature, as opposed to adding terms such as "the Hippocratic oath" and such, as they are not included in the problem. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe that the majority of examinations used in schools are ineffective at determining knowledge. +
+ I believe that in the majority of cases, final examinations in college (and even more in high school) are are ineffective at helping students learn and preparing them for the real world.
With the obvious exception of jobs which require constant in depth attention and quick decision making (surgeons for example), determination of how much a person knows through an exam lasting for a few hours, inside a room filled with countless other individuals, is an inadequate determination of knowledge. Since the invention of the internet, many of the questions that we test become obsolete. For high school exams, memorizing specific dates, names, functions etc. are fairly pointless when you could look it up in 5 seconds. Even in university, when writing essays becomes common, producing an analysis of passages in such a short time and stressful environment is not an indication many times of how much one knows, but often how much they have memorized what is mentioned in class. In particular, computer science exams, consisting of writing programs with no aid, is extremely ineffective and does not examine how much one actually knows of a subject.
I believe a much better assessment would be through the use of final assignments, where students have a larger time in a less stressful environment. This allows access to all resources they would have in a job, and allows for teachers to provide them with much more difficult and interesting problems than could be provided on a short exam. While it is true that there would be the tendency to copy other students, such students likely will not make it into the job world simply relying on others. If anything, with less stress placed upon a single exam, there would not be the same pressure gradewise.
Change my view.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I support the legalization of most drugs, but cigarettes should be banned. +
+ This may sound hypocritical, but let me explain. For the record, I smoke marijuana regularly and have tried cigarettes and alcohol but not hard drugs.
I'll start out by saying I don't expect the criminalization of cigarettes to end their use. As we have seen with harder drugs, prohibition does not make a drug disappear. However, it does reduce the number of users. Not everyone cares about the law, but plenty of others do. My evidence for this claim is that I know several people who refuse to try marijuana for the sole reason that it's illegal where I live; one of these friends actually tried it in Colorado recently.
So the advantages of banning cigarettes are clear. Reduced usage, people who deal to kids get harsher punishments, vastly reduced supply, federal funding can be spent entirely on treatment rather than regulation, etc.
There are three reasons to make a drug legal. The benefit provided by any of these can override the above listed advantages of prohibition, though simply meeting one criteria isn't *necessarily* sufficient:
1. **Public health through regulation.** Intravenous drugs spread disease when improperly regulated, so there is a compelling reason to legalize heroin. Needle exchanges are good, but they would be better if they weren't just run by charities. **EDIT**: This means legalization would provide the opportunity for a regulation that would not otherwise be possible or would be much less effective.
2. **Humans have the right to pleasure.** Getting high makes people happy. Even though drugs often cause longer-term issues, you have the right to fuck up your own body and personal life for the sake of getting high. This is why I'm okay with alcohol (though personally not a fan).
3. **The drug is harmless.** If a drug in and of itself (not just how it's consumed, e.g. pills as opposed to needles) causes no major health issues, there is no reason to dissuade people from using it. Marijuana falls under this rule (as well as #2). **EDIT**: Obviously every chemical has the potential to cause harm; I'm not arguing this as an absolute. A drug like tobacco causes huge amounts of harm to a large number of users - I don't know where to draw the line but that doesn't take away from the principle of this test's validity.
Cigarettes fail all three tests. Regulation has done nothing to reduce rates of lung cancer caused by cigarettes. Additionally, they give no genuine pleasure beyond "getting your fix;" other drugs like heroin are pleasurable (so I hear) because they get you high in addition to satisfying your addiction, but cigarettes are purely an addiction. Finally, they are clearly terrible for your health.
To change my view, you can either challenge my three reasons for legalization in principle or convince me that tobacco passes those tests. I am just as prepared to accept legalized tobacco as I am to oppose the legalization of other drugs. I also don't particularly care about any single drug except tobacco, so arguing against alcohol or marijuana will not change my view in a meaningful way.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Although I accept that global warming is man made and real, it seems to me the odds are it might be better to do nothing. +
+ We don't really know if, without Global warming, the planet is cooling, heating or staying the same. For example there is some statistical possibility that without our warming of the globe--we might be heading into an ice age more economically detrimental than what's happening now.
Since it's so expensive to stop global warming, shouldn't we first do a lot of research into whether or not stopping it would really be beneficial in the overall scheme of where we are in the planet's natural warming/cooling cycle?
I know there must be some flaw in this logic--it bothers me though that I can't put my finger on it.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The pharmaceutical industry should be subject to the Hippocratic oath. +
+ I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
OP:
Even though the free market brings us lots of good stuff, I think it's an absolute horror in the pharmaceutical industry. Considering that making a medicine is quite similar to providing treatment, i.e. the medicine, as a doctor's actions, (can) make you better. Therefore, being able to make a medicine makes you similar to a dcotor, and thus you should be subjected to the Hippocratic oath.
That means companies should not be allowed to neglect a disease because it has too few patients and will therefore not be profitable. If you have the knowledge to help people, you are obliged to.
Also, inbefore people saying 'R&D costs and patents'; imo (new) medicine should not be a private issue and therefore costs (actual costs for medicine, not the cost of running a company) should be paid publicly.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I don't understand why rape is as bad as people make it out to be. I feel like a horrible person for this, so please CMV. +
+ I don't really see why rape is worse than, say, battery. Every argument I've heard for rape being "especially traumatizing" can be applied to damn near every other crime. I hear it "devalues the victim as a person" or "the victim often thinks they're going to die", and just think that this is the case for a lot of other crimes.
I would never rape anyone, btw. Just because I don't understand why rape is traumatizing doesn't make it any less traumatizing. Even if it wasn't, it'd still be a shit thing to do... | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe that equality is an illogical goal for society. CMV +
+ To begin, I believe that all humans are born with equal worth. As for all other factors - wealth, gender, intelligence, beauty, etc. - individuals undeniably differ.
For the purposes of this post, I'm not writing about income inequality, but rather, racial, gender, sexuality, and the like.
It seems to me that many advocates for social change place equality as their primary goal, whether that means racial equality, gender equality, or any of the other possible "equalities". I don't see equality as a logical goal for any society. I believe total equality in any of the areas that I listed above is impossible (people will still be unequal in intelligence, beauty, desirability of occupation, desirability of property, etc.) and therefore seeking equality is pointless because half of any given society will always fall below the median.
Under that assumption, and the widely accepted belief that all humans are inherently of equal worth, then why does it matter which subgroup is "on top"? Will it not be the same percentage of humans, no matter their race, gender, sexuality, etc.? By seeking racial equality, for example, are we not simply altering the racial composition of society? Will this society somehow be more equal, even though all humans are inherently equal to begin with?
Why does it matter the race, gender, etc. of the upper half of society, if all humans are inherently of equal worth? | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Trans types such as non-binary and gender-fluid are becoming trends with many people identifying as them only doing it for "special points". +
+ I've had several friends come out as non-binary or genderfluid and such and such, and I just can't buy into it. I think we all have dysphoria, because having a body can be weird. Just because you have dysphoria doesn't mean you can't be male or female anymore. I'd like to believe that these people are genuinely these genders, but I just feel like it's getting a little ridiculous. We just need to accept ourselves as we are and stop making ourselves seem special. Especially when these people have identified as their own gender their whole lifes, and as soon as they discovered tumblr, BAM, they're some crazy new gender. I feel like this is also taking away from actual trans people who felt this way their whole lives. CMV
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I feel like Superman is the most Mary Sueish hero, and I do not understand his popularity. CMV. +
+ Superman, to me, encompasses perfection. He's strong, fast, can fly, has pretty much every power under the sun that's textbook superhero fare, a very specific, and hackneyed weakness.
His villains are generally more interesting than he is, but unlike Batman, who in my opinion acts more like a foil for the villains to be more pronounced on, Superman just allows any character his villains have to bounce off his chiseled countenance as he effortlessly pounds them into the ground.
Yet every time a game featuring him comes around, he's perfect, every time a movie comes around, generally he's perfect. Hell, even in the most recent iteration, it took someone who was EXACTLY the same as him to even stand a remote chance against Superman in combat. He doesn't even have a power source that can be disabled (the Red Sun), so he's always super powerful when he's on Earth or in the Solar System, which is almost all the time.
He feels like the most uncreative hero ever, but he's loved by EVERYONE, and I simply do not understand why. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: We will never travel space in any meaningful way because we'll use up all of our resources long before that +
+ Now I don't know all of the details on some of this, which is why I'm hoping someone will change my view. But ever since reading about [The Great Filter,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter) I started to question my assumption that it's inevitable that the human race will expand into outer space and begin to colonize other worlds. So here are what I see are the biggest hurdles to humanity colonizing space, and why I think we won't overcome them.
Hurdle #1: AFAIK, oil is the most energy-dense resource we have. And we use it for pretty much everything, including rocket fuel, manufacture, transportation, you name it. Once we use it up, we don't really have a good substitute to get us into space. Nuclear seems like an option, but without oil I don't know how difficult it would be to extract and refine fissile material in the quantities that would be needed.
Hurdle #2: From what I understand, we've pretty much extracted all of the low-hanging fruit as far as oil goes. We're having to drill deeper and in more remote places to get oil. In fact there are theories that if some catastrophic event were to occur right now, we'd never be able to get back to this point technology-wise, because we'll no longer have the capacity or ability to reach oil. It's just too difficult to get to without our current technology.
Hurdle #3: We're in our infancy as far as space travel goes. How much effort, resources, and money would it take to establish a lunar colony? I feel like that's doable, but if we really want to expand into space, any colonies we establish must be self-sufficient, and I can't see how that's possible with our current technologies. I'm not even sure we know how to do that right now. Expansion into space in any meaningful way rests on the idea that eventually we'll find other resources out there to sustain ourselves. But how long will it take to find those?
Hurdle #4: Space travel seems like a low priority for humanity right now. I mean, we can't even take care of ourselves. In most of the western world, quarterly profits seem to be the highest priority, without any thought for the future. Consumer culture means, above everything else, consumption of oil in one way or another, which leads us back to hurdle #2. Okay, I really don't want this to get political, and I don't want to cast too many sweeping generalizations. So I guess I feel that space travel and expansion could be possible, but it would require all of humanity working together in a way that I don't think is feasible right now. Basically, as a species we're just too immature.
So as you can see, I'm making a lot of assumptions, mainly:
* without oil there will be no space travel
* given how difficult it is to extract oil, and given our rate of consumption, it won't be too long before we run out.
I don't know; it just kind of bums me out. Right now I feel like any future we've envisioned for ourselves in space is just fantasy, and will never come to pass. Which is why I'm hoping someone can change my view.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: This is the Final Holiday Season for Sears +
+ The last few years have been rough on Sears. Today, they just announced a quarterly net loss of $548 million and the closing of 235 underperforming stores. [Photos](http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-deserted-sears-stores-2014-10#this-abandoned-sears-in-north-randall-ohio-closed-in-2009-its-part-of-the-now-defunct-randall-park-mall-which-opened-in-1976-and-once-housed-more-than-200-stores-before-closing-in-may-2009-1) of their stores and buildings are absolutely desolate.
I don't see a turn around. Anyone want to take a shot at how they last any longer? I will respond after my lunch hour.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe that watching, following and discussing professional sports is a huge waste of time and doesn't benefit a person in any real way. +
+ Just to be clear - I'm not talking about actually playing a sport, which is one of the best ways to stay in shape, socialize, etc. and can be an excellent way for a person to spend some of their free time. What I do think is a huge waste of time is to dedicate hours of your day many times a week to watching other people play a game. Dedicating your time to learning about player's stats, forming an opinion on what the team should do to improve or on why they're doing so poorly (when a person doesn't actually play the sport themselves) gives them nothing when they could be using their time on one of thousands of other hobbies that would be much more constructive for them. Yes, you may become very good at analyzing a game, but unless you actually play this game yourself, it will never have any positive impact on your life at all.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Shopping at thrift stores while rich-middle class is wrong. +
+ I am from an upper middle class family who lives in a very well off town. To me shopping at a thrift store always was for people who couldn't afford normal clothes. I've donated lots of clothes to thrift shops assuming that it would go to people who need it.
Recently a lot of rich kids in my town have started shopping at the local thrift shop looking for cheap hipster clothes. I think this is wrong as thrift shops only have a limited amount of clothes and they should go to people who need them.
To me it seems like going to a thrift shop is like going to a food bank.
I'm not begrudging people who go to thrift shops who are poor. That is who they are for. I'm saying that rich people shouldn't shop there.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Some art is objectively better than other. +
+ Some art has a deeper meaning than others, than transcends art and actually is part of our culture. Music about "going to the clubs and having sex" is shallow and doesn't relate to anything deeper than the "art" itself. Some music takes more talent to make, lyricism is better, etc etc. The White Stripes are better than Justin Bieber, it takes more objective skill and **innovation** to make music like the White Stripes did, Bieber hasn't impacted the music industry at all, at least not for the better. Without vocal effects, Bieber has been proven not to be able to reach the same notes as the white stripes have. I'm not saying someone can't like Bieber more, I'm saying that The White Stripes are undisputedly better. And that's just one example.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Marijuana is dangerous because of the 'stoner' lifestyle people associate with +
+ The 'stoner' lifestyle is depicted as laggardly and sedentary in the media. This translates to more people associating with and labeling themselves as a stoner.
When people call themselves a stoner and assume the lifestyle, relative to my thought process they are basically wasting their lives and become a burden on friends, family (parents primarily if they are younger)
I think it was Southpark that said that pot isn't really dangerous medically but when you smoke it makes you alright with being bored. Going on further to see that when you're bored you should be learning new skills and bettering yourself instead of masking the boredom in smoke.
Thoughts?
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV I believe that the Confederate Battle Flag should be made the official flag of the United States of America. +
+ If nothing else, I think the former Confederate States of America battle flag looks epic, much better than the current US flag, and could possibly carry equal symbolism to our current flag. If the CSA battle flag became the new US flag, I for one would fly it more and hold it of greater honor than I do with the current. The Confederate Battle Flag was flown by the Confederate States of America during the civil war, although the would-be nation was struck down at the end of the war and became part of the USA again. The flag consists of a red background superimposed with 2 blue bars that run the diagonals of the flag and cross in the center, with 13 white stars on the cross to represent the 13 confederate states. The 13 stars do resemble the many other symbolic uses of the number 13 in the us to represent the original 13 colonies. The all-important red, white and blue colors also remain. The confederate flag would make for as good if not better of representation of us as the current, and it would look much better than our current one, especially alongside the flag of the UK, Kenya, Tibet, Greenland, and all the rest of the "epic-flag club." Not to mention, the cross can even have symbolism for our British roots, since it is of similar type to the Scottish and Irish crosses on the UK flag. Feel free to CMV! | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe that most (NOT ALL) stop signs could, (and to some extent, should) be replaced by yield signs +
+ **1: Stop signs could be replaced by yield signs**
Stop signs instruct drivers to stop at an intersection no matter what. Yield signs instruct drivers that they need not stop, but that they must give the right-of-way to opposing traffic. In essence, in the presence of other cars, a yield sign functions as a stop sign. However, when there is no other traffic, they speed up driving by allowing drivers to merely slow down, instead of coming to a complete stop, as they approach an intersection. In this sense, replacing a stop sign with a yield sign is like causing traffic lights go into flashing red (i.e., 4-way stop) mode at night.
However, some stop signs should not be replaced with yield signs. In particular, at a blind intersection, a driver would not be able to assess the flow of traffic before they got to the intersection, and thus should be forced to stop in all cases
*How to CMV: convince me that from a mechanical, traffic rules perspective, yield signs do not sufficiently emulate stop signs*
**2: Stop signs *should* be replaced by yield signs**
It is already quite common for drivers to fail to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. This is generally because a driver slows down towards a stop, and then continues on once they see there is no other traffic -- essentially, they treat the stop sign as a yield sign. There is no reason to think that drivers would "run" a yield sign (i.e., fail to yield to opposing traffic) with any greater frequency than drivers run red lights or stop signs.
Stop signs also negatively impact the quality of late-night driving. It is annoying to have to stop at minor intersections when I'm the only car on the road. Stop signs, like other traffic signs and signals, are there for the safety of pedestrians and drivers, and stop signs become extraneous to this purpose when I am the only driver for blocks. Yield signs address this issue by functioning as stop signs during periods of heavy traffic and as a lack of sign during periods of no traffic.
*How to CMV: convince me that drivers would run yield signs more than they run stop signs or red lights, or that traffic signs/signals serve a purpose even when you're the only car on the road*
**3: Logistics**
When I say we should replace stop signs with yield signs, I mean that in the sense that I believe it would be a benefit to society if all applicable stop signs magically turned into yield signs, with all drivers properly informed as they would be if they had passed a law to make the switch. I realize that it would be expensive and difficult to actually make the replacement, but I'm not really interested in logistical arguments, and they won't change my view.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The United States and Western Nations should choose a side in the Shi'a/Sunni conflict, and they should support the Shi'a. +
+ I posted a variation of this last night, but I have since modified my original position slightly.
Since its inception, the followers of Sunni Islam have been far more violent and destructive than the followers of Shi'a Islam. [This Pew Research Study](http://www.pewforum.org/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/) shows that Shi'a make up only 10%-12% of the world wide Muslim population, so that will skew their relative effects with regard to terrorism. Though in 2011, 70% of all deaths associated with terrorism were attributed to Sunni terrorists.
The leveling and destruction of historical sites by ISIL is only the most recent example of the behavior. The only terror organization I can think of that exists today and has Shi'a roots is Hezbollah, and though they are violent they are controlled by a political organization that can be reasoned with. Every other terrorist organization or country with horrible human rights abuses (Saudi Arabia) I can think of in the past 20 years has been Sunni, or a variation of Sunni. I had great hopes in 2006/2007 during the Sunni Awakening and in 2010 during the Arab Spring, but they just ended up killing each other for power and AQI and now ISIL filled in the power vacuum.
I believe that by backing the Shi'a in Iraq and the Lavant, and supporting Iran in the fight against ISIL the US and its allies will gain a powerful partner in the region that can control the fringe elements of its religion. The primary opposition to this idea, I believe, will be the supporters of Israel. I think at this time and in this environment the old saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a solid foundation for future coalition building. The unlikely possibility of an Iranian attack on Israel should not be a deal breaker here. The US has a responsibility to respond militarily after any attack on Israel, and Iran isnt crazy enough take the chance. Not since Amadinejad is out of the picture. The Ayatollah is the Supreme Leader, but even he wouldn't dare risk an all out war with the West.
I also understand that the US has allies in the region such as Kuwait, Turkey, and Jordan, but they seem to me to be allies for proxy purposes instead of direct allies. I will post a user's comment from my post last night that speaks to this specifically.
I don't want to think this way. Change my view.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Students should be allowed to use all internet resources and work with other students on assignments and projects without it being called cheating. +
+ Something that I have noticed overtime is how unrealistic school actually is. They don't let you work with your peers and they don't always allow you to use all the resources you have at hand. In my honest opinion students should be allowed to work with each other all the time as long as they give each other credit. This is more realistic and since kids splitting work is going to happen anyways then you might as well do it in a way that will be beneficial. An argument might be that people need to know how to work by themselves too but if that's the case why not make the occasional thing by yourself instead of vise versa? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV, I think the idea of speeding tickets is completely rediculous when it would be just as easy to electronically limit US vehicles to whatever speed +
+
Without regards to what-ifs and the like. It's an easy question. Why can't we as a country to make it IMPOSSIBLE to get a speeding ticket? To me, the ability to be fined for doing what the damn thing was designed to in the first place is beyond stupid.
Someone is going to say "but tickets pave the streets" and [insert something else about taxes or state income], and to that I say "It's not my job to insure my governments surivial by being punished for using something that's been perfected over the past 100 years, for it's intended purpose."
Someone else will likely say "But what if they move, or go somewhere with a different or no speed limit?" To which I would respond "But ho, there are satalites with which these cars communicate! Surely they would know and unlock the engine!"
Someone else will say "But what of responsability and maturity" To which I would say "It's my car. Mine. I paid for it, I paid the taxes, I paid the insurance and gas. It's mine, and as long as I don't hurt anyone else, why do you care?" | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Dictatorships are a better form of government for developing countries than democracies +
+ Almost no country has transitioned from a developing country to a developed country under democracy. Japan was able to carry out the Meiji Restoration because a strong central government was able to force the reforms through against the will of everyone who opened them. Singapore was able to develop into a major financial center from an underdeveloped country ruled by organized crime because it's a de facto single party state under the PAP that can implement changes without worrying about public opinion. South Korea and Taiwan both developed because of authoritarian leaders focused on development as well. China and Vietnam are both rapidly developing a middle class because of their authoritarian, interventionist governments that can promote growth regardless of popular support. Turkey was able the secularize and liberalize under Ataturk because of his authoritarian governing style, even if the population didn't support it. Conversely, I can't think of any country that has transitioned from the third world to the first world under democracy. Democracies like India and Pakistan are still undeveloped, with much more poverty than any of the other countries I mentioned, because there's no powerful government that can promote development.
Can anyone show me evidence that democracies are not less successful at developing countries than dictatorships, or that the authoritarianism and decisiveness of dictatorships is not necessary for a country to develop?
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe that "serious" science fiction writers should never prequel an existing series. - CMV +
+ I have noticed that time and again, great sci-fi writers have blundered horribly by going back and exploring the origins of their settings in one or more prequels.
Prequels never seem to have the substance or coherence of the original stories, they usually lean way too hard on whatever elements the fan base likes and the composition becomes unbalanced. A second effect is to excessively explain the setting and deeper themes of the work in a way that insults reader's intelligence.
*A Good example of both of these are the later Foundation books "Prelude to Foundation" and "Forward the Foundation" which were simpleminded, repetitious, and pedantic with their ham-handed hammering on the Robot / Foundation connection which had been subtly dealt with in earlier books.*
Furthermore, prequels lack the tension of a sequential story because you know what direction the overall setting is going, the only thing to learn are the details of a particular character's life.
*Is anything less captivating than watching Orson Scott Card take a half dozen mediocre books to retell the historical arc he covered in the truly great (and surprisingly short) "Ender's Game"?*
Also, by dealing again in detail with background elements which readers had already accepted, prequels run the risk of breaking the setting or the coherence of the original narrative.
*I don't know if it's really fair to talk about what Frank Herbert's less talented son did with his legacy, since he isn't the original author, but Dune would be my example of a broken setting and narrative.*
You know who can get away with Prequels? Any writer who uses their setting as a backdrop for scenarios and characters rather than the setting being the subject itself. Niven and Heinlein come to mind as "greats" who wrote freely forward and backward in their alternate universes without much ill effect.
And see, I didn't even mention Star Wars! | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
Our house is littered with mice, but I feel bad for killing them. Please CMV! +
+ Since this is an actual CMV from a person who desperately wants his view to change, it will probably be drowned by all of the "I hate Hitler, CMV"-like posts. But I appreciate anyone helping!
So as mentioned, we have mice in our house. Not a frighteningly large amount, but enough to hear scratching when trying to sleep and finding mouse-turds behind the microwave and stuff.
We bought a well-constructed and easy to set up mouse-trap. It's done wonders and probably killed at least 10 of the buggers already. However whenever it kills one, I feel bad.
What tipped me over to the point of where I came here, was what happened yesterday.
I had seen a mouse running around behind my computer-desk and therefore had put of the trap there. As I was sitting by the computer, working, I heard it snap.
This was the first time I actually was in its presence as it killed a mouse, and it was short of horrifying. First there was the snap, and then I heard the sound of a mouse scratching and fighting for its life, even making peep-noises. This continued for maybe 7 seconds, before it stopped and was dead.
It is a standard mouse-trap that slams down a metal thingy to kill the critter trying to get the bait, only more durable and easier to set up. My mother told me that the movements I heard were probably just muscle-twitching and that the mouse was already dead, but that doesn't explain the sound, so I'm still frightened.
After that experience, my worry for the mice has doubled. I don't want to feel bad for them! I really don't! They're in our house and they are making a mess, not to mention the annoying scratching! I want them to die, and to leave us alone!
For those that will suggest using another trap to capture them and let them go elsewhere, my mother says thats a no-go and that there are too many mice to do that.
So please, please make me stop feeling bad for them!
**TL;DR** Convince me that killing them is the right thing to do in our situation!
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe Ed Snowden is a hero, but still has to answer for breaking the law, CMV +
+ He did a good thing, but broke the law. Tell me why he shouldn't go to jail. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
People who decide to have biological children are selfish CMV +
+ A simple google search shows that "in the U.S. 400,540 children are living without permanent families." [source](http://www.ccainstitute.org/why-we-do-it-/facts-and-statistics.html) Regardless of the actual statistic, no one can deny that there are children in need of a loving home.
It is selfish to want to replicate yourself when there are so many orphans who need loving parents. This is my biggest reason for my view. Another reason is that creating additional people does further strain the earth's limited resources, albeit in a miniscule way.
I don't see any additional benefit to birthing your own children (as opposed to adopting), except for the selfish satisfaction one gets from seeing himself in his own child and knowing he has passed on his seed.
Change my view?
Thanks again. :) | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:I am Liberal +
+ I am liberal in the modern political sense of the word. I don’t want to get into semantics so I’m not claiming to be a follower of classical liberalism or neo-liberalism or anything else but a modern and hyper liberal American. Since I love this subreddit I’ll provide you with some easy arguments for you to knock down. =) I will change my view if you can show how ‘forward thinking, inclusivism, secularism, or personal liberty’ are bad values to have or show in some way that being a modern liberal is bad for myself or society.
WHAT IS LIBERALISM?
1) Forward Thinking – I believe social liberalism correctly pushes the boundaries of what society currently thinks is acceptable towards more egalitarian bounds. Conservative thinking is dominated by ideas like “tradition” and “maintaining order or status quo” which it advances at the cost of excluding certain groups. I specifically believe that tradition is harmful as it inappropriately resists change without providing merit. I believe the abolition of slavery, suffrage of women, lax immigration policies, and the guaranteeing of rights by the government are liberal ideas that are beneficial to society.
2) Inclusivism – I believe liberalism is an ideology that tries to include as many people as possible. I feel liberalism correctly values the group over the individual. (ex: What good are ‘my’ rights if I only get them by infringing on others?) I believe that everyone is better off when everyone is given equal protection and rights. When employees have enough disposable income to purchase consumer goods they increase economic output much more than if all the income and wealth was concentrated in the hands of few individuals. (see banana republics vs current America and debt fueled consumption as one of the primary cause of the 1930s and 2008 depressions).
3) SECULARISM – I believe that governments and all non-religious groups should operate in a completely secular manner because it provides better real world results and doesn’t disenfranchise anyone. I believe that corporations should not be able to espouse or enforce particular religious beliefs (ex: a church can be doctrinally against birth control but it, nor any business, should not be allowed to deny said birth control to its employees). In matters of science vs faith I will always side with science as I believe ‘most’ liberals would. I place zero merits in matters of faith when presented as such and believe morality is not provided by, grounded in, nor should it be regulated by, a religion. (Any claim not based in fact is either a working hypothesis or a statement of faith. I may have to accept partial blame for ‘radical hippies’ that do not support data driven science such as gmo haters and nuclear power scardy-cats. It seems that these people are in the minority among liberals BUT If you feel the ‘average liberal’ supports these types of faith based anti-data claims then please hammer away at me).
4) PERSONAL LIBERTY – The government is the primary protector of the citizen’s rights and liberties. Personal responsibility outlined by libertarians and conservatives only goes so far since vigilante enforcement is not as conducive to society as official police actions and lynch mobs should be replaced by a judiciary. Liberals believe that morality and personal behavior should not be regulated by an outside entity. Free love, marrying whomever you chose, freedom of and from religion, 1st and 4th amendment rights, and the right to privacy, are all liberal ideas that I support. I do not believe you have the right to infringe on the rights of others. I believe that women are the equals of men and that all races are equal to each other. “Separate but equal” is not equal and true equality not only means equal rights but equal opportunity to fulfill those rights.
Lightning round...
5) 2nd Amendment = pro gun ownership, pro heavy regulation
6) Big Government = globalization and big businesses need big government support. Remember only conservatives say "I demand big government get their hands off my medicare".
7) Taxes = The required big government needs big income. Our current government is too big and can be for sure be streamlined, but it cannot be halved or quartered.
8) Climate Change = I side with science. No, there is no debate.
9) Abortion = I can prove with science that the mother is alive. Until you can prove with science that a specific subset of her cells commonly known as a fetus is a separate and living organism capable of equal amounts of autonomy as the mother then I feel you have no ground to stand on.
10) The Draft = Against it. Unless America is facing a crisis of civilization ending proportions then there's no need to dilute a strong fighting force with people that don't want to be there.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV - "Hard Drugs" Should Never be Legal. +
+ My friend and I were arguing over whether all drugs should be legalized or not. I argued that yes they should *all* be legalized; sale, possession, and use. He argued that only marijuana should be legalized because the rest have the potential to make the users a danger to others through rages or intoxicated driving (Which unlike marijuana you can't talk a guy on PCP out of driving a car). And he is even against marijuana legalization for the similar reasons but is forced to accept it's legalization due to public opinion.
I said to him, "Then why do you support alcohol being legal?"
He said "Because 2 wrongs is worse than 1 wrong. Alcohol is already legal and we can't make it illegal due to public opinion. I don't want hard drugs gaining a legal advantage by being historically accepted (Starting in our lifetime) in the future."
He also stated "There will be an increase in users for all drugs just due to the availability and higher amount of drugs for sale to the *masses* as opposed to when they were illegal. And this would probably mean that the amount of rages and under-the-influence driving would raise."
I hold my view because I am a staunch believer in the fact that no object should be banned from use by law. I think doing something with an object like using a gun to murder someone is what should be "banned," but just owning a gun should be perfectly legal. But I unfortunately cannot counter my friends argument! Help! | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe in the absolute sanctity of human life. CMV +
+ This doesn't just apply to the death penalty, but also fetuses, people in a coma, and the mentally and physically handicapped. I believe that by being a person to any extent and having been brought to us by fate, that everyone deserves to live. I don't care what they've done or how much it costs to keep them alive, I think there's always hope they can impact the world for good. In this day and age, there is no reason any person should die of unnatural causes. Change my view. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I don't see the point of feminism in the West. CMV +
+ Feminism seems to me to be about acquiring equal legal rights for women... In the West, where this is already a thing, why do we need feminism? I understand that women face prejudice, but so do guys, albeit in a different manner. If eliminating intangible prejudice, why not go the way of humanism, where you would be fighting for the rights of all? This is not to say that feminism should be looked down on, or no longer a thing. It definitely helped women in the West and similar success in the Middle East would be awesome. But I believe that the movement has achieved it's goal in the West. So why continue? | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: 'Murca should just let the South secede, so the rest of the country could progress to a better place. +
+ Yes, I am being serious here about the concept. Not addressing the logistical complications at this point. By "South", I mean the former Confederate states. Sure, we'd lose some good things in the mix. But The NET gains would be amazing.
The political center for the "North" would generally move to the left. Political Influence from religious fundamentalists would shrink a lot. Factual and Science-based policy arguments would less often have to yield false equivalency to brain-dead ideas. Fox News would want to move shop to the South, to be among their base. Some of the most preposterous congress members would no longer be our problem. Civil rights would progress faster. Same-sex marriage, ditto. Voting rights wouldn't regress to Jim Crow times. The South could then completely own their beloved immigration "problem". Almost all the great national parks would go to the North. The list of upsides goes on and on. . . .
Many in the South would be open to this idea, at least from what I've observed living there for a while a few years ago. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I think the Confederate flag is racist, and there is a large overlap between people who fly it, and people who are racist. CMV +
+ To elaborate, I am specifically referring to Battle Flag of Tennessee, just so we don't get caught up in that off the bat. That's the flag most people think of when you say "Confederate flag", not to be confused with a slew of others used during the time period.
I'm a Northerner (who still sees a good deal of Confederate flags around these parts btw), and I find it really hard to separate "Southern Pride" from the troubling racial history that includes. That's not meant to demonize the South as our entire country was built through genocide. However, it also seems ridiculous to not include that as part of your history.
In my views, the fact that this flag has become associated with racism -and that it is deeply offensive to many people - should be enough to make people shy away from using it. I can't help but feeling that the people who most vehemently defend it's use are usually harboring racist ideals too.
So seriously, try to change my views. I don't know much about the role this symbol plays in the life of Southerners, and I've found that most discussions quickly dissolve into shouting matches. I genuinely want some outside input, so I look forward to your responses. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I don't think that an individual's assertion of his or her "gender identity" warrants any special credence or respect. CMV. +
+ I understand (or think I understand) the difference between sex and gender. As I understand it, sex is the physical, biological attribute (the genitals, secondary sex characteristics, etc.), while gender is a psychological and social phenomenon arising from the socialization inflicted on an individual as a result of the physical sex. (I.e., if you are born with a penis, you are treated in the way males are treated, and this shapes your psychology in a certain way.)
As such, it seems that gender is more or less an abstract construct; I don't see that the notion "I'm of the male gender" means anything besides "I have been, as a result of my male sex, treated in a certain way since birth." This being the case, if I then announce that I am female, in what way is my assertion true? What I'm saying is that I'm of the female gender. But, again, the notion that "I'm of the female gender" can only mean "I have been socialized as a female," which is patently untrue (and will be untrue for most every biological male except in extremely unusual circumstances).
I can take a slightly different tack and suggest that I'm female because I feel more natural taking a stereotypically feminine role in society, e.g. I enjoy playing with Barbie dolls and am very emotionally sensitive, but this seems to be objectionable in a very obvious way; it's the same backward idea seen in "go make me a sandwich" jokes, i.e. that certain activities and characteristics are inherently appropriate for men or for women. As such, I don't think this is what's meant, and I doubt that people advocating for transgenderism would take this line of reasoning seriously.
So, again, in what way can my assertion that I'm female be true? Does it mean that I don't *like* being of the male gender, that I feel I'd be more comfortable if I had been raised as a female, even though I haven't? Well, not liking a state of affairs doesn't mean I can change it at will. Does it mean that I, in some way, see myself as being of the female gender? Well, then I'm simply *incorrect*, in the same way I would be incorrect if I "saw" Joe Biden as a purple walrus, because no identifiable characteristic of me is female.
It's as if, unhappy with the idea of myself as a white person, I suddenly decide to "identify as" a Chinese person. I'm not physically of Chinese descent, I haven't been raised as culturally Chinese, so in what way can I possibly claim to be Chinese?
I do understand that there exists a neurological condition whereby individuals instinctively perceive their sex as being inappropriate for them. But not only do I doubt that the majority of people identifying as transgender have been diagnosed with this condition, it also doesn't at all account for the myriad other "gender identities" people sometimes use, such as "genderqueer," "genderfluid," "agender," "pangender," etc., etc., and I think a great many people would argue that claims of transgenderism carry water regardless of the presence of the neurological condition.
While I don't think that there's anything inherently *morally* wrong about transgenderism, it does frustrate me to see the amount of dignification commonly given to what seems to me a very unsound idea. What am I missing? CMV. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: No One Should Feel Offended by Christmas +
+ It's the most benign and inoffensive festive occasion imaginable.
Peace on Earth, Good Will to All, hard to see anyone complaining about this.
Whenever I see "Happy Holidays" it gets me thinking. Why say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas? Is it born of that same fear of offending someone?
We've all seen examples of schools or city hall administrations banning some aspect of Christmas, be it the tree, the caroling, or even the very word itself.
I'm not going to search out and post examples but these reports seem to be getting more common.
Ok just one. Some of the comments [here] (https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/2oo69x/happy_nondenominational_holidays/) illustrate my point. Sheesh.
Atheists? I'm completely atheist, but Christmas makes me think of warm comforting feelings in every aspect. I feel offended when someone tries to water down the message. The whole argument about God existing or not, Jesus existing or not should be set aside for this time.
TL:DR watering down Christmas is sad.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe short barrel rifles, suppressors, and machine guns should be deregulated. +
+ I believe that short barrel rifles and firearm suppressors should be completely removed from the regulations of the National Firearms Act and it should be legal to produce/own machine guns made after 1986. I'll go into my specific reasons below.
SBRs: I have yet to see a valid reason for the heavy regulations in place for short barrel rifles. Currently, [this](https://i.imgur.com/kA6wkOI.jpg) is considered a pistol and can be bought at any gun store with just a background check. But [this](http://www.zahal.org/files/images/fab/New05.10/glockstock2copy.jpg) is considered an SBR and one must complete an onerous amount of paperwork to own one. This makes no sense and SBRs should be treated like any other firearm.
Suppressors: Contrary to what video games tell you, suppressors don't make a firearm completely silent. In fact, they only reduce the noise level from around 180 to 120 dB. Their main purpose is to reduce hearing damage and noise pollution. In fact, many countries in Europe encourage if not require you to use one when hunting or shooting. Therefore, suppressors should not be a controlled item or only require a background check.
Machine Guns: As it currently stands, machine guns produced after 1986 are illegal to own. The only thing this does is drive up prices to an absurd degree (A pre-ban machine gun will cost you around $20,000). This ban should be lifted to allow more people a chance to own one. Keep in mind that since 1934, only two murders have been committed with legally owned machine guns and one of those was by a police officer (who are exempt from this ban anyway).
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Any vegan who is morally against eating any form of eggs cannot in good conscience dine at a restaurant that isn't exclusively vegan. +
+ For a long time I did not understand why Vegans were against eating eggs, but eventually I learned that the reason for this is because the chicken egg industry kills male chickens en masse because they only need a few of them in order to keep producing more chickens. For this reason alone, some vegans will not eat eggs, no matter the source because it will support an industry that harms animals. This makes sense, but I believe that anyone who purports to not eat eggs for this reason could not morally eat at a restaurant that offered vegan options, as by offering your business to a restaurant that also serves meat you would be contributing to the livestock industry in a similar way. CMV.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I think that the only rational and logical stance on the abortion issue is pro-life. CMV. +
+ I attempted to approach the abortion issue the most rational way that I possibly could, and the only outcome that made any sense at all was pro-life. I'll list my justification for this stance, and I task you fine people of r/changemyview to find any holes in my logic, or to propose at least an equally logical argument for the pro-choice position.
My View:
The reason why I hold the stance I hold comes in two components. The aspect of my argument is the idea that unborn children are really valuable. Now, you will never hear me say something like, "Fetuses are people" or otherwise equate an unborn child to a human life, but I will argue that fetuses /are/ really valuable. I approached this conclusion using basic logic.
Think, if I were to kill three pigs and eat them, I'll have a fine barbeque. If I were to kill three two-month-old babies and eat them, I'll be lucky if I didn't get the death penalty. Yet your average adult pig beats a two month old baby in every category that would make someone worthwhile. The pig is smarter than the baby and can solve more complex problems. The pig can live independently while the two-month-old is utterly dependent on others. The pig can reproduce and make its own babies. The pig is better than the baby in all aspects except for one, and because of this we are left to assume that it is because of this one aspect that a baby is considered more valuable than a pig in both the eyes of the law and in the eyes of most rational thinking people. This aspect, of course, is potential. The baby has the potential to become a being with hopes and dreams, able to think critically, able to love and be loved, and this potential is something that the pig lacks, and thus the baby's life and well being is immensely more valuable than the pig's life and well being.
However, it should be noted that this potential that makes a baby who is dumber than a pig more valuable than a pig is also present in an unborn child. An unborn child can become all of the things that a born child can, and if this potential gives immense value to two-month-old babies then this potential should surely give some value to an unborn child. Like, if 90% of the value present in a two-month-old baby lies in the potential of what that two-month-old baby can become, and an unborn child has like 80% of the potential that a two-month-old baby has because unborn children are significantly more likely to perish than born children, then an unborn child should be at least 70% as valuable as an two-month-old baby, and since killing a two-month-old will fetch you the same punishment as killing a twenty year old in the eyes of the law, we can take for granted the fact that a two-month-old is at least as valuable as any human being of another age, meaning that an unborn child would be 70% as valuable as a human being of any age.
Now, you could argue that an unborn child is so much more likely to perish than a born child that it impacts the potential of unborn children significantly more than I said, but I would argue that mortality rates don't really affect the value of the potential present in children all that much because even if infant mortality rates were ridiculously high, like 60%, it /still/ would not be okay to just go around murdering babies.
You can argue that I'm overestimating the value of a human life, but I would argue that human beings are really valuable, and I'm not talking about the insurance company's type of value, I'm talking about intrinsic stuff here. Some would argue that a single human life is so valuable that ascribing a price to it is an insult, and I would argue that stance as well because the immensely great things that a single human can accomplish are not something that can be easily quantified.
In any event, I think that because of what I said before, it is only rational to presume that an unborn child is very valuable, or at least almost as valuable as a two-month-old baby which is just as valuable as any other human life. Which finally brings us to component number two of my reasoning as to why being pro-life is the most logical.
The primary argument from the pro-choice camp is that a woman has a right to her own body, and that to make her carry a baby to term is infringing upon that right. Now, I am a firm believer of the fact that a woman /does/ have the right to her own body, but I think that this should not be the only thing taken into consideration when considering the argument at hand. The thing that I think is not being taken into consideration from people who argue pro-choice is responsibility. Now, if a woman is raped, then it would be a crime to force her to carry that baby to term. No one is arguing against the fact that holding her responsible for a thing that she had no voluntary hand in creating is wrong.
But if a woman voluntarily takes on the risk of pregnancy and, because she voluntarily took on this risk, she gets pregnant, then you'd be hard pressed to convince me that she holds no responsibility for the unborn child that could only possibly exist because she knowingly made decisions that had a risk of causing the unborn child to exist. This is why men have to pay child support; because they are responsible for the child that they created with their own voluntarily actions, knowing the risks. If a man is responsible for what was created during the sexy times, then it's only logical to say that the woman is also responsible.
We've already established that unborn children are immensely valuable, and I believe that a woman who is responsible for creating this immensely valuable thing should not have the right to shirk this responsibility. I've already stated that women have the right to control what goes on with their body, but I feel like the responsibility that they owe their unborn child usurps their right to do whatever the hell they want. And before you get your knickers in a twist about that, let's not forget that rights are given up all the time as a result of voluntary actions. I have the right to do what I want with my money as long as it's within the confines of the law, but if I play street baseball and break my neighbor's window, any judge will argue that my responsibility to pay for that window usurps that right. Any judge would argue that I knew the risks of playing street baseball, and since I knew those risks and took those risks, I am responsible for the results and have to pay for the broken window, even though this goes against my right to spend my money how I please. Of course this analogy isn't perfect by any means, but I think it accurately illustrates my belief that a woman's responsibility to her unborn child, which we've established is very valuable, can usurp her right to do what she wants with her body.
tl;dr: Unborn children are really valuable, women who have the sexy times take on the risk of creating this valuable thing and are responsible for this valuable thing if they do create it, therefore women should not be allowed to terminate this valuable thing. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: It is completely contradictory to say that abortion isn't murder, but at the same time call it murder if a person terminates someone else's fetus. +
+ I'm not sure about the rest of the world or even every state, but in many states, including California, killing a fetus is considered murder. For example punching a pregnant woman to intentionally make her miscarry/kill her fetus will be charged as a 187. I think that it is completely contradictory to say on the one hand that a woman can get an abortion because a fetus isn't a living being yet, and then to say that it's murder if someone else kills a fetus.
Just for the record, I am pro-choice and anti-fetus-killing. I still think killing a fetus is a terrible deed, and I acknowledge that it should be punished. I just think that in either scenario the baby should be either considered alive or not alive, and that either way if nothing is done there will almost certainly be another living being born. In both cases a person makes a conscious decision to stop the baby from being born. In one case we as a society say it is okay (obviously not a good thing or something to celebrate, but still allowable) and in the other it is murder.
I realize that in these scenarios the situation for the pregnant woman and the murderer are not the same. The woman may make the choice because she is not capable of raising the child, or because of health complications that could result from the pregnancy, etc. I'm not saying that I think abortion is murder. But hypothetically a mother could be in a situation where she would probably bring her baby into a terrible life, but if someone forcibly aborted that baby that would still be considered murder. On the other hand a multi-millionaire in an amazing relationship with a perfect home life who would make an amazing mother could decide to abort her baby. So arguments that it's what's best for the child etc. don't seem to remedy the contradiction.
The main reason I've seen for why it is okay to kill the fetus is that it isn't a living being yet. Other reasons such as a woman's right to autonomy are all good reasons for why a woman should have the right to choose, but are secondary. If someone thinks that a fetus is alive in the way that a one year old is alive then those arguments fall flat. Therefore, the fetus should either be considered alive (and thus abortion is murder), or not alive (and thus terminating it isn't murder, though still some other evil act). CMV.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I'm an Arab American and don't mind the fact that the NSA has access to all my personal stuff, I actually like it. +
+ I'm a Syrian American, moved to Philadelphia in the year 2000 as a young kid. This has resulted in many unfortunate situations for me, including but not limited to: Extreme racism after 9/11, suspicious stops at airports, and my family's citizenship papers being delayed for several years for secondary screening.
As a Syrian, I am probably heavily monitored by the NSA, and I don't mind whatsoever. I have nothing to hide and therefore don't mind that they have access to my information, if they wanna read flirty texts between my girlfriend and I they can go right ahead, nothing wrong going on here! But as for the people who they're monitoring who need to be monitored, that's helping to keep me safe and comfortable in this country that I've grown to love.
I don't see why Americans make this such a big deal. I promise you no one's sitting at the NSA office right now reading your texts to your friend about getting high later and planning to arrest you. They're looking for things that will help your safety and well-being and it's for the good of us all. Yes, the government has a lot of power that way, but put yourself in my shoes and you'll see that there's really no such thing as privacy anywhere you go anymore. This is probably a whole different CMV topic, but I don't think privacy is a right that everyone is entitled to. Be glad that you have this much freedom, because where I come from, they read your messages as well, and when they do and you're talking about the government the wrong way? You won't just end up on some "black-list".
CMV, please. I get in so many arguments every day about this with my friends, I want someone to actually approach this in a way that isn't irrationally defensive.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe homosexuality is a form of disease that is nature's way of population control. CMV +
+ Let me begin by saying that I have no hostile feelings or feelings of animosity towards homosexuals. I accept that they exist, and though I may not agree with their certain form of lifestyle, I don't feel that I am in any position to dictate how they should live their lives. Essentially, I am NOT a homophobe.
Now the reason I believe homosexuality is a form of disease, being natures birth control is that (in my eyes, and please do correct me if I'm wrong) from a biological/evolutionary it simply does not make sense to be gay or lesbian. If we boil down the meaning of life to simple Darwinistic principles, our goal in life is to do our best to thrive on this planet and leave [as many] offspring as possible. What happens after this life is up to speculation as individuals can hold their own views on that. I'm approaching this topic purely from a non-religious point of view.
Now having established that our goal in life is to thrive and leave offspring, being homosexual keeps one from achieving the latter, with the exception of surrogate mothers/sperm donors. So does that mean a homosexual individual has essentially failed to accomplish their life's goal?
Also, even though homosexuality has existed from the earliest days of humankind, today, it seems as if it is on the rise. I don't know if this is just because of the media exposure this topic is getting or if it's the new found public acceptance for such an orientation. I wish I could find a graph of sexual orientation vs time sort of like the population vs time graphs to verify/refute this theory. If homosexuality is on the rise, it is indeed understandable, as the Earth is approaching its carrying capacity of around 9-10 billion really fast, and it wouldn't hurt to have a few less babies.
I come to this conclusion because I remember reading/hearing about it somewhere that there is a certain species of animal where once the species has reached the carrying capacity in that environment, a sudden influx of infertility plauges the species until their population decreases to a manageable amount. Certainly, we humans aren't exempt from nature's rules and regulations.
So that's pretty much my two cents, and once again I don't have anything against homosexuals, I simply just don't understand them.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe that pirating e-books is not much different than borrowing books from the public library. CMV +
+ And I know that the word "much" in my title is a weasel word allowing almost anything...but it is the space where you can change my mind.
First, I want to say that I love books. I have a good collection of actual books, many topic, little fiction beside science fiction.
Sometimes I need a book for reference. I could go to the public library or to the library of the local University (GVSU), but I find easier to "pirate" books, and look for what I need. Sometimes, i even end up buying the book. I understand that a counter argument could be that someone loses real money as the number of people like me increase. I would respond that the makers of computers, of disk drives, of internet connections, the subscriptions to online sharing services (to avoid peer to peer) make more money. So there are winners and losers, I contribute to the development of new hardware.
I would add that if the profit model is obsolete, come up with new models, as a writer I would love my books to be downloaded millions time time....that is monetizable...posting books online solves a lot of the problems...removing the middle man who takes an enormous share, for little creative contribution. For example, one can post a few free chapters and offer more for a small fee.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
Most Muffins are just Cupcakes full of lies. CMV +
+ My viewpoint is based upon what I believe to be three fundamental truths about Cupcakes and Muffins:
1. There is a distinc difference between a Cupcake and Muffin.
2. Muffins are seen in our culture as being the healthier option of the two. Just the word itself carries with it a suggestion of sorts that the confection is guaranteed to be at least moderately good for you.
3. Cupcakes are seen in our culture as being the less healthy option of the two. Just the word itself carries with it a suggestion of sorts that the confection you will be eating is guaranteed to be pretty bad for you.
With this in mind, I think it's incredibly irresponsible and dishonest for coffee shops and bakeries to market their cupcakes as muffins. Obviously people should be responsible for what they put into their own bodies, and should be more informed about what it is exactly that they're eating, but because of this constant cupcake / muffin mismarketting debaccle I feel western culture as a whole has been lead to believe -- erroneously of course -- that muffins will have less impact on their well-being than cupcakes, this is why muffins are so widely accepted as breakfast food, and not cupcakes when in reality the two couldnt be more similar.
**The Differences**
Because of this cultural misinformation, I'm sure many people are confused as to the difference between the cupcake and the muffin.
Muffins, historically, started off as savoury, wheaty quick breads that were often eaten as breakfast, or brunch foods. They are created with the dry, and wet ingredients mixed seperatly, and then combined before baking. The muffin started as a rural food, as most of the ingredients were grown by, and available to farmers / the lower class.
Cupcakes date back to around the early 19th century, and were simply just an easier, more convenient way for the upper class to enjoy cake. Cupcakes are created using the "creaming" method in baking, and are literally just small sweet, sugary cakes.
The greatest distinction between the two is the fact that one is cake, and the other is a bread which typically uses wheat, with yeast to rise.
My issue with this whole thing is that it's more or less just a personal annoyance that the word Muffin has come to mean "Cupcake that we don't want you to think of as a cupcake" in North America. Please CMV.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
[CMV] I believe adopting a single, unified language would be beneficial to the world +
+ Even since I was little, I never really understood why we encouraged learning many different languages. Sure, I understood why those languages existed from a historical sense, but I never understood why there were so darn many.
For a while this led to me thinking "erry'body should learn English!" thanks to a bias of me already speaking it. But, over time and personal growth, this has evolved to me simply thinking everyone should learn on single language, regardless of whether or not it is English.
I see a few benefits to this:
1. It better facilitates communication. In an age when the Earth has been made tiny by computers, air travel, and the like, it seems silly to have so many languages to deal with, both in people's personal lives, to business communications, to political discourse. Why not cut out the translation middle-man and get everyone on the same level?
2. It better facilitates media. Right now, media from all over the world (including literature, articles, videos, broadcasts, movies, video games, comics, and television shows, among other things) are limited in reach by language. Not everything can and will be subtitled or dubbed in every language, and even those that are often lose much of the luster and clarity of the original. For an example, just take a look at the anime market.
3. It creates common ground. It's well known that language helps define how people think and, because languages often create (or are created by) different cultures, they all emphasize different sets of values. And I certainly understand needing to keep the ability to express different cultural value sets within language. So, why not create a large language that allows for the expression of different ideals while narrowing the amount of separation between people? Why not make the various words overlap and, instead, focus on how they are used to create personal and societal identities?
Those are my thoughts, but I am aware that many people love and defend multilingual societies, so I would like to hear what those people have to say. And who knows, I may very well find reason to change my views =3
NOTE: I'm not looking for information on whether getting the world to adopt a single language would be practical or not. I'm simply looking for arguments about why, if somehow presented with the opportunity, we should not go for it.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe assisted suicide should be legalized and that the fact it isn't is an infringement on those individuals' free choice. CMV. +
+ Like the title says, I think assisted suicide should be legal. It's honestly a little boggling to me why it is so incredibly controversial. The arguments pro are a little self-explanatory I think (free choice, etc.) Instead, I've tried to summarize and rebut some arguments from the opposing side, which I've boiled down to this:
- Often, the request of death has a lot to do with the loss of certain bodily functions and the accompanying loss of dignity. The argument is often people are extremely despondent initially regarding a loss of limb or sense, but often come to realize they can still have a fulfilling life. Some people might choose to kill themselves in their initial despondency. To me, whether or not this is true is irrelevant, this is not the government's decision to make. There should be safeguards in place so people can't walk out the door and take a cyanide pill, but if the patient is properly informed and is forced to consider his/her decision, then it's out of the government's hands.
- Some people "choose" to do it, because of the financial burden it puts on their families, a factor outside their control. That money forces them into the decision between breaking their family's bank and killing themselves. Because of the money factor, assisted suicide might be chosen much more by poor people/people of color. I agree with this statement, but it doesn't change the sad truth of the situation. The alternative to not legalizing assisted suicide (which only costs $35-50 on average) is to legally mandate that these people do have to spend more money. Until our (the U.S.'s) health care system's high costs are somehow made affordable to everybody, this is the unfair reality of the situation, no different than the terminal illness that is "forcing" the patient to consider assisted suicide in the first place.
- It's legal in every state to refuse necessary treatment to sustain life and it's also legal to be prescribed painkillers for comfort's sake in this context. This rebuttal is a little personal, but my aunt has a severe form of ALS. In the past year and a half I've seen her go from a fully functioning, healthy adult to a wheel-chair bound mute in a neck brace, her disease being incurable at all stages. If she so chose, it would be illegal for her to end it now. To suggest that she could simply refuse all treatment to prolong her life and take painkillers/sedatives for comfort as a serious option to me shows a serious lack of empathy of her situation and many others'.
- Finally, that legalizing assisted suicide will result in the eventual expansion of the "program" such that we will soon start assisting people suffering psychological stress, perhaps even mandating a person be euthanized. Usually a finger is pointed at Holland here, so I did a little research. There is only one circumstance where euthanizing any person without his or her consent is legal is in the case of a child below the age of twelve, with the consent of his or her parents and all the expected conditions, terminal illness, extreme pain/discomfort, etc. Whether or not that is fair is irrelevant for this argument, I think; the point is that even the most liberal country in the world on this issue isn't going around deciding which elderly people to kill off, a la Palin's death panels. Even on the slipperiest slope, the mandatory euthanasia of adults is a non-issue.
tl;dr Financial hardship is a reality that people have to deal with and have the right to choose to avoid; waiting periods and proper legal safeguards can prevent people from killing themselves through their doctor before they even attempt to adjust; although it is legal to refuse treatment and receive pain meds, it is hardly a reasonable alternative to direct suicide with some conditions; there is no precedence for the "slippery slope" argument that I could find. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
Unless an economic system includes wealth redistribution, the system will eventually result in a small amount of people holding all wealth. Therefore, I support wealth redistribution. CMV +
+ In a system with a non-progressive tax, those who have money saved can invest money and use that to make more money, propelling them further ahead of those with no savings. Given enough time, those with more savings will pull ahead of those with less savings, and eventually, they will be so far ahead that they effectively control all wealth. In the process, there may be entrepreneurs that bring some people with no savings into the group of people who have savings, and some bad luck or mistakes that will eliminate the savings of some rich people, and this may be enough to prevent wealth from concentrating in a single person, although I think that if markets are efficient and free, then wealth will concentrate in a single person. However over time, wealth will still become more concentrated. Because I consider this to be an undesirable scenario, I support wealth redistribution through a progressive tax system. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I beleive the majority of people who are doing the 'ALS Icebucket challenge" are narcissistic and don't care about the charity. +
+ I believe the majority of people doing the ice bucket challenge don't care about the charity and are just doing it for Facebook likes. Many of the celebrities who have recently popularized the challenge hardly mention ALS and I wouldn't be surprised if they even knew what ALS was. It would be much more effective for the charity and cause if participants actually educated people on what ALS is and why it is a cause worth donating to or the whole point of raising awareness and money is rather pointless. Although there have been some celebraties who have actually raised awareness through the challenge. Bill gates, Steve-o and Charlie Sheen seem to have actually contributed to the cause by either educating or donating money. Although it still remains that in my opinion, most people who are doing the ice bucket challenge are doing it for attention and self-gradification and I doubt whether they care about ALS. CMV'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS6ysDFTbLU
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Cheerleading is not a sport +
+ I need to preface my thoughts initially by saying that holding this view does not mean I devalue cheerleading in any way. I have attended competitions, and known several friends who cheerlead, and though I am a very active, physically fit person, I would still find it challenging to learn and execute many moves in cheerleading, and find it impressive and enjoyable to watch.
However, I don't consider it a sport. This is not a pejorative assertion, but even so, I have experienced pushback for it in the past. I also don't subscribe to the Olympic definition of sport. In my view, a sport needs to be able to be won by objective means. That is to say, you need to have a goal that can be reached: make it to a certain point first, score more points, lift the most weight, etc. Obviously, officials make wrong calls, and goals in hockey/soccer for instance are wrongly disallowed/wrongly given occasionally, but at the end of the day, there is still an objective result/outcome, but for the number of games they decide on the merit of the mistake alone, I'm willing to consider them a reasonable minority. Team A 4 - 3 Team B, Usain Bolt wins race with time of 9.68 seconds, etc. I believe events decided solely by judges cannot be sports, and will always be subjective in nature. Sports like boxing, with judging elements, are still sports in my view because there is an objective way to win - knocking the opponent out so they cannot respond to a 10 count, for instance. The judging is a tiebreaker, and I am fine with that. But in judge-only events, an identical routine could win one contest, and lose another, simply by virtue of human subjectivity alone. For this reason, I lump cheerleading in with figure skating, diving, and other events as athletic activities.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Second hand smoking isn't as lethal and dangerous as everyone tends to believe +
+ There are couple of reasons for me believing that.
First and foremost, many official studies (for example the report from WHO, 1998 or even the one from [The California Environmental Protection Agency] (http://repositories.cdlib.org/context/tc/article/1194/type/pdf/viewcontent/)) were proven later either having only "suggestive" evidence but it being insufficient to assert such a causal relationship. Honestly, all of the studies that I have read about had their data cherry picked to manipulate its results to suit its purpose and spread the anti-tobacco agenda. It would seem that these well renowned groups would have no reason to lie but still, it is clearly there and each one of them was later debunked by other officials (US Surgeon General included).
Secondly, I have lived with a smoker in my house myself. And that person lived with a smoker before that and yet still, there was no relevant health problems or anything to indicate second hand smoking as the cause of some particular negative part of any of our lives (besides each generation starting to smoke but as far as I know, that started because of rather different things).
Third, I think its just a mass-fueled hysteria that is just there to lead towards either a complete smoking ban or continued tax increases (and that's already happening for a long while).
And in the end, I'd like to add the 105 episode of "Penn & Teller - Bullshit" that talks about many more facts as well as shows interviews from many, renowned personas (such as the president of the American council of science and health).
And yes, I recognize dangers to my personal health.
-----------
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Timed essays like the SAT don't properly measure one's writing skills, nor their critical thinking skills. +
+ Timed essays, especially with as little time as the SAT gives, force test takers to come up with a BS answer without really thinking about it. As a result, they are either forced to justify an answer that they really aren't confident about, or they don't have enough time to write about their well-founded conclusion.
Consider the following essay question:
Do memories hinder or help people in their effort to learn from the past and succeed in the present?
This is a really interesting question. I wouldn't expect anyone but those that have already thought about it to formulate a truly essay-worthy opinion (one that they are confident in, and can truly justify it because they have thought through all facets that are apparent to them), and write about it in twenty-five minutes. If I don't have the time to truly form an opinion, how can you claim to measure this ability? It measures my ability to make a decent-*sounding* opinion in a short amount of time, and write about it.
I understand that test-takers are given a quote to consider before writing their essay, in addition to the question itself. This may indeed help people formulate their opinion, but it will also make it easier for test-takers to take a cookie-cutter opinion from the quote, which is really what many are forced to do given the time requirements, and write an essay without really formulating their own opinion.
Furthermore, everyone knows that one of the most fundamental aspects of good writing is good editing. Everyone's first draft in almost any form of writing is going to be poor. Ask the folks over at /r/writing if you're not sure. I know that the graders know that, and that they grade accordingly, but you can't really measure one's writing skill from a first draft. This is because the purpose of the first draft is really to put ideas on paper, and you get rid of the crappy ideas and crappy phrasing by editing. It really puts a damper on one's essay to have 25 minutes to write, even if one devises their argument in the instant they receive the question, and be forced to not only be rushed at the very writing of it, but to not have time to edit.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: There is nothing wrong with paid Workshop Mods on Steam. +
+ This little piece of news is blowing up all over the gaming media. [Steam introduced paid Workshop Mods.](http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent)
People are freaking out all over the gaming subs.
[RIP PC gaming (the beginning of the end)](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33m6mo/rip_pc_gaming_the_beginning_of_the_end/)
[STEAM IS NOW SELLING MODS???](https://np.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/33m4fk/steam_is_now_selling_mods/)
[And the /r/games thread, with a less hyperbolic title, still has many many people afraid of this change.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/33m403/steam_introduced_paid_workshop_mods/)
I don't see anything really wrong with this concept.
* It incentivizes more people into doing modding. With the possibility of being paid for your work, there's greater motivation for doing it. Many people burn out from doing free work because of how entitled the people are who use their work. I've seen it a lot in the Android modding community on xda-developers, so I don't imagine that this behavior of entitlement doesn't also exist in many gaming mod communities.
* You have a much, much larger platform for getting your work out with Valve's support, as compared to third-party modding forums and websites.
* Players were never entitled to mods being free in the first place, and this new addition doesn't change the fact that modders can still release free mods if they want to.
* Players were never entitled to updates regardless. What you pay for is the product as is. One person in the /r/games thread was worried that if you buy a mod it might not work in the future. Well, you're not paying for continual support, you're paying for the product as you see it. It works the same way with literally every app on iTunes or the Google Play Store. (Of course, people there still complain that they deserve continuous updates.)
So, CMV that there's something wrong with the concept of a paid modding platform on Steam.
(Not looking to debate whether or not Valve can follow through with all their promises and keep thieves off of the market and so forth, as this has just begun rolling out so we can't compare it to other online marketplaces yet. If there's something problematic they've stated that I've missed, though, feel free to point it out). | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I think socialism is the best form of government. CMV +
+ I think that if everyone gives, everyone gets. I don't think that everyone should be paid exactly the same, but I do believe there should be a set standard of living, and that everyone should give to better the whole. That also your pay should be also based on your level of work. The government should be involved in the community. Also that the government should regulate products to fit supply and demand and reduce waste.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Primary and Secondary Education Curricula Should be Much More Difficult +
+ Currently, primary and secondary education standards in the U.S. seem to have dropped to the floor. I've seen instances recently of children in middle school learning simple integer division and multiplication. When I consult my peers, future teachers, about this, they defend the system claiming that the teachers must teach to the test. I find this unacceptable for several reasons, but most of those are unrelated.
Children have an outstanding capacity for learning when faced with the proper motivation, any argument that a child simply cannot handle more difficult content is insulting. This assumption that children don't hold the ability to learn at a higher rate often results in a failure to reach the fullest potential. In addition to this failure on the education system's part, it instills a sense of complacency within children that they should never be challenged to learn something. This becomes very clear as I watch courses become diluted and spread out over longer periods of time.
So what stands to be gained from increasing the rigor and difficulty of a child's education? First let's analyze the benefits as a society. After completion of a more rigorous curriculum, a student will have progressed much further in every math and science course. In addition to this knowledge that is otherwise not learned, the student has a much more firm understanding of writing and reading comprehension, although the benefits for English and History are much more limited than in the applied sciences. Let's choose an arbitrary number of years that the student was able to progress in addition to a standard curriculum, although any increase in progress will yield great results. Just two additional years of applied math or science classes that can be taken as a result of a more difficult curriculum can prepare a student for a large number of college programs in those respective fields as well as any number of related fields. Practically speaking, it prepares students for the applied sciences. In the case that the student wants to pursue education in this field, they will have an easier time, and possibly save money. Furthermore, the world will *always* need more bodies in the applied sciences.
Just look around, in the U.S. some of the most popular undergraduate majors are business, psychology, and communications. In many instances, and no disrespect to those who study in those fields, students perceive the previously listed to be easier than other choices. I've had conversations with people who chose to study each of those because they sounded fun or easy. Any time someone can list easiness as a reason for choosing something of that magnitude is highlighting what's wrong with the decreased standards of education that I've mentioned.
tl;dr: I could never support an education system that doesn't promote absolute excellence, why shouldn't we make it significantly more difficult. The benefits are there, why shouldn't we reap them?
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
[CMV] The quality of Apple's products has peaked, is in decline, and will never recover. +
+ In the a the past few years, OSX, iOS, Safari, and iTunes have been getting bloated, buggy, and have started to display UX inconveniences and oversights that would have been virtually unheard of in apple's software in the past.
Their mobile devices have been stagnant because they just keep making different shapes and sizes of iPhone.
The fraction of their revenue that they put into advertising keeps increasing, which means they must be spending less on everything else, like R&D.
The designers of OSX have lost sight of the efficient and intuitive interface design that OSX once strived for, and they are now just changing things at random because they seem neat. (Spaces is gone! why!!?). They are also straying progressively further from it's Unix roots, making it more and more difficult for open source software maintainers.
They've been using cheaper materials (those fucking power cords!) that break after only a year of regular use, probably so they can force you to buy another one.
They have departments within their company that manage systems that are supposed to be intercompatible with the rest of apple products, but are in fact riddled with bugs due to insufficient testing (iCloud). If it's supposed to be your central authentication system, why didn't they re-design the UI flows that are altered by it instead of just hap-hazardly stapling it on and creating a bunch of situations where users are expected to know things they were never told.
Apple is too big, lacks proper management, and their designs are growing inconsistent and bloaty, In 5 more years, OSX will be just as irritating as Windows, complete with a mixture of moronic and paternalistic defaults that present obstacles to both new and experienced users. But since it's Apple, you won't even have the option to turn them off. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The most useful thing to teach children is to follow instructions. +
+ The truth is, whatever you want to achieve with your life, from getting a certain kind of job to changing your body shape, the answers are out there these days and accessible to all.
As long as you can evaluate who to trust (that's the second most important thing to teach children) the most important thing is to create a next generation who can follow those instructions.
Time and time again I have seen children who are unwilling to follow the advice of people who have been there and done it and know exactly how to help you get there. We bring up children to over-value originality to the extent that they feel they have to be doing everything for the first time. Children think that following someone's decent advice is somehow a sign of weakness. We are generating egos which are actually limiting what children can achieve.
I'm not suggesting blind obedience. Evaluative skills are also extremely important. But we need to bring up children who are willing to submit themselves to people who are more experienced, rather than seeing themselves as creating everything anew.
(This isn't to shut down change. It's inevitable that as you work through someone else's advice you see its weaknesses and seek to improve it.)
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I think civilization will eventually collapse without an embryo selection program. CMV. +
+ Evolution works through natural selection on random mutations. Most mutations in an organism are detrimental, and so have to be weeded out of the gene pool. [Every human being is born with an average of about 60 new mutations.](http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/06/hyper-human-mutations-60-new-mutations-in-each-genome.html)
Important to note is that the earlier a defect is spotted the better, as it ensures that the kin of an organism do not waste their limited resources on the organism. This is why about a quarter of conceptions end in spontaneous abortion.
Infant mortality rates until recent times used to be around 25%. If we look at under five mortality, we're looking at about a third. Selection happens through termination of a life, and thus infant mortality until recent times has been one of nature's main weapons in preserving the genetic integrity of our species.
A variety of interventions (nutrition, hygiene, vaccination) have made it possible for us to reduce infant mortality from 25% to about 0.4%. The result of this is that spontaneous mutations can now endlessly stack up, because one of the most important selective events no longer exists.
So, what type of mutations are we talking about? Logic tells us that we should be looking for mutations that are subacute, that is, mutations with subtly detrimental effects to our wellbeing. After all, most embryos with highly damaging mutations are already eliminated much earlier, during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Many of our mental disorders may be traced back to a reduction in infant mortality. As an example, [depression is often caused by mutations in serotonin producing genes](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2004/mutant-gene-linked-to-treatment-resistant-depression.shtml). Thus, if such mutations were once selected against in infancy but are now passed onto the next generation, we can expect to see a progressive increase in depression occur.
For this to happen, the mutation would need to have some sort of effect that made it more likely for an infant to die. For a serotonin linked mutation such an effect on infant mortality is not hard to come up with. [In rats it is found that cytokine expression is much higher if the rats produce very little serotonin.](http://www.jneuroinflammation.com/content/10/1/116)
In the case of infant mortality, infectious disease often causes death through a phenomenon known as a [cytokine storm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm#Role_in_pandemic_deaths). Thus, it is quite possible for a rise in depressive disorders in modern society to be caused by a lack of deaths of infants whose bodies produce very little serotonin.
To illustrate the severity of the problem, consider the following mathematical example. We assume a syndrome currently occurs in 0.1% of a primitive population. Spontaneous mutations cause the disease to occur in 1% of newborns. However vulnerability to infectious disease causes 90% of infants with mutations associated with the syndrome to die. People affected by the disease do not reproduce.
Now along comes the civilized man, who brings the primitives hygiene, nutrition and vaccination, leading to an elimination of infant mortality. What happens now? Infant mortality declines to zero. However, the infants born with the syndrome now grow up to be adults. Thus, prevalence of the syndrome increases by 900%, from 0.1% of the population to 1% of the population.
I therefore believe that the result of a 0% infant mortality rate will be a steadily increasing rate of various disorders, such as diabetes, mental illness, subfertility and various other ailments. This ongoing disaster can only be stopped through a very rigorous genetic selection programs, whereby we screen every embryo to ensure that it carries no mutations in genes that are vital for our wellbeing, before we implant the embryo into a mother.
It may therefore be necessary to screen ten embryos, and select the healthiest of the ten. Without such a program we will witness the decline of our civilization. Most of the people born until then will spend their lives in torturous circumstances, as their bodies and brains will be riddled with various defects. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Diamonds are an inferior gemstone. +
+ There are numerous reasons for this:
* [Diamonds burn!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWpm6_Y7ASI) Oxide and silicate-based gemstones don't.
* You can get more sparkly gemstones than diamonds - moissanites come to mind.
* Diamonds are hard, but they're brittle. Colorless sapphire doesn't have this problem.
* Actually, why would you want a hard gemstone, with all the glass we touch? You'd risk putting nice deep scratches in your phone/tablet/other device that way.
* Diamonds slowly convert to graphite. (Well, it takes several billion years but it shows diamonds aren't forever!)
* Some gemstones have special properties - alexandrite, for example, undergoes dramatic color shifts. Watermelon tourmaline is *really* impressive.
* If you're going for rarity, there are plenty of gemstones more rare than diamonds - benitoite comes to mind (and it's fluorescent too!) as does bixbite (red beryl, similar to emerald) and black opal.
Are diamonds really that special? If you want to buy a ring for your SO why pick a diamond?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: People should not be looked down upon for perceived "poor" tipping. +
+ (*Disclaimer:* I am **not** against tipping. This has mainly to do with tipping as it takes place in the USA but is not limited to there.)
I constantly hear and read about people who are *perceived* to be poor tippers in restaurants, bars, hotels, etc are looked down upon or some *servers* will go as far as spitting or otherwise violating one's food if they return in the future.
The problem, as I see it, is that what is considered to be the *norm* for tipping (or weather to tip at all) can differ greatly in different places (country to country, state/province to state/province, city to city, or even within the same town.) Yet people end up being labeled a "cheapskate" and/or an "asshole" when what it really amounts to is a misunderstanding. To make matters worse, it also seems to be considered awkward to even ask about it, making it essentially a catch-22.
A lot of people blanket arguments that "servers/waiters/bar-tenders/etc" make below minimum wage, but such people leave out the fact that a lot of servers make *above* minimum wage, and it varies from place to place.
In addition, I feel many servers that are underpaid act like every patron should somehow be aware of that fact and tip *more* because of it. First of all, as a customer, I have no way of knowing that. Second, no patron is required to know about internal information of an establishment, such as how much a given employee is paid.
Regardless of how much you're paid, it is your job to serve, that's what you were hired to do, that you agreed to do. Therefore I honestly don't understand that "I'll spit in your food" mentality that comes about if a patron doesn't tip to what a server has come to consider "normal."
This seems to stem from a rather strong sense of entitlement. With all due respect, just because you do something for someone doesn't automatically entitle you to compensation. People do things for others with no expectation to be paid all the time. This goes hand-in-hand with the traditional definition of a tip being something *extra* given as a thank you if a customer so chooses, which is in contrast with the expected-or-you're-a-target variation that it's been commonly twisted into.
I welcome other views on this and counter arguments to what I have submitted above. Just don't just say "You're wrong" but explain why you feel that way. Thank you.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe that adherents of extremist ideologies have no right to free speech. CMV. +
+ Before beginning my argument, I think that it is appropriate to define the term "extremist ideology." An extremist ideology would be any belief system that relies heavily on fringe ideas *and* advocates violence against a certain class/group/race/sexual orientation/nationality. According to my definition, Marxism, radical Islam (and any other forms of far-right religious fundamentalism), animal "liberation" philosophy, "lesbian-separatist" feminism, white supremacy, "Zionism," and black nationalism are all examples of extremist ideologies. Please note that the vast majority of feminists are not a part of the "separatist" school of thought and that most religious people are not far-right fundamentalists (when I use this language, I am referencing groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church).
In our democratic American society, it is absolutely insane that proponents of terrorism, hate, and radical politics are offered free speech. Extremist ideologies are inherently harmful to the social fabric of our country, and anyone who is willing to publicly express beliefs associated with any of the aforementioned ideologies should face legal consequences. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Want a world with more trees? Use more paper. Want to keep endangered animals from going extinct? Turn them into food. +
+ It really just seems to come down to supply and demand. Just about all of our paper comes from privately owned forests called "managed timberlands," where trees are grown specifically to be pulped for paper production. No need for paper? No need for the trees. So the question is, do you want to live on a planet with more trees, or less trees? If you want more, then use as much paper as possible. Boosting demand will boost supply, and, voilà! More trees!
Same goes for endangered species. You don't see cows going extinct any time soon, do you? Why? Because we eat them. Where there's a demand, there is (or will soon be) a supply. So if McDonalds started selling a McBengal patty melt, POOF! No more looming Bengal Tiger extinction.
I'm not actually suggesting that we start eating every endangered species, or that we go around wasting paper. But it makes sense on paper. What am I missing?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I don't think Creationism should be taught at all, and even home schooled children (such as I was) should have to learn about the Big Bang Theory and the evolutionary process to get credit for taking science. CMV. +
+ I was raised home schooled and taught exclusively Creationism and I don't believe it has any place in an educational setting. Firstly, ignorance of the scientific beliefs of the time really cut you off from a lot of fields of study. Geology, Paleontology, Geography, Astrophysics, Quantum Physics, and even Biology, all of these fields are pretty heavily influenced by the Big Bang Theory, and the theory of evolution. For example I have no idea what a Cretaceous Period is. I know it's a span of time in which something was going on but there's also so many different organisms that were around in each of these time periods. Now I have to play so much catch up in school and it is really frustrating.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I don't think it's possible for homosexuality aka gayness to be an evolutionary trait. CMV. +
+ I've heard scholars say that it would be somehow "advantageous to the group" but that doesn't make any sense to me. We're talking about the actions of the individual, not the group. If the individual doesn't have any kids, there is no way that their genes would be passed through the group. How would those traits continue to survive through a group after none of them have babies?
I'm open to change my view if there is a reasonable explanation. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Popular US/English pronunciations of foreign words, names, and phrases betray ignorance of the speaker as to the origin and meaning of those words. +
+ Some cases in point:
- The US/English pronunciation of the name Rothschild as "Roth's child" suggests that the speaker believes the meaning of the name is something like "child of Roth". The speaker is showing ignorance of that the "sh" sound is spelled "sch" in Germanic languages, and that the structure of the name is "Roth-schild", meaning "red shield". Its proper pronunciation is along the lines of "roth-shild".
- US/English pronunciations of Latin phrases show the speaker's complete ignorance of how sounds are formed in romance languages. I can excuse the inability to pronounce the alveolar trill (rolled R), because it's not easily learned. But this doesn't excuse pronouncing "a fortiori" as "ey for-tay-OR-ey", when an authentic pronunciation would be "ah for-tih-OR-ee". It doesn't excuse pronouncing "ex ante" as "ex AN-tee" instead of "ex AN-teh", "corpus delicti" as "KOR-pus dee-LIK-tay" instead of "KOR-pus deh-LIK-tee", and so on.
Hearing US/English speakers pronounce things like that conveys the impression that they want to appear learned, but have done little learning; that their knowledge is superficial, rather than deep. It makes me suspicious of how much they *really* know, and inclined to interpret what they're saying with skepticism. Why would you believe someone who can't get "red shield" right? It sounds cringe-worthy.
CMV.
-----
- I received insight from [vl99's comment](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2a9dnv/cmv_popular_usenglish_pronunciations_of_foreign/cisrycq), and responded with a delta with respect to how growing up in a culture will make a person perceive a bastardized pronunciation as normal, so therefore it does not necessarily reflect on the person's knowledge;
- I continue to find that the way schools in English speaking countries fail to teach Latin pronunciation, and encourage students to pronounce Latin words with English rules, results in a derivative that's neither English nor Latin, is incompatible with Latin learned by people in other cultures, and can be considered acceptable only if one believes that English-speaking culture is the self-evident center of, and measure of the world.
I must now depart to take care of things, and I hope everyone continues to have a meaningful discussion.
-----
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe that, as long as there are people dying in this world due to lack of food or medicines, it is immoral to buy (extremely) luxurious items because that money can be used to save lives. CMV +
+
I cannot understand how someone who purchases a villa in Spain for the holidays, that Porsche or even a swimming pool can still make the claim to be a (reasonably) ethical person'* without being rationally inconsistent. When one chooses luxurious goods above other people's basic well-being this means denying their equality as human beings, and is therefore immoral.
I think it’s a bit of a grey area to define what luxury is and what basic but the above mentioned items are clearly at the end of the luxury-spectrum. And although money cannot fix all the problems in this world, there is still a lot that can be done for people who are dealt a bad hand in life and deserve solidarity.
p.s. I am sorry if my choice of words isn't always philosophically accurate but I hope my point comes across.
p.s.s I do not wish to judge. Hell, by these standards I'm coming very close to being 'an unethical asshole' myself but I just can't seem to put my finger on it.
*(my definition would be: somebody who wishes the best for this world and its people) | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Ray Rice's Two Game Suspension is Justifiable, but the Suspension's Widespread Criticism is Unnecessary +
+ Firstly, let me begin by saying that I in no way condone the actions of Ray Rice, nor do I sympathize with those who practice domestic violence.
With that being said, I feel that the two game suspension administered by the NFL to Ray Rice is justifiable, if not too heavy a punishment. If a court of law decides that the case shouldn't go to trial, why should Roger Goodell suspend him for any extended amount of time? I agree that he should face some form of discipline, and two games seems a fair punishment (if not excessive). However, the media has chastised Goodell and the league for "condoning domestic violence" and not taking a stand. This seems unfair to all parties involved, in my opinion. So please Reddit, change my view.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I don't believe it is acceptable to attack the person that your SO cheated on you with. CMV +
+ So it seems to be common that, when caught cheating, violence is directed toward the person the significant other (SO) cheated with. I don't understand why. You were in a relationship with your SO. You had no agreement with the other party. If you are going to beat the shit out of anyone, it should be your SO. S/he is the one that cheated on you. The other party, provided they aren't a friend or acquaintance doesn't owe you anything.
Why should beating the ever-loving shit out of your SO's cheat-mate be acceptable? | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
The act of voting should require comprehensive tests in both civics and general intelligence. CMV +
+ With several recent threads on the topic of voting, I thought I'd give my view that seems a bit contrarian here. What I believe is very simple and does not need much of an explanation: People should possess a certain knowledge on the topic of civics, and be able to meet a moderate standard of intelligence via testing before given the ability to vote.
The test would be akin to a GED, which doesn't sound like much, yet it still has around a [40% failure rate](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/opinion/01sat2.html?_r=0), and the high school equivalent of civics. The reading material would be supplied for free online, and free, via textbooks through state and local governments working with local libraries. I'd like to stress that specifics of coursework and distribution are not what is most important to me and is not what I'm very interested in discussing--it would be difficult to change my view regarding trivial details of distributing the educational material--but the discussion should revolve around the philosophical and moral points of the topic at hand. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Identifying as a "Pansexual" is more confusing than its worth, and makes Transgenders more outcast +
+ There's a divide of masculine features and feminine features, and the divide is obvious and I'm sure you can think of quite a few examples than just those. Anyway, those features are part of the reason why I find feminine women sexually attractive.
Now to where the real seperation is: The difference between sexual and romantic attraction. If I'm bisexual, I find women attractive for their feminine qualities and men for their masculine qualities. There's nothing wrong with someone breaking the gender binary but more or less they're going to be male or female and that's where you're going to derive attraction from. However, when you're pansexual you're likely to derive attraction from a) Gender neutral features (Oh, they've got lovely hair or something along those lines) or emotional features (Wow, he's got an awesome personality!) exclusively. I'm not going to deny that those are attractive features to someone that's LGB, but when you see the pansexual person that's typically a determining factor.
*∆ Alright, I'll give it to you for the physical vs. mental attraction divide. I suppose I'd be more of a physical attraction kind of person, seeing someone I find attractive physically before going up to meet them and find out if I'm attracted to them mentally as well. I still think it's a little bit of a vague arbitrary line to draw, but looking at myself and how a lot of what I find "attractive" in a guy are perhaps some of the more feminine features, I have to admit that bisexuality fits me more for that reason.*
*∆ Hadn't even considered the fact that someone might be attracted physically to the person before transitioning and not after, and that bisexual physicality could cause issues while pansexual non-physicality wouldn't.*
___
As a bisexual myself, I've never really understood the need for the term "Pansexualism". The difference in definition, as far as I can tell, is that Bisexual just means someone who could be attracted to either sex, and Pansexual is someone who could be attracted to either sex or gender identity. To me, this is more confusing for people who are trying to understand the LGBT movement because most people know what Bi means but don't know what Pan means, but also outcasts Transgender people more. For myself, if I'm fine with either sex, why would I not also be fine with either gender identity? I'm attracted to the person and what I find cute/attractive, and if I get along with them as a person arbitrary things like that don't matter. However, saying "I'm Pansexual" to me sounds more like "I'm okay with boys, girls, and transgenders" which makes them sound like some kind of awkward third category that has to be added on.
So, CMV: What added benefit does the term "Pansexual" have over "Bisexual" which is not negated by the confusion and potential labelling of trans people?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe the vast majority of jobs in modern society are bullshit jobs, ie of no value to anybody (and actually harmful). CMV +
+ Entire industries we work in seem pointless. Advertising (much of the tech industry is built around people clicking on ads). Much of retailing (selling junk, exploiting irrationality). Farmville-type computer game production. Scam goods (every infomercial). Dilbert-style managers. Takeaways because people are too busy to cook for themselves. Construction and maintenance of offices and factories for all this. Extra transportation for people to commute in. People who fix these environment and health problems caused by all this. What a waste.
Or am I missing something? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: College isn't worth the cost. +
+ I don't see how the gains/loss ratio works for college. If I go, I get a piece of paper and a huge student loan debt. Not to mention the job outlook is very poor, the competition is fierce, and I will have "work experience". I could justify a trade or vocational school though. They at least are cheap and have generally halfway decent paying jobs with marketable skills. So why is college so important?
I saw a statistic(Not sure of validity) the other day that said almost half of all college graduates are working in jobs that don't require college degrees. That made me shudder.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe the criticism of Twilight is just thinly veiled misogynysm CMV +
+ The level of derision heaped on Twilight has little to do with the actual quality of the films or books and a lot to do with men not being able to cope with the fact that there is a successful franchise aimed at women. Worse still at young women. And don't get us started on Twilight moms. Lets slag them off in the queue for Man of Steel or Iron Man 3.
Worse still is the patronising argument that Twilight is a bad influence on young women. This no doubt made by the same people who would have a spasm if you suggested that Video games have a deleterious affect on young men. Young women are quite capable of recognising the distinction between fact and fiction.
I can offer no evidence as this is my opinion but what set me thinking was [this](http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2011/nov/24/twilight-breaking-dawn-teenage-girls) piece in The Guardian.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I don't think children should be exposed to religion until the Formal Operation Stage CMV +
+ The Formal Operation Stage, as defined by Piaget, is that point in time where an individual is able to think abstractly and make logical decisions. This stage begins in early adolescence and continues into adulthood.
I do not think children should be exposed to religion prior to this stage as they are still largely concrete thinkers. This is dangerous as they are more likely to think the stories perpetrated by these mythos are literally true (ie. going to hell if they question). I say this is dangerous, not just to the child but to the development of society, as it hinders scientific and philosophical progress. Children should not be exposed to these stories as they are not yet able to analyze and differentiate between fact and fiction, and it indoctrinates them into backwards bigotry (hatred of other religions). I would appreciate any thoughts on this.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I think the pharmaceutical industry is severely flawed. Drugs should not be as expensive as they are in the US/Canada, whether they are covered by insurance or not. CMV. +
+ I don't know the prevailing economic opinion (if there is one) on the issue, but it seems that there is a lack of competition between pharmaceutical companies that is creating inflated prices. I'm not proposing a solution, nor am I blaming any one entity, but I am claiming that the industry is severely flawed. We should be considering reforms through patent law, competition law, or some other economic means in order to reduce prices and stimulate competition.
I realize "severely flawed" is somewhat subjective. I think when I say this I mean flawed to a much greater degree than most other industries. And because this is such an important one for consumers (compared to fashion, cars, sports, jewellery-- which may all be "severely flawed" as well), we should be actively discussing ways to fix it.
I feel like there is a good argument in support of how the industry works, that would demonstrate that it is not "severely flawed", or at least no more than any other industry. I would genuinely like to hear it. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe smoking tobacco products in a public setting should be illegal. CMV. +
+ To clarify, I am talking only about cigarettes, cigars and similar. Not Vaporizers, E-cigs or things that don't involve a bad secondhand smoke risk.
I do not smoke. I have sensitive nasal cavities, and my eyes tend to swell and water around cigarette smoke. Also, there are numerous health risks that come from inhaling secondhand smoke.
When a smoker smokes around someone else in public, they are essentially poisoning them. Which, if put in to different circumstances, would be a jail sentence.
For instance: If I were to walk up to a stranger, and drop rat poison in to their drink, or stick them with a syringe of heroine,(Yes I realize that is much more severe, but it is the same concept), then I would be carted off to jail for attempted murder, assault, etc. Not only would I be taken to jail. But I would be taken regardless of the outcome of the situation. Whether that person gets sick or not, I would still have to pay the price. But not smokers. They get to freely risk others' health without any consequence.
I personally do not care if people smoke, It's their body, but I don't believe It's right for me to have to change my path on the street, hold my breathe or clinch my eyes shut just because someone else cant keep their bad habit confined to their own property. Because once they leave their property, they are no longer only poisoning themselves.
I may not respond to your replies but I will definitely read them all.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The drinking age should be 18, not 21. +
+ That's right folks, this age old argument is back. But this time, there's a twist.
I believe the age where somebody can get behind the wheel after having a drink or so at a bar (under the .08 limit) should be 21. If anyone under 21 is caught with any alcohol in their system while driving, they should lose their license for x number of years. Zero tolerance, no exceptions.
I believe this will absolutely cut some of the stigma around alcohol, teach kids how to be responsible drinkers because they will no longer have to hide it. The "forbidden fruit" nature of alcohol would be lifted. Binge drinking is the norm for many college students, but is "out if their system" by the time they are out of school for a few years, and is seen as something the younger crowd does. With the drinking age set to 18, that stigma would shift.
I also believe that if you're old enough to serve your country and die in the military, you're sure as hell old enough to drink a beer. If lawmakers really thought "what about the children" the recruitment age wouldn't be 18.
So go ahead, change my view. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |