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CMV: Being spied upon does not take away your freedoms. +
+ What are you not free to do if you are spied on that you were free to do before? There are things that many people do that are illegal that they can't do if they are spied on, but the aren't _really_ free to do them if they aren't spied on, they just get away with it.
Being spied on is obviously different if a specific person you know is doing the spying, but the government/FBI/CIA/etc. is not a specific person, its an organization. If they watch you have sex or whatever that doesn't effect your life at all except maybe for some discomfort at the fact that you might be on tape, which I think people should just get over.
Note: this does not mean I condone widespread spying by the government, I just think that freedom is not a good argument to use against spying. There are plenty of other good ones to use. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Films and Video Games Generally Objectify Men More Than Women +
+ While there is certainly an issue with the sexual objectification of women in films and games, I would contend that objectification of men as generic drones to be slaughtered is more widespread and pernicious.
I'm generally referring to your average action/adventure games and films. In most of these, your character slaughters hundreds or thousands of nameless, often identical male thugs/guards/soldiers. These characters play no role in the story other than as inconvenient or dangerous obstacles, to be shot or stabbed or set on fire.
Compared to that, individual female characters *with names* being sexually objectified/captured by the bad guy/ killed as a plot device isn't too bad.
Just to be clear, I don't really think either of these is a very significant issue in the scheme of things.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: People with depression are really just over dramatic and ungrateful +
+ I'll start with this: I do not understand depression. I know a couple people with diagnosed depression, and they laugh and have fun and vocally commend their lives as awesome in a moment of joy or good happenings. Meaning I've seen them happy, and it sure looks genuine.
So why do they want to kill themselves? Why the want to waste and squander life? Is it a constant struggle that is pushed down to smile? Is it a scheduled feeling (it's 8pm, time to be sad and want to kill myself)? Is it a feeling that rears in an acute intensity when you're not ready for it, making you just want to stop the pain?
Personally, I feel like it's just people being dramatic. These people I know with it have very fortunate lives, and despite that, continue to feel depressed and occasionally suicidal (or maybe constantly, I'm not telepathic).
I want to respect the disease... But I just don't understand it enough to do so. CMV | 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 alternative education formats like Khan Academy deserve full academic credentials and should be capable of granting credit for work accomplished. CMV +
+ I think alternative academic resources like Khan Academy (Im using Khan Academy because it is the most well known example) that embrace the 21st century deserve the same accreditation that mainstream institutions have.
These modern platforms present knowledge for the user to learn and are fully capable of objectively tracking retention and testing comprehension and even application of concepts. Why should organizations like that not be allowed to grant community recongized credit for a students hard work? 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 think that it doesn't matter whether you graduate top of your class, or bottom, so long as you graduate. +
+ To quote my high school philosophy teacher, "What do they call a doctor who graduates bottom of his class? They still call him doctor." I'm lazy, I procrastinate, and I'm trying to fix that, but it's difficult to find the motivation when I can graduate with a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering by skating along with barely enough work to pass. Then I'll find a job and I'll be happy to work as hard as I can given that I'm being paid to do stuff, but until then, why bother? Convince me otherwise.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
There should be limits on how much money a family can lose to a Casino within a certain time-period. CMV +
+ A Casino just opened up near me, and it is HUGE! There are over 3,000 slots, 150+ tables, and tons of other games / VIP rooms; encompassing 260 acres. It's basically a Mega-Mall or adult Disney Land, and people are being drawn to it like flies to a light-bub. The worst part is that it is located in front of a major shopping center where thousands of locals do their daily shopping & errands. It blows my mind when I think of how many families will be destroyed because the mother or father found an easy way to forfeit their incomes to gambling, alcohol, and expensive steaks. I have known half a dozen people, one of which personally, whose families were destroyed by gambling. By having Vegas styled Casinos in the middle of a suburb and in front of our shopping mall, our community will suffer.
The negative effects that gambling has on middle / lower class communities is extremely detrimental to their financial & social stability; especially with how it stagnates their climb up the socioeconomic ladder. My argument is that: we should define or enforce limits on how much a single family can potentially lose to a Casino within a certain amount of time. I understand how difficult it would be to legislate this, and it may be better to use more subtle approaches; but I seriously believe that a compromise could be reached. The simplest way would be to disallow excessive losses based on whether or not you have claimed dependents on your taxes.
**Pros:**
* Much of the "high" that addicts experience comes from the anticipation of their next win. It is the constant need for that gratification which drives their over-spending. As with drug addiction, when you delay the gratification along extended periods of time; addicts start finding better ways to focus their energy and attention. Of course, some will translate that desire to other addictions, but most realize that: "I'm doing just fine without it."
* ~~I believe Casinos are borderline criminal. Anything to damage their ability to suck money out of hard-working people is O.K in my opinion. There are much better ways that we can invest our time & money.~~ MVC.
* The first step to conquering addiction is to admit that there is a problem. Casinos do the EXACT opposite, though, as they mask the reality with free booze and the constant lure of wealth. By at least recognizing the problem at the source, I believe more attention will be brought to the issues. Even if it's just as ineffective as the "Smoking Causes Cancer" labels on cigarettes, it's still better than nothing.
**Cons:**
* By regulating the Casinos, you encourage the establishment of illegal operations. These are more damaging to a community.
* Extremely difficult to legislate, and Casinos would fight it to the death; no matter what the compromise was.
* There may be other more effective ways to combat the problems associated with Casino culture, and this one would be controversial.
[Here is a calculator](http://vegasclick.com/gambling/expectedloss.html) which shows the average expected losses per/hour. Who knows how accurate this is, but we do know that Casinos are very profitable.
TL;DR: If someone has children, the amount of money they can lose while gambling should be limited. So as not to feed the socio-economic reality where 'the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer'. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I Believe Free Markets Are the Ultimate Determiner of Worth. CMV. +
+ Markets, Americans like me love them. The idea of supply/demand curves is so enthralling that we can and do apply it to just about everything. Sadly, I fear many so-called free-market capitalists are nothing more than statists in disguise; they think the State should play a role in such things as enforcing the law and national security. They often take on interests that provide no tangible gain.
I say, though, free markets are the ultimate determiner of value because:
* The law of supply and demand provides a fair and universal metric. One cannot say, "In my opinion, this has value, but nobody else cares"; instead we can experimentally and objectively measure the price the market will bear.
* Markets enable a kind of direct democracy. We can "vote with our dollars" if we do not like the service being provided and take our money elsewhere. A business will hear the cry of the market or die, trampled by the competition.
* Price changes with reality rather than being fixed by dogma. When it snows, the demand for rock salt goes up, and the supply begins to dwindle; the corresponding increase in price is a pointer to the world we live in rather than the whims of a sky-sprite whose existence has not yet been proven.
* It corresponds better to our nature and is a more concise theory: Man is acquisitive, competitive, and selfish. Market theory does not have to assume otherwise.
To give an example, many—even the laissez-faire ones out there—will put some inestimable value on the relation of parent to child. "You can't put a price on a child's love." Rubbish! Let us instead weigh the opportunity cost instead of listening to these pieties. Assuming no artificial statist red tape has weighted the options, let us consider the cost of: (A) abandoning the child to the wilderness; (B) raising the child into adulthood; (C) selling the child's labor in the free market; or (D) selling the child itself. With A, there is the possibility, though remote, the child shall be raised by wolves, found a formidable city, and come back to strike revenge upon us; with B we are conforming to the dictates of current, non–market-based demands and perhaps assuming the ingrate will provide us some value in our elder years rather than selfishly choosing to pursue its own interest instead of that of the dying; with Options C and D, we have the benefit of a more immediate pay-off without the uncertain outcome that our adult child will be faithful and swayed by the fables of society.
If only market-based mechanisms were to prevail, Options C or D would win. The child would be carted off to some far-away land and *Pater Familias* would be healthier, wealthier, and wiser for it.
Next I look at productivity and work. It's cliché to say, "Do what you love!" Make art! Make music! Make love! Humbug! Your art won't pay the bills. Instead, "Make profit, not love!" While the artsy crowd can only afford to rent some dank, post-Apocalyptic studio in the blighted districts of town, if you weigh your options carefully, study hard, and relentlessly pursue the opportunities thrust upon you, you may be able to wind up in a mighty castle of a cubicle, updating a spreadsheet on a Friday night, wearing your Rolex and refined cologne, while the artsy kids are, who knows, huffing all that spray-paint and attending parties where they exchange mere "good vibes" or "fellow feeling." A society full of liberal artsy types will just stand around admiring each other's "works of art," endlessly debating hypothetical nonsense, and doing nothing productive and eventually be eaten alive by more virile civilizations who do the productive if sometimes boring work that cures sickness, fights back war, and grows. The work that the free market values is the work people should do.
Now what of those who cannot do? I mean the sick and the elderly, the disabled and diseased. Present socialistic values say it is "society's" duty to feed them, to tax me and hand out to them. If their labor has zero market value, then they should throw themselves unto the nearest market-magnate and ask mere scraps in exchange for their labor; if this too is too much, well, I refer you to [history](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Potato_Famine) in decreasing market inefficiencies.
Now please see if you can change my view. I beg you refrain from references to your sky-god or your feel-good politics. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Being rich does not obligate you to donate all of your wealth to charity. +
+ I see people all the time talking about scumbag celebrities who don't give away to charities. Pretty much every single celebrity donates a lot of their wealth to charities, etc. I don't think that having money obligates you to give it away. If you want to enjoy your wealth, that's your very rightful opinion. It's what I'd do if I were rich. If you build wealth you deserve to enjoy it.
I'd like to see what arguments the people who support this idea have. Do you think that no one deserves to experience superwealth? Do you think that charity work is of more import than I do (I don't think it's all that important 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: Christianity is the superior Abrahamic religion. +
+ I believe that Christianity is better than Judaism and Islam. It seems that the themes and tenets of Christianity are far superior. Christianity is simply an improvement to Judaism, which focuses on the arbitrary rules of an overtly vengeful and hateful God, as outlined in Leviticus. Though I understand the Old Testament is part of Christianity, in the New Testament, Jesus dismisses the often ridiculous, hateful, and discriminatory rules of the OT. For example when a Pharisee asks Jesus if they should stone an adulterer (as Deuteronomy would demand), he says, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Jesus replaces these archaic rules with the idea that love, forgiveness, leading a good life, etc are what is important. He says this throughout many parables, for example "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you." Furthermore, Islam does not seem to contain these positive tenets, but instead promotes discrimination, sexism, and violence. While Christianity would tell you that you should love everyone and treat them well, e.g. in regards to serving god and going to heaven, Jesus says thanks the righteous for "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me," Judaism would tell you to stone sinners, and Islam to kill infidels. It seems that positive themes attributed to Islam and Judaism are entirely contrived and do not have basis in scripture, or have only a few isolated passages that support them. I know I unfairly picked examples to support my belief, but please 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: while both feminists and MRAs have valid points, they both blow their issues out of proportion. +
+ I think depending on what you want out of life, there are key advantages to being either a man or a woman. Given what you want out of life, there is definitely discrimination that you will face as a man or a woman. That being said I think if you counted it up, feminism is *slightly* more correct(but given historical and geographical perspective, i would rather be a woman in modern western society than be a woman any where else in history or in the modern world. People who want real equality forget that were closer than we've ever been to an ideal that has never existed). I don't want to hear about prison, murder, rape, or other statistics about how one gender faces a higher risk (these follow a similar line: I would rather be a man in modern western society than any other place or time now or in history). I'm talking about male physical strength being an advantage, about female purchasing power.. etc. I think the patriarchy is bad for almost everyone who wants freedom in western society (i'm referring to these issues as we face them in my home country, the U.S.A). I think if you are a "macho", stereotypical manly man, who doesn't like expressing feelings and loves sports, or if you are an attractive woman, who takes stares, or rude comments in a more positive "flattering" way, who wants to become a trophy wife ( I know a college student much like this, who has no complaints about the sexual misconduct done to her, and claims that she wants an "mrs" degree, and spends more time attempting to "become more domestic" than pursuing her future career) you benefit from the patriarchy, but men who don't conform to our stereotype of masculinity, and women who want to make their own way are both oppressed in many ways by the patriarchy. What I'm trying to say is that feminism and mens activism are two sides of the same coin, and making it an "us vs them" is exactly what the patriarchy "wants" in order to hold it's position. Just how a political party would benefit from its rival party splitting in two (democrats in D.C benefit from the current splitting of the republican party, because they can gain more ground if their previously united opponent now fights itself as much as it fights them) . This is why I consider myself a family rights activist. I recently have become disillusioned with egalitarianism, and humanism, as terms." Family rights" doesn't have to be necessarily about families, but is the idea that we can have a group where men and women can voice their concerns with the patriarchy in the context of "we're all in this together" instead of turning it into a contest of who has it worse. I think a family rights group would focus on realistic equality. Realistic equality means not interpreting a man's higher chance of being murdered or a woman's higher chance of being raped as societal discrimination. Again, all these groups need to think about the questions they are really posing. Asking all men not to rape is like asking all humans not to murder: if it worked, we would have had world peace centuries ago. I'm talking about discriminations that are condoned by society. Mainstream society does not condone these crimes, we punish them. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: If we're arresting 90 yr old nazi guards, we should also arrest white cops, sherrifs, and people who beat, bruised and killed black people in the 50s and 60s. And hold politicians accountable for allowing it to happen. +
+ This was a time that white men lynched and hung black people. A time when they unleashed the fury of fireman hoses on whole neighborhoods. Blacks had to use different bathrooms, water fountains, and abide by other disgusting laws that kept them segregated and completely unfree in “the land of the free”.
It’s disgusting that we’d arrest a 90 yr old German soldier for the travesties during WWII, but we don’t hold these white, over privileged men and women accountable for lynchings and abusive acts of violence. The soldiers abided by orders from their superiors and we crucify them. These white people killed blacks out of pure hate.
If we hold the 90 yr old German soldiers accountable, why don’t we hold the whites who perpetuated violence and murder against the blacks accountable? CMV
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Abortion is a Problem of Philosophical Dualism +
+ I believe the main reason why abortion is such a fundamentally unresolvable issue for us, is that we don't all agree that a developing fetus is equivalent to a human being. Do you remember your first couple years? You shouldn't, because you had no long term memory, self-awareness, or semantic reasoning ability. Neither does a fetus, which for the first few weeks is no more developed than a fish:
http://news.discovery.com/animals/ancient-genes-embryos.htm
Substance dualists, or believers in an immaterial soul, a separate mind from the body, as implied by religious doctrine, really do believe the "soul" - or, the true essence of a person in substance dualist thought - is created at conception. To a substance dualist, killing an unrecognizable clump of tissue is equivalent to killing a fully formed, sapient humanoid. Despite the brain being nowhere near developed as even that of an insect, the mind is already fully formed at conception.
Since science has not yet fully answered the problem of consciousness, and may never be able to explain such a subjective phenomena, the likely-unfalsifiable possibility of a dualistic soul remains, as does the possibility of a God. For as long as we believe in Gods and souls, the abortion debate will continue to rage.
Does CMV have any objections with this viewpoint? Or have I nailed the fundamental problem of abortion on the head?
| 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 people that have made multiple suicide attempts are clearly not suicidal and just want attention or pity. +
+ I find it very dubious that a person of normal intelligence can fail at something so simply as killing themselves. In any way you look at it the human body is extremely fragile and there are all sorts of easy ways to off yourself without even trying (though not always without pain).
I can see that someone doesn't know for example that a certain X drug overdose will probably not kill you and fails. But if they really want to die so much, and they try again, it simply does not compute that they would mess up, unless they want to fail in the first place.
I am putting aside extreme cases like people in a sanatorium that have made multiple attempts and are monitored and restrained before they can actually kill themselves. | 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 people who are offended by "bad" words are the people who give the words the power to be "bad" CMV +
+ The worst of words are used to offend because they work. If people looked at "Faggot" and "Nigger" as the unimaginative word choices that they are people would laugh at the people saying it as much as "poop head"
I completely understand being offended when someone is spewing hate. I don't understand why people allow certain words, Sounds we make with our mouth just the right way, to have such power.
My best friend is black. My roomate is gay. Most days I am pretty stupid. Call me retarded. Call me faggot. It won't hurt my feeling if your poking fun or even just being dumb.
The only time speach should be offencive is when its goal is to hurt. Yes these days people use these words with perpose to hurt. Only because we let these words have power. Why can't we stop making them "bad" change their meaning. Take the word back. Instead of running and hiding from it? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: A Person with Unchangeable Views Is, in a Way, Godlike +
+ I posit that a person whose views do not or cannot change is closer to being godly than an otherwise similar person whose views are open to change. First, let me define my terms. I am using *god* here in the Christian sense of a timeless, omnipotent, omniscient being. I believe it is logical to infer that such a being's views would be perfect and never in need of change. Furthermore, let us assume a function *P* that relates the set of a person or being's views to the perfect set of views held by a divine entity with a range from 0 (completely godless) to 1 (perfect godliness). Let *r* be the rate of change of *P* for a given entity *Q*. A god's *r* is, by definition, 0. Now let us assume *r* belongs to a set of attributes that characterize a godly being; we can again show a function *G* representing the overall godliness of an entity's attributes.
Now let us take the animated short from *The Daily Show with Jon Stewart* featuring The Waffler (faceless bureaucrat turned superhero) vs. The Decider (i.e., George W. Bush).
P r G
Waffler (0.1, 0.2), ∞, 0
Decider 0.15, 0, 1/count(godlike_attributes)
Okay, so the caricature of Geoge W. Bush, The Decider, is distinctly more godlike than The Waffler.
If my argument is correct, then Bill O'Reilly is more godlike than Stephen Colbert, who by virtue of his comedic irony, must hold two discordant views simultaneously.
P.S.: I will be around in the later evening (UTC-05:00) tomorrow to reply, so please be patient. | 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 watching television is a complete waste of time. CMV. +
+ I know - I'm on reddit right now, so it's not much better. But I have personally found that when I watch television shows (even entire seasons or series over the course of a few months or years) there is almost nothing that remains with me after viewing the show. I don't care about the characters, I don't care about what happened, I often even forget that some central character died along the course of the show.
During the course of the show, I am completely enthralled. I'm looking things up about the actors, I'm on fansites, etc. etc. But after the series is finished, I lament over the time I've wasted. I do not get this feeling from books or music or most movies.
I think that part of my opinion comes from television asking so much time from the viewer without asking for any involvement. Say somebody wants to watch all of Breaking Bad...I've had friends who have binge-watched the whole series in 2 weeks. I can't help but judge them for spending their time on something of which they had forgotten most of the plot points. That's, what, 60 hours in a 168 period? That's almost all of their waking, non-working moments. If someone had spent all that time reading a great book or playing some sort of involved video game, I would judge them less because their brains need to be more active during these activities.
If someone read Twilight or played Call of Duty for 60 hours, I would probably still judge them, but when comparing what some consider the greatest television shows (Breaking Bad, GoT, etc.) to the greatest novels or albums or films, it's no contest to me as to what affects someone more profoundly.
To those who will say they watch television to relax after a long day or week, that's something I understand. I do that sometimes. But I still feel like I wasted my time after doing so, due to my lack of retention. Maybe others retain television shows better than books or movies, I don't know.
I understand that this is almost an opinion with no factual basis and mere gut instinct, but it's an issue that I want to resolve since I know that television isn't inherently bad and I can't help myself from judging friends who spend their time watching TV. CMV, please!! | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The anger and vitriol towards Unidan is overdramatic +
+ "Yeah, I got into an argument with some asshole so I made a bunch of accounts and downvoted him, like, four or five times."
"Haha!"
Alternatively
"Yeah, I posted a topic and I wanted to try and get it visible so I upvoted it with some bots, like, four or five times."
"Haha!"
Those are the hypothetical conversations I assume we would have with our friends if we found out they got banned from Reddit for the things Unidan did. There's a weird paradoxical thing I'm noticing among people deriding Unidan and it's that "imaginary Internet points don't matter" and "Unidan violated the sanctity of the Reddit voting system." I'm not sure you can be self-righteous about the latter while also believing the former? Now, those who do have a lot of ... feelings ... invested into the Reddit voting system who among them hasn't downvoted someone they disagreed with?
I've downvoted someone I've disagreed with. In fact most people I downvote are people who I just really, really disagree with. I, too, have violated the sanctity of Reddit's voting system. Not only that but I believe **all** of you have too. The general all-of-you. As a rule. Should we all throw ourselves on our swords and delete our accounts? Request bans for ourselves? Should we brigade ourselves and downvote all of our own posts? Speaking of brigading ... Unidanx isn't doing so hot karma-wise and I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of his posts. Should all of those downvoters be banned?
I'm just having a hard time getting as worked up as some of these other people. The following are real quotes people are making about or towards Unidan.
I mean, shit. I wish I'd thought of a way to get famous by downvoting new posts.
That's right. Unidan was the dream of Reddit, but the sober reality is a nightmare.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
Labor should not be treated like good/commodities. CMV +
+ The discussions I see about markets and economics typically treat labor as any other good/service, usually applying a (simplified) supply-demand model to determine its price(wage). I believe this is incorrect for several reasons.
* balancing market forces do not apply to labor.
A major premise of the market is its nature to self correct. If the supply of hammers grows too great for demand, people will choose to make less hammers, or to not enter the saturated market, etc. Through various forces and means, the excess supply will return to equilibrium.
Labor does not follow this though. No amount of excess labor will lead to reductions in supply, or limit the growth of that supply. People cannot decide to "manufacture" less labor, and the excess cannot be stocked at a warehouse to reduce supply. Further, labor that was being used but no longer(loss of old job) places it directly back into the prime supply, unlike a used hammer.
* Labor breaks conventions necessary for the market to function.
A product cannot be sold for less tha it's cost of production and be considered a valid model to the market(barring subsidy). Any business that makes a hammer for $10 and sells it for $8 will and should fail according to market theory. It is acknowledged as an unsustainable model.
Labor does not follow this either. Regularly I will hear how labor doesnt make enough to cover its cost of production at certain jobs, but the business itself is profitable, the opposite of what we should expect. I would expect fast food places for instance to fail going by market theory, as it relies on inverted practices. Production costs > return. We mitigate this with welfare, but market supporters wish to remove this as they say it impacts the invisible hand.
* labor cannot be sidelined
I mentioned above that labor cannot be stored until better demand is available, like hammers could, but it goes beyond that. As per our social beliefs as a society, labor must be sold or subsidized. All labor supply must meet its cost of production or the system fails. This is akin to a situation where every hammer made must be sold, which is unreasonable using only the supply-demand models.
Further, labor plays secondary roles in the system. Aggregate demand is necessary to keep the system going, and treating labor only as a good ignores and complicates this secondary roll it must play.
| 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 the American culture of pranking people outside of close friends is in general just humiliating, not funny and wrong. CMV +
+ A lot of the response on Askreddit and many videos which get highly up-voted often contain pranks played on either unsuspecting members of the public or members of the same company/school etc. In the majority of these the stories and videos are just humiliations of other people which are only funny to those doing the prank and in most cases these people seem to have a rather twisted sense of humour. When these pranks are between close friends who have a common understanding of what they are getting into then what they do to each other is for them to sort out but the prevalence I see for these types of actions to be played on those who are not party to the joke and if asked before hand would not have given permission for this to happen is concerning and a bit disturbing. I believe this that this pranking culture when not confined to close friends who know what is going on is both wrong and partially indicative of a "pleasure at the expense of someone else" culture. CMV.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe there are no stupid people. CMV +
+ I'm a couple years deep into a career as an educator. Between my experiences with all kinds of students, and reading blogs such as [YANSM](http://youarenotsosmart.com/), I've come to see that behaviors or attitudes that many would call stupid is just the result of the brain being really resistant to change.
I want to clarify that I'm not sure about people who have legitimate neurological difficulties. You may call them stupid, though that wouldn't be very fair. I'm mostly talking about your average jock student or facebook bimbo. I don't think even they are stupid.
Here is what I think about intelligence:
- Being wrong about anything is not a sign of stupidity. There are a thousand tricks the brain employs to cling to its misconceptions. Confirmation bias is a huge one, for example.
- In addition, not knowing a fact that "everyone knows" is also not a sign of stupidity. People haven't had the experiences you have.
- Judgment of intelligence is antisymmetric. Mistakes that we make are justified and forgotten, but someone else can make a single mistake and that's a sign of a weak mind. It's unfair and it's false.
- While some *are* born with greater mental acuity, many of the characteristics we would associate with intelligence are trained skills. For example, see the family of [László Polgár](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r). Perhaps people we'd consider stupid are just people who have chosen to pursue other skills. (This is related to my other idea that "natural" intelligence as a characteristic is extremely overvalued, but that's for a different post).
The reason I brought this to CMV was because I don't think most people share this view. Am I "advanced" because I've thought about this stuff for a long time, or am I missing something obvious that everyone else is getting? I'm hoping you guys could help me decide. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
[CMV] I don't see what the problem is with surveillance cameras in public areas +
+ If it wasn't for surveillance cameras in public areas, we probably never would have caught the Boston bombers.
If you're not doing anything wrong, you won't register on anyone's radar. Given enough cameras, its unlikely you'll ever be noticed unless you HAPPEN to be in the area when a crime happens.
As for claims of privacy, if you're in a public area, how can you expect privacy?
Change my view. Tell me why its wrong to be constantly recorded while in public areas. | 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 think religion has been the primary motivator behind any major conflict in human history, and has little to no effect on human progress overall, cmv +
+
I frequently hear claims that religion is to blame for numerous deaths and wide-spread conflicts. However, I fail to see even one major instance in which religion is primarily at fault. Furthermore, if this was true, it would imply that lack of religion would mean less conflict and death; however, the most deadly wars in history (WWI and WWII, the Mongols, etc) had nothing to do with religion. There are cases in which religion has been a primary divider, like in the Yugoslav Wars and the IRA conflict, but in these cases I see the causes as more deep-seeded ethnic and class-based tensions than simply differences in religious opinion. In the Middle East, the Shi'ite/Sunni conflict seems to have much more to do with long-standing geopolitical struggles for hegemony between Persian Iranians and Arabs (admittedly I don't have deep knowledge of this conflict, however). The most widely cited instance, 9/11, I completely fail to see how people think this was religously motivated. If you watch Bin Laden's taped messages to the US, he says several times that Muslims are tolerant of Jews and Christians in countries like Iran, and should continue to be. His problem was with Zionism and Western Imperialism. In these cases, religion is simply a banner to fight under, like nationality or race is other conflicts. Citing religion as the chief motivator is like saying Confederate and Union soldiers hated each other because they wore different colored uniforms.
Regarding the argument that Christian/Islamic fundamentalists actively oppose science and progress and hold us back, I simply see stupid conservative people being stupid conservative people. It is highly unlikely Pat Robertson's followers' IQ's would magically be raised 50 points if they converted to atheism, they would just focus their stupidity elsewhere. Furthermore, Islamic doctrine doesn't actually require restrictive laws like the burqa and no education for women, these are very old tribal traditions that are now simply justified using Islam, but even in the absence of religion I believe they would simply find a different way to justify the same practices. Poverty, lack of education, and lack of opportunity is what drives people to terrorism.
I will concede that religion may have had negative effects on certain societies in certain times in the past, but I believe that relatively speaking these instances are few and not that significant. Basically, my opinion is that if religion had never existed or were to be completely abolished, things would pretty much be exactly the same. I would love to hear if anyone has a good counter-argument, just please make sure you have a well grounded understanding of any conflict or instance before you cite is as an example (for example, just bringing up the crusades without actually understanding all the factors involved). CMV | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe school bullies should be removed from mainstream education. CMV +
+ That is, if you are a child caught bullying other children, you risk being expelled from normal schools throughout the area, meaning the only alternative is home schooling or special schooling.
The various reasons why one child might bully another do not excuse the fact that it can be highly damaging on other people's ability to learn. The attitude that bullying is a natural response to bad home life legitimises the behaviour as if it's ok to be a bully if you can point to a freudian excuse, but lots of people don't take it out on other children. From a child's perspective half of their life is spent around school, so it's pretty much an even trade if they only bully one other child. Often however they'll bully more than one; from a utilitarian perspective things are falling apart.
There needs to be a persistent threat from administration that bullying will be dealt with harshly, and nothing's more threatening than needing to be homeschooled or go to special school. Bullies can also demonstrate the makings of psychopathic or sociopathic traits, so special treatment may be needed to prevent them becoming destructive adults.
Even if this ruins the bullies life it's still good from a utilitarian perspective, but it won't; it's just removing the foxes from the hen house. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
Toilet paper should always be put on the roll so that the papers come out from the top. CMV +
+ If you put the toilet paper roll on the spindle so that the paper comes out from on top, it is easier to roll the paper out as fast or as slowly as you'd like, and it's easy to control the amount of paper you need. It's easier to see when you first want the paper. It's more convenient to grab. And after you've taken a sufficient amount of paper, having it come out from on top means it's harder for the toilet paper to hang too low and touch the floor.
It is not only unwise but a grievous ethical infraction against god and man to put the toilet paper on the spindle so that it comes out from the bottom. People who do this are insensitive, unsanitary, and quite possibly minions brought to Earth from the darkest bowels of Hades to inflict pain, misery, and death upon all good men and women.
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 think that minorities don't deserve any more scholarships than others. CMV +
+ I'm not racist, I just don't think that it's too fair that minorities get scholarships to colleges or get accepted into colleges easilier than Caucasians. Someone was telling me that a Puerto Rican who was 20th in her class was accepted into Harvard where as the Class President who was also the valedictorian of the same school was not accepted. Why should minorities get these advantages? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I don't think being a mother is the hardest job in the world. +
+ First, when I say being a mother, I mean any sort of role that is purely responsible for raising a child. This could be a stay at home dad, foster parent, etc. I just used the term mother because that is usually the default term.
People always tend to say that being a mother is such a difficult job. Even worse is when people say it is the hardest job in the world. I strictly disagree.
Certainly, being a parent of any type is difficult as you are responsible for raising a child to be a responsible citizen. Any decision you make ultimately has an impact on how they turn out as an adult.
However, it seems that as long as you are able to provide certain basic needs, they will generally end up as functioning adults. Most children just need basic things such as love and stability. Once you are able to provide those things, most of the job is just tedious and time consuming. Eventually everything just falls into a routine. This is especially true for the pre-adolescent ages before they are capable of taking certain responsibilities into their own hands. As they get older, the role of the parent starts to become less mandatory for their development and can even become harmful to the development of the child if there is too much involvement (ex. helicopter parents).
The actual difficulty just comes from figuring out what kind of strategy you want to utilize to raise your kid. After you figure that out, everything falls into order. Running the household while watching the kid turns into menial tasks such as cleaning up after them, picking up groceries, making sure they go to bed on time, controlling how much TV they watch, etc. None of these are particularly difficult, just time consuming. Thus, it is no more difficult than most other jobs that are just as time consuming and menial.
To say that this job is more difficult than say a brain surgeon would be unfair. A brain surgeon runs the risk of permanently screwing up a person for life with one wrong move of their scalpel. On top of that, in order to perform such surgery you need to train for years before you are anywhere close to being ready to operate. Where as being a mother just kind of happens and you are able to figure it out along the way.
In the event of children with extra needs, such as those with mental/physical handicaps, this certainly makes the role of being a parent more difficult in the day to day type of life. However, in the end everything comes down to routine once you figure out a strategy. In my view, I think one of the hardest parenting scenarios is having a child with extreme depression where there is a risk of suicide or self-harm. In this scenario there is not always much a parent can do because of the child's biological predisposition to their condition, and it can be even harder because their child could end up dead. While this may be emotionally straining on the parental figure, it still can not justify being a parent as the hardest job in the world, especially since most parents do not have to deal with this scenario.
Go ahead, CMV. I'll make sure to award deltas to anyone who successfully does so.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Illegally obtained evidence (eg phone hacking) should still be admissible in court and not affect sentencing +
+ I am not of course arguing that it shouldn't be illegal to record a client talking to their lawyer or obtain evidence without a search warrant. Also false evidence is of course bad.
But unethical police conduct doesn't change whether someone did or didn't commit a crime, and what the appropriate course of action is, and the law should work to convict the guilty and leave the innocent alone. It's always seen as a tragedy when the guilty walk free because of legal technicalities. It offers no comfort to anyone if someone guilty of a violent crime is back on the street because the police cut a few corners (I have heard that genuine evidence isn't admissible if it was obtained with the aid of illegal wiretaps, for example).
Wasn't sure whether to make this an ELI5 or a CMV; I really can't get my head around why it's so bad for people who a jury is convinced have committed a crime to go to jail on evidence that, while not very "sporting", is genuine. At any rate, a jury told to disregard evidence can't "unhear" a recording of someone discussing with their lawyer the fine details of going for a false insanity plea, and the legal system should reflect the fact that this is compelling evidence. | 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 alternate genders or being a "Goat-Kin" to say you used to be a goat in a past life, is the biggest load of horseshit ever. +
+ **NOTE: My judgements exclude gender dysphoric people, who are actually medically afflicted with pains and discomfort due to their mind and body disagreeing on what parts the body has. This condition is definitely a serious medical condition**
At first I thought I was okay with it, when tumblr started a wave of people identifying as He, She even if the pronoun didn't actually match up with its intended use. But them came "Them, Ze, Xe". Now there are genderqueers, nonbinaries, DeerKins. And you know what? I'm not going to respect their misuse of the english language and call them what they want just to get attention.
Misusing pronouns such as He and She promotes discriminatory gender stereotypes. It teaches that if a boy likes to play with dolls, he isn't a boy. Sure, he has a penis, but obviously if he doesn't fit into the exact 1950's definition of a man, working on cars and providing for the family, then he isn't a man. Gender used to be synonymous with sex and it always should be, otherwise it's just being bigoted towards people who don't perfectly fit into little stereotype gender roles.
Making up new genders, like genderqueer, is pretty confusing to me. It feels like for the mostpart it's just confused teens on tumblr being like "You know, I've been watching a lot of rigid 1950s sitcoms lately, and I don't feel like my entire personality can be described using one of these words which are so rigid in my mind. let's make a NEW gender, and then I'll be a special little flower!
**NO.** Your gender is not your place to express your personality. It's your place to let people know how/if they will have sex with you. You can't just make up genders. That shouldn't be a thing.
Finally, I'd like to brush up on the whole "kin" thing. Now, I get that different people have different beliefs about spirituality and reincarnation and whatever. But when idiots on tumblr go throwing around their new gender identity as a "TurtleKin" and are seriously determined to make people respect and accept such an absurd claim, then they need to just pick up a biology book, calm down, and keep it to themselves.
I understand that people get confused about their identity, but tumblr's idea of expressing our personalities via our genders is stupid. We shouldn't be expected to conform to rigid gender norms- nobody truly perfectly fits them anyways. We should just be accepting that some girls are tomboys, and some boys like shopping, wearing makeup, or looking fabulous. Also tumblr should be deleted from the internet permanently. Pls Obama.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
If it is acceptable to teach your children to be religious, then it is acceptable to teach them to be racist. CMV +
+ Both religion and racism are personal beliefs that are not founded in science. I am not saying religion and racism are the same thing, only that they are learned the same way.
I personally think that children should be taught to form their own opinions and beliefs, and it is unethical for parents to teach theirs as facts. If, however, we consider it acceptable to teach our children our own beliefs as facts, then there is no clear line between which ones are and are not acceptable to teach them. Therefore, there is no distinguishing factor that makes it acceptable to teach religion but unacceptable to each racism.
To be clear, I am talking about teaching them as facts i.e. forcing one's worldview on a child. Teaching them ABOUT religion and/or racism is fine.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe gypsies are bad for Europe and should not be welcomed in other countries. CMV +
+ I believe gypsies cause more problems than other immigrants in Europe and are a negative thing for Europe as a whole. I believe their culture encourages exploiting and stealing from non-Roma (gadjo), discourages education, and that most gypsies are not interested in assimilating with the community they are in abroad, and show less interest to work and instead prefer government handouts, organised begging, prostitution, and crime, such as stealing copper and selling it for scrap. I believe a nomadic lifestyle is against western values and that gypsies should not be welcomed in other countries (outside of their communities in Romania and Bulgaria, such as the UK, France, Germany, etc.).
I have nothing against Romas as a race, and nothing against any type of immigrants who have a proper education, a willingness to work, and a willingness to at least assimilate somewhat.
I realise this view is prejudicial and possibly not fair, but I cannot find an argument to convince myself that gypsies are worth having. Please 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 believe that american use of chemical weapons in Vietnam is perfectly justified, CMV +
+ In my personal opinion, there is nothing that horrible about US use of chemical weapons during the Vietnam war. The atrocities committed by communist rebels were much much worse, yet they are given (IMO) little attention. Is it truly worse to drop a bomb filled with dangerous chemicals from plane on some piece of jungle than personally torturing POWs in horrible manner and humiliating their corpses? I live in Europe (therefore I have little connection to this topic), yet I am constantly debating about this with myself. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I do not believe that the raising of children should be seen as an innate right, CMV +
+ I have heard countless accounts of abuse, in one form or another. I see people indoctrinated by an early age into cults, religions, or any belief system. This seems to counter the idea that we have an in-built guide of how to raise a child. It is unfair that these children should suffer, and be affected for the rest of their life.
Why should we be allowed to raise a child just because we have the ability to make babies? Or if its considered a moral right, why? In practise, this mean that there should be some sort of test/points system (I couldn't say the best way), to determine if the couple is fit to look after a child. Normally, since abuse is a minority issue, I would say that a blacklist system works better (fit to rear a child until proven otherwise), however, when you are dealing with someone's life, abuse is such a long lasting effect that I suggest a white list system.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Institutions of learning, especially colleges, should not hire educators that have accents that make it hard to understand them. +
+ If they do, they should let both students and educators know that, for example, on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being totally incoherent and 10 being their accents don't affect learning at all) for the average English speaker, this particular educator rated a 4.
I say especially colleges (and private schools) because, unlike high schools and middle schools, we're actually paying for our educations. No one should have to worry that their money is invested into a professor that can barely be understood.
This view sources from personal experiences, in which both my science and math professors were from India and China, respectively. The science professor spoke in a thick Indian accent, and we were put behind schedule because 60% of the time someone had to stop her to repeat what she had said. The math professor was a little worse; she didn't know how to say certain mathematical terms and her words were so distorted I wondered if she was even speaking English anymore. In fact, if I were to utilize my idea from the previous paragraph, the Indian one would be rated a 3 and the Chinese one a 1.
Of course, I am speaking of only the United States and yes, I understand that we are a nation of immigrants. Hell, my parents are immigrants. I'm not xenophobic, I just believe educators should be well armed with assets that will make learning as smooth as possible for the overwhelming majority of English speakers in the United States. I also believe that English should be the official language of the United States but that's a CMV for another time. However, feel free to include a counter argument in your response if you like!
*Note: I'm mobile so let me know if there are any errors in my posts. Thanks!* | 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 almost all serious or violent criminal behavior should be treated as mental illness. CMV. +
+ It appears to me that the US legal system has not kept up with modern psychiatry, which would seem to label just about all serious criminals as mentally ill. Wouldn't it make sense to modify our prison system to treat criminals as such? Yes, cost would be increased, but is it moral to punish the mentally ill without treating them? Shouldn't all maximum security prisons be converted to mental hospitals, and parole, early release, and halfway-house programs be run by psychiatric professionals?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: If we're going to let everyone have guns, gun safety should be a required course in grade schools +
+ Just read about [another school shooting](http://www.salon.com/2014/10/24/report_shooting_at_high_school_north_of_seattle/) in the states and got to thinking. [The NRA](http://www.nra.org) is staunchly against gun control and are a powerful lobby. They want guns everywhere -- churches, bars, bordellos, shooting ranges, homes, workplaces (though, interestingly enough, [not Congress](http://americablog.com/2012/12/why-cant-we-bring-guns-on-planes-or-into-congress.html)). So, how about we seek a different solution? Mandatory gun classes in grade school.
===
===
Apparently, the submission was killed by the moderators because my reasoning wasn't clear. I don't believe in guns, never owned them, never shot one, never bought one, never sold one, nor has anyone on my behalf. However, I do live in America, where gun ownership is rather common, compared to what I'd like it to be. Also, Americans in general love their guns. So, I don't think my (sincerely held) view will come to pass. The note was presented as a compromise and I'd like pushback on 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 that Eugenics would be beneficial to society and create a far more peaceful world. CMV +
+ I think that a world in which only the most superior humans live would be a much better one in helping our race to survive. It is fundamentally evolution. The world would be more peaceful and a much better place to live than it is today. Movies like Gattaca show a possibility of having superior being living alongside inferior but I think that natural birth should become illegal and babies can only be created using eugenics. I know this would be hard to do but families should really think before having natural birth when Eugenics is available considering their child would have a much lesser life. Eventually I think that the world would only exist of superior beings capable of solving many crisis' and protecting our race. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
In this world with equality and feminism, I think women should split the bill even on the first date, CMV +
+ I know that its "just not how it works" and women find it attractive when men pays on first date. But why is women's perspective like that? The same women argues that their men should help them with everything, from cooking to raising children, cause of the equality. But then why do women find it "sexy" when men pays? Why is that a double standard?
Also, please don't attack on me because I just brought it up. 50% readers of this post will be women and who probably wouldn't agree with me. Please post the comments to express your views and not to personally attack on me. This is just a discussion. | 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 that the view of Americans as lazy people who don't want to travel is unfair. I believe that traveling within the USA counts because it is so large and varied. +
+ My dad is an anthropologist so I am fairly "well traveled". Every time I travel (mostly to Europe) someone tells me that they don't understand how Americans can spend their whole life in one country, how silly it is that we don't go see the world. Like it's some kind of easy choice.
The only countries that touch the USA are Canada and Mexico. Canada is very similar to the US, imho, though it is fun to travel and see the minor differences. Mexico is a whole different world, and not one that I really enjoyed. If you want to travel somewhere else, you have to fly, which gets very expensive very fast.
Also, sometimes I feel like many Europeans really don't understand how large the USA is. I drove from Dusseldorf to Amsterdam just to go to a party. Then a bunch of friends met me in Mons, Belgium to check out a festival that was going on. It's about a 5 hour drive total, and I hit 3 countries.
Right now I live in Miami, if I drove north for 5 hours I would hit Jacksonville. I wouldn't even leave my state. It's a 22 hour drive for me if I want to go to Mexico. That would be just to get to the border. It would take 24 hours to get to Canada.
TL;DR I think that many Europeans don't understand how hard it is to travel from the USA and see the world.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I think any "Zero Tolerance" policy is simply laziness on behalf of its implementer. CMV +
+ Every time I hear the term "zero-tolerance policy", I actually hear:
"Coming up with a more suitable set of rules and an intelligent process which at least attempts to measure a response to the unwanted action is basically a lot of work. It would take a lot of effort to think about, construct, maintain and evolve. So in affect we're just simply going to cover our ears and say "no!" to every conceivable nuance or grey-area, generating the same absolute response - no matter how irrational or inappropriate."
CMV. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The pro-religion argument that some people need it to cope is elitist and condescending +
+ I'm only doing two drafts of this so let's see how well my thoughts crystallize:
When people try to enumerate the benefits of religion one often hears this argument. "Some people are always going to need religion to get by, let them have it." It's meant to be a kind sentiment, but it seems to me like code for the very viewpoint it's claiming to criticize. "Dumb people need fairy stories because they're afraid of death."
My argument against religion is that its good qualities can all be found elsewhere. If someone is raised without religious indoctrination they'll still find a way to cope with existential terror, people do it all the time. Folks is folks all over.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Poaching and hunting are the same thing, and hunting is no more ecologically friendly than poaching +
+ This is influenced by the IAmA submission from the guy who proudly kills fellow human beings in the name of "saving" wildlife. But really? How are poachers more morally and ecologically irresponsible than hunters? Hunters have been responsible for the extinction of wildlife in recent memory and in past events of human existence. Hunters, just like poachers, threaten animal for the sake of profit. Anti pouching initiative is hypocrisy in itself. One, it does not make the existence of mankind better. Two, it doesn't stop the extinction of various species in wildlife at the hands of human beings. | 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 Westboro Baptist Church is overall a force of good in this nation. +
+ The WBC are a group of horrendous, hate-filled, brainwashed, bigots, and yet I feel that overall they have contributed far more to promoting love, tolerance, and brotherhood among Americans than spreading their mentality of hate to otherwise rational people. If the WBC were in the majority, I would hate and fear them, but they are a tiny, loud group of idiots who I feel bring people together in an age when so many wedges are driving Americans apart.
Every protest gathers anti-protestors who form across all political lines; conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, all races, creeds, and religions hate them equally, which in essence gives those groups a common enemy, a common bond to share, something that bring people together who otherwise share little in common (I like to use the alien invasion in Independence Day bringing the world together as a metaphor).
Every protest includes clever ways for anti-protestors to express their dislike; yes often fighting hate with hate, but other times fighting hate through silliness, or even through setting up booths to donate to LGBTQ organizations in the WBC's name, or putting on costumes to block their signs from people's view, or the Foo Fighters playing a song.
They are the out-group who we should all be bonding together to laugh at instead of talking about how much we hate them and overall I think they make themselves look insane and make the average rational person want to distance themselves as far away from such bigoted idiocy as possible. | 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 attractive white women lead easier lives than the rest of society - CMV +
+ I think that attractive white women lead easier lives than the rest of society for several reasons:
* They are white -- which, whether we like to admit it or not, is still a massive advantage in Western society. People automatically assume that you are smarter and more trustworthy just because you are white.
* They are attractive women -- I know that the counter argument for this can be phrased along the lines of "women don't lead better lives just because men desire them." And, to an extent, I get that. But we really can't deny that attractive women enjoy a lot of "free" things that the rest of society doesn't; things that, when added up, probably equal a fair amount of money. There's also the counterargument that models (say) are more insecure than more average people. But I consider "I feel insecure" (which we all do, every single one of us) to be a pretty damn poor excuse for being able to charm basically anyone.
* They are women in a society which is quickly changing to favor women -- Society today caters to women's needs. And, yes, it is true that women still get paid less than men, and so on. But more women graduate from college now than men, almost twice as many; girls do better in school than boys; scholarships exist for women to pursue male-heavy fields -- so in ten years I think the world will be much different. I also think that the world today encourages women to talk about their issues (male-female rape) while discouraging men to talk about their issues.
I'm happy to provide much more information about my view.
I realize that all of us have our own struggles, but seriously -- compared to a lot of other people, I really don't think attractive white women can or should complain all that much.
Change my view, Reddit. | 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 not be trying to protect endangered species and should let them die off as they would if we were not around to save them. +
+ Natural selection will naturally select the characteristics that are fit enough for their environment to live on and all the unfit characteristics will die off eventually. This happens over millions of years, of course. The way I see it, we are assisting these unfit characteristics survive by protecting these species that are dying off because of one reason or another. It seems to me like we are impeding evolution by trying to control another aspect of nature. I feel like the only really good reason we have for protecting these creatures is that we think they're adorable or can't imagine a world without them. Some people say that a creature dying out would have serious repercussions on its environment and of course it would but the other living creatures would have to adapt like they always have and always will. 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 find casino gambling appealing at all. CMV +
+ I've been to casinos and tried to enjoy myself. However, I can't avoid the notion while playing the games that they're nothing but shallow trappings on top of, "you lose 55% of the time, you win 45% of the time", and that just doesn't seem fun to me. It's not even like the mechanics are well-hidden - it's just giving my money away slowly, and even when I win, it's not because I made the right move, it's just dumb luck, and the best move was always not to play.
I also tried once taking a different perspective on it, and going in thinking about it in terms of setting aside $X dollars to buy entertainment, and expecting to lose it. However, that didn't end up fun for me either, it's just giving my money away slowly while playing a thinly disguised version of, "55% of the time you lose, 45% of the time you win."
I suppose at its heart, playing a game that is rigged against me where whether I win or lose I inevitably lose in the long run just doesn't feel fun. Instead, I feel like a chump, and it seems so much more fun to play as the house.
Is it that all the trappings are just much more appealing to others than they are to me? If I were to offer a home version of 55% of the time I win stripped of all the trappings where I just roll dice and 55% of the time players have to pay me, somehow I don't think even my friends that are into gambling would find that very appealing.
So in net, I don't find casino gambling appealing at all. CMV
Oh, and let's limit this discussion to games of pure chance, such as slots or blackjack, where even at maximum skill if you don't cheat the odds dictate you'll lose money in the net. I could readily imagine if I were to get super good at poker, that it'd be fun to go and play and win. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Ferguson isn't an isolated incident; it's just America showing its true colors. +
+ As I'm sure you're all aware, there's been a number of mass demonstrations in protest against the racist policy of the US administration which have lasted for several consecutive months since a white policeman's recent killing of a black young man.
These demonstrations are an eruption of the pent-up anger of broad masses of people at the deep-rooted racial discrimination in American society. The present conditions of the black in America are miserable due to the discriminating, racist policy; in spite of all our civil rights legislation, minority citizens still fall victim to the crimes and to the prejudice of the judicial authorities in America.
It is almost impossible for minority citizens in America to get jobs and even if they manage to be employed, they are subject to discriminating treatment though they toil and moil. This reality patently proves that the US talking about racial discrimination in the 21st century is nothing but a charade to hide its human rights abuses.
This is shameful; we can do better than this. It is quite natural for the world to censure the US as a major violator of human rights; it is completely disqualified to talk about human rights. Many countries in the world are now ridiculing the US, America should be going through an agony of shame; it's become a laughing stock of the world. The policemen and women of America need to end the killing of innocents in the black community. Someone convince me that America still has some moral authority? Please?
| 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 childhood obesity is child abuse and parents should have their children taken from them, just as parents who starve their children do. CMV. +
+ First, let me explain the parameters of my argument. This applies to first world countries only. Children with pre-existing medical conditions that result in weight gain do not count either. My definition of obesity is the same as the medical definition of obesity. I am not talking about children who are 5-20lbs overweight. I mean children who are 50, 80, 100lns overweight. Also, I believe that this applies to children up to the age of 18 because although they may be able to make their own choices, their parents established unhealthy habits for them at an incredibly young age that could take years for them to break.
As the title says, I believe that if a child is obese, the blame lies 100% on the parents' shoulders. The parents stock the house with food and therefore decide what goes into their child's stomach. This not only affects their immediate health but creates unhealthy habits for life (as I stated previously) A 3 or 4 year old child has virtually no control over what they eat or how often they eat. They are completely dependent on their parents to feed them so the only reason (again medical issues aside) that a child is overweight at this age is because of their parents. Studies have proven time and time again that obesity kills and people who are obese have significantly shorter lifespans than the average adult. They are killing their own children and the only difference I'm my mind between over feeding and starving a child is one kills them a lot faster than the other. Now for my anecdote.
I work at a retail store and I noticed a morbidly obese woman with her three children aged at about 16, 8, and 2. They all were obese, even the 2 year old was massive. In the 30 minutes they were on the store, the mother provided hot cheetos, cheddar ruffles, a liter of Dr. pepper, and doritos for her children to eat. Even the baby was drinking the soda. These children (although the 16 year old to a lesser extent) have no say in what their mother provides as snacks, especially the child. Just the fact that they carried this many snacks with them shows how unhealthy their habits are and how their mother is passing them down.
There is one strong counter argument that I will address now and that is the one of having a low socioeconomic position and not being able to afford any other food. To that I say there are welfare programs that provide food for families but it is families that misuse this money. You can purchase fruit, eggs, bread, etc with EBT but the families choose to buy unhealthy foods. Which is just another reason why these parents are not fit to have children and should be punished for child abuse.
The ignorance card is also a very difficult one to play because of the massive push for awareness in the past decade. Also, the amount of information about healthy foods available for free on the internet AND in the grocery stores themselves is so abundunt that claiming ignorance about in healthy food is near impossible.
Can anyone 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 think that horse racing is cruel and should be banned +
+ I don't have a particularly deep interest in horse racing, but I tend to notice when events like the Grand National occur. As far as I can see, the entire sport looks like a cruel means of endangering a horse's life for profit. The risk to the animals seems egregiously significant in big races, to the point that the chance of them suffering an injury that will result in their death (including possible euthanisation) is far too high for it to seem anything but a cruel roll of the dice for animals who have no means of objecting to their situation. 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 think it ever makes sense to get angry. CMV +
+ The two most important things in everyones life is their quality of life and their impact on the quality of life of the world. I believe those two things, especially the latter, are the most rational things to possibly think.
Given that, say i catch my wife cheating on me with my best friend. The question I have before me, is this action going to increase or decrease my quality of life, and furthermore increase or decrease the quality life of the world? Since there is no way I could possibly know that, or even get a good idea, it wouldn't make sense to get mad. Even if I knew that there was a 99% chance that this will be worse for the world and my life, theres still that 1% chance. That chance alone I think is more than enough to stifle anger (along with the variety of other reasons to not get angry).
It's kind of like buying a lottery ticket and then getting mad before you know if you won or not. It doesn't make sense. 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: I'm a man who finds MRA more irritating than respectworthy. +
+ So getting the standard disclaimers out of the way:
1) Yes, there are problems men face too, like unequal consideration for child custody and difficulty being taken seriously when abused. Whether you blame the "patriarchy" or "feminism" for those problems, we should all be able to acknowledge they exist and should be solved.
2) I don't care who has it worse. I think women do, but it **doesn't matter**: each individual issue should be fought against and corrected by all sane, ethical people. To say that women have a lot more problems so men's issues aren't important is like saying that discrimination against blacks is the worst racism in the US so discrimination against any other minority is unimportant.
But the problem I have with MRA and MRActivists I've encountered, both on the internet and offline, is that they seem to focus far less on **actually solving problems** than airing their grievances and complaining about feminism.
That's not how civil equality is obtained. It requires coalition, awareness, and organized effort. MRAs seem stuck on the second part, and that's being charitable.
And before some MRA says they **can't** accomplish anything because feminists keep shouting them down and "pulling fire alarms" (which only happened at the University of Toronto, as far as I'm aware):
Women chained themselves to fences while fighting for their rights.
Women went on hunger strikes while fighting for their rights.
Women were arrested, firehosed, and beaten while fighting for their rights.
All in a society that blatantly, in the letter of the law, treated them as second class citizens. Same goes for black rights activists. Same goes for gay rights activists.
So I don't find the argument that MRAs can't accomplish anything because they're being held down by "The Woman" particularly effective.
All that said, I do want to give the people who are involved in MRA the benefit of the doubt and assume good intentions: I just can't find myself respecting them or the movement as anywhere near on the same level as an actual civil rights group.
To change my view, help fill out the following comparison:
**Major Accomplishments by Various Feminist Movements**
* Equal Rights to Education
* Equal Rights to Vote
* Equal Rights to Work
* Protections From Workplace Discrimination
* Rights to Use Birth Control (still being contested in many states and forms)
**~~Major Accomplishments~~* Any Progress Toward Goals by Various Men's Rights Activism**
* ???
* ???
* ???
* ???
* ???
Thanks.
I'll make it easier, since people keep bringing up the age of the movement: just show me progress toward the goals. Show me something they're trying to do to bring about change or help men, besides just talk about the issues.
Okay, think I'm done here. The best argument so far has been [this post](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2ygdlk/cmv_im_a_man_who_finds_mra_more_irritating_than/cp9tyaf?context=3), and "Just wait, MRA is still in its infancy, it'll bring about positive changes eventually" seems to be the consensus among the sane responders. Everyone else is just doing the usual blaming of women and feminism for all of men's troubles and for why men haven't been able to improve other men's lives. Since I don't have the patience to read through any more posts insulting me for not acknowledging the problems men face (despite me doing so twice in the very first paragraphs of this post) I'll leave it at this: I'll respect MRAs when they do something to actually make my life as a man, or the lives of other men, better. Until then, the ones I meet seem to be doing more harm than good.
Thanks for all of you that gave an actual effort, and those of you that gave some food for thought regarding the shift in public perception that might come with a new generaton of MRAs.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The term "STI" is misleading and only exists as a way to make sexual transmitted diseases seem less dangerous. +
+ Colloquially, and infection can be cured with antibiotics. It usually refers to what happens when you scrape your knee and don't clean it properly. It gets infected and you take a course of amoxicillin and you're fine.
AIDS, Herpes, Chlamydia, Syphilis, and so forth are much more serious than this. They are dangerous infectious diseases that need to be treated as such.
It is my view that the term "STI" emerged from the STD community as a way for them to not feel like they are carrying a terrible disease, but it's misleading. The change in the descriptor helps people's feelings, but conveys less information.
Saying that someone who has AIDS isn't diseased, but merely "has an infection" significantly reduces the severity of the condition. The person doesn't have an infection in the way we use the term colloquially, as though a little pus is forming in a wound, but a communicable disease that is highly dangerous.
Doctor's offices, universities, health practitioners, and so forth should continue using the term STD because it better conveys the conditions represented.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Children should be taught that sexual orientation is a continuum +
+ I was given the modern, "politically correct" version of sex-ed by my parents and teachers: That there are straight people and gay people, and sometimes occasionally bi people too, and that all of these were valid and equal and so on and so forth. I know the people who taught me that meant well and weren't homophobic or anything like that, but it still screwed me up a fair bit later. I (a male) was always fairly feminine as a child, played mainly with girls, liked cute things and stuffed toys, and even at one point wanted to wear nail polish. My parents were totally accepting of this (again, they were well-meaning, tolerant people) but probably suspected I was gay. I knew I wasn't gay though. I liked girls, I wanted to have a wife when I grew up, etcetra. Later on in late elementary and middle school I started acting less feminine, mainly because of the inevitable mockery by my peers, but I still sometimes let my hair grow down below my shoulders and wore brightly-coloured clothes and did other things boys in my class thought were effeminate. I still thought I was 100% straight, and in middle school and high school had various ordinary awkward relationships with girls. About halfway through high school, though, I fell in love with my male best friend, who was openly bisexual and himself fairly feminine. I felt terrible and weird and awkward because I knew I wasn't gay, but here I was having all kinds of sexual fantasies about men. In the end I ended up having a mainly sexual relationship with him, because I was incredibly attracted to him but also didn't believe I could fall in love with a man. He, however, was completely in love with me, and so I ended up being cruel to him and basically saying I only liked him sexually but not romantically, because I still wanted to marry a woman and so on, which in retrospect was incredibly cruel. I also felt extremely guilty because I thought I was just so horny that I was willing to have sex with men I was "actually" straight, and that this made me a pervert etc. Eventually I remembered my effeminacy as a child, and decided that even though I was still mainly attracted to women, that didn't preclude me ever having relationships with men. I think I'm hardly the only person who feels this way, and I think sex education should reflect it. Kids should be told something like "most people tend to like people of the other sex, but sometimes people like someone of the same sex, and sometimes they even marry people of the same sex, and that's also completely okay." That would encompass straight people, exclusively gay people, and people like me who are mostly one way or the other but make exceptions for certain people.
**TL;DR despite what politically correct people want you to think, sexual orientation isn't a black and white biological thing, and telling kids that it is has the potential to mess them up later**
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe monetary penalties for criminal acts should be a percentage of a person's income, CMV. +
+ It seems to me the point of attaching a fine to a criminal act is to act as a deterrent. If somebody making a wage below the poverty line gets fined 5k for something it could cripple them financially. If a multimillionaire gets the same punishment or won't even be a blip on that person's radar. How does a flat fee equal an effective deterrent/punishment?
I'm not trying to comment on whether or not fees for misdemeanors are an appropriate or effective deterrent/punishment. However, since that is the system currently in place I don't understand why we shouldn't at least make it apply proportionately to all citizens. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The Cochlear implant procedure is something more deaf people should consider. +
+ Hello all. I'm from a reasonably big city and have met a few deaf people, largely in school, but until a few months ago, I had never met one who had the procedure done. The person in question, let's call them Bob, grew up on a small town and other than a few years spent at a specialized grade school, they had limited contact with the deaf community at large. So after what little hearing Bob had was lost to an ear infection, the doctor recommended the cochlear implant. Bob thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and strongly dislikes taking them off. Bob also has less ear infections than with the old hearing aids, and says he is just ask around happier with the implants. So I am left to wonder why the deaf community as a while dislikes them so much?
TL;DR: Met friend with cochlear implants who has no contact with the deaf community at large. Thinks the implants are better than previous hearing aids and far better than the total deafness that an ear infection left.
| 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 reddit (as a collective) hates police officers. [CMV] +
+ I'm sure most reddit users have noticed this bias. It will probably hit your frontpage, no matter what you are subbed to.
The question is: when does this bias become *hate*. This, as I see it, is the only subjective part. So go ahead and try to change my view!
So it looks like I need to say more. Here are a few of my reasons:
/r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut has four times as many subscribers as /r/Good_Cop_Free_Donut *and* /r/ProtectAndServe combined.
After searching "cop" using reddits search function. The second result is an /r/AskReddit thread about moronic cops. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Anyone given life in prison should be given the death penalty instead +
+ My reasoning is that if a person is given life in jail than it is obviously an indication that this person, ideally, would never be out of jail until they die. This is an absurd waste of resources. For one, depending on the age of the criminal, the state is going to be keeping him/her alive in prison for at least 10 years and in some cases upwards of 50. For another, this is giving them the opportunity to break out and cause more havoc than they already have. I'm grossly overestimating prison escape statistics but the fact of the matter is that if they break out more and more people will be hurt because of their actions. There is, from my perspective, no reason to let a person who has a life sentence in jail to live, as it only wastes money, prison space, and the time of everyone involved. 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 believe the CBS show "Elementary" Is worth more praise and acclaim than the BBC version "Sherlock" +
+ http://www.cbs.com/shows/elementary/[1]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1475582/[2]
Links for clarification.
I'll try to keep it brief. I hear a great number of people raving about "sherlock" and don't ever hear anyone talking about "elementary."
They are both airing at the same time in our culture, and both have to do with retellings of the sherlock Holmes story.
Elementary deserves more praise than Sherlock in short because Elementary is filled with more dynamic and deep story telling.
Take just the first meeting of Sherlock and Watson in each show. In Elementary, Holmes has recently been a drug addict, addicted to heroine who has now fought to sobriety. This sets up the fateful meeting between him and Watson (played by Lucy Liu) who is working as a sober companion. Why is Dr Watson a sober companion? Because she made a 1 in a 10000 (or something) mistake that took the life of her patient. Leaving her without the confidence to perform surgery. She still wants to help people and therefore goes into sober companionship which eventually leads to being Holmes's underling.
The characters are burdened by deep emotions that they are constantly fighting in order to save the city suffice it to say.
In Sherlock, the meeting between Holmes and Watson is more of a "just get on with it" sort of deal. As Watson is walking through the park, sees an old friend, who happens to know Sherlock. They are both looking for a roommate and voila..they meet and go on adventures together.
There are other examples but I'll stop there before I spend all night writing!
So CMV, convince me that the BBC version is just as in depth, better, more interesting...what have you more so than elementary.
Yes the subjective nature of the art form is up for debate and that's why you can pick which way you think the BBC version is better than the CBS one. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I should abandon my dog. +
+ One of my dogs has learned that he can jump over the fence from my yard into the street, and he does this reliably if he is left outside for any significant period of time. This by itself would not make me consider getting rid of him, but a few months ago he bit a child walking by my house on the way home from school, and the police have said that if this happens again all of my dogs will be put down.
I wouldn't just take him to some isolated location and drive away like some people do, I would make sure he had a reasonably good home.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Living with your significant other is not a good idea. +
+ I'm pretty liberal with just about all my social views but on this one I'm more conservative. I do not feel this way for religious reasons. Here are my reasons:
**1) It sets a bad frame.** When boyfriends/girlfriends live together, it almost always seems to not end well. Lots of people justify it by saying, "if we get married, we should probably live together first to see if we are compatible this way. After all, if we get married we'll be doing this for the rest of our lives." But this is the wrong frame for approaching marriage.
It's like you're "trying each other out" before committing. Like "well, let's give this a shot to see if I can commit to you." It's like you're just seeing if you could cohabitate with a person you LOVE. As the cheesy saying goes, you know that person is "the one" not because you think you could live with him/her. It's because you know you CAN'T live without him/her. In other words, simply cohabitating is very minor in comparison to the other factors that make a marriage work.
It seems like your mindset is "let's see if we can do this" rather than "I love you and we will make it work together."
**2) It makes marriage almost pointless.** Marriage is an enormous life decision. I agree, some people rush into it too quickly (trust me, I'm from the south- I see it happen all the time). Marriage is not easy- you and your spouse will fight, you will need some alone time, everything becomes "we" rather than "I".
You start a life together. Part of starting a life together means moving in together- sleeping under the same roof, paying the bills together, maybe having kids.
When you're already living together, it's like not much really changes. It sort of devalues the big life change that marriage brings. It's like after the honeymoon, you say "well that was fun" and now you just have a nice ring to wear.
Also, we all know couples fight. It's life. You and your SO will probably fight over petty bullshit that comes with living together. Turning the heat on too high, leaving dirty dishes out, being untidy, issues involving family, partying too much, whatever. Fights happen. Sometimes these fights get nasty and both people need some alone time. I for one LOVE some alone time. Yes, this happens in marriage too, but the thing is, when you get married, you go into it knowing that. You know shit will happen but you COMMIT to one another to love each other no matter what. When you're simply cohabitating, that commitment isn't necessarily there, which brings me to my last point...
**3) It can either end badly or continue on to marriage.** I don't see much middle ground here. And to be honest (apologies to those I offend) I do not have faith that most marriages following cohabitation are healthy. Also, I've heard story after story of unmarried couples living together... then a breakup happens... then months of awkwardness ensue. They have to share a bed (or one sleeps on the couch) while one of them searches for other places to live in the mean time. If it's a really nasty breakup one moves out while still paying half the rent and finding a way to move their shit out of the house/apartment.
One girl I knew who used to live with her boyfriend- her BF's parents owned the apartment and after the breakup she slept on the couch. I went over there once after the breakup and while she and he were at least on talking terms, it was still uncomfortable. He had his friends over and she had hers... and it was like there was an invisible wall in the house. She told us how she was looking for new places and had X weeks to be moved out, etc. etc. etc. It was very strange and just reaffirmed how I never want to do that.
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: Islamophobia is more dangerous than Islam. +
+ To begin with, I am an atheist.
I felt convinced by Sam Harris that Islam was one of the most harmful religions ever until he was on Bill Maher's show. After watching that, and The Young Turks analysis of it, and interview of Reza Azlan, who I think is a liar, I'm no longer so sure.
If someone tells me that my life style, ideology, or whatever is going to destroy the world, I could understand having the perspective that that person is going to kill me unless if I kill them first.
I don't condone any religion, but I think fearing them without adequately understanding them is more dangerous than the religion itself. Of the billion or so Muslims, I truly believe most don't care about apostates and have no desire to strap a bomb to themselves. It seems to me like they are just worried about getting the groceries for their family, trying to get by in this world, which can be very difficult depending on where they are in the world. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Lotteries should not be allowed to advertise an annuity prize as the sum of its payments. +
+ Most prizes in lotteries or contests are actually awarded as an annuity, or series of payments, over a number of years. I see nothing wrong with this -- in fact it is a more responsible reward structure for a lot of people.
What I take issue with is that the prize is advertised as the sum of these payments. Anyone who has an introductory understanding of finance understands that money has a time value; i.e. $1 today is not worth $1 tomorrow. For example, one could say that a $50,000 annuity for 20 years is worth just under $700,000 at 4% interest.
I believe that lotteries should be forced to advertise these prizes as either their present value at the current rate of inflation OR exactly what the payment stream is. The current way is just completely misleading.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I grade assignments, if I can't easily read your writing and find your answer, you shouldn't get credit. +
+ I'm a TA at university and I grade assignments for an undergraduate engineering class. Lots (probably 1/3) of assignments I get are almost completely illegible, lots of scratched out work, and answers to questions are not clearly indicated. Every time I see an assignment like this I would love to put a giant "X" through the page and say "no credit, illegible". However, the professor I work for wants to give credit to everyone who turns in assignments and doesn't want to be any sort of ultra-strict (asshole-ish) prof.
You may say, "j_wult, the legibility/penmanship does not dictate a correct answer! If the answer is right, they should get credit!"
My response is this:
* You are in college, you should have already learned to write legibly
* If your penmanship is that bad, type your homework. It can be done, it may not be fun, but it can be done.
* Homework is about communicating that you know the material and can obtain a correct solution to a problem. If you can't communicate clearly (write clearly) you should not get credit.
* A core of engineering is about communicating. No one cares what you have done/discovered if you cannot properly communicate it to others. So again, if you can't communicate clearly (write clearly) you should not get credit.
I don't want to be the bad guy here, but I can't help it. So 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: It doesn't make sense to sort laundry - just wash everything on cold. +
+ I don't believe it is necessary to carry out the traditional sorting of laundry into whites, colors, etc. I wash everything on cold which means the colored items will not be affected. If I am really concerned that a new (unwashed) colored item will bleed, I will wash it separately before I add it to the general laundry population.
Is there something I am missing? I don't use bleach and don't really care if my whites are extra white. I wash my towels and sheets separately on warmer settings, but this is more just because they require their own load anyway. 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 think that the backlash to Sochi 2014 Olympics over gay rights is more US Russophobic propaganda than genuine concern for human rights. CMV +
+ The reason why I say this, is there are MANY MANY countries in the world that have made homosexuality illegal, even punishable by death or imprisonment: Russia is not one of them.
The US allies and partners Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kenya, UAE, Qatar, India (nominally) Jamaica have made homosexuality a criminal offense! India outlawed homosexuality outright only a month or two ago, and yet the focus is on Sochi because 'The Olympics suddenly make homosexuality punishable by death or imprisonment less important than a vague law that makes homosexual sex practices (this is what the actual law says, I speak Russian, it's on the Kremlin's website if you're interested and can read Russian) being taught to children, when those same people would be killed in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia? Comment sections across the internet on Russophobic articles often echo the same questions (and indeed, many Russians have an increasingly negative view of gay people that ironically didn't exist before because now they see gay NGOs as persecuting them unfairly--and given their lack of activity in Saudi Arabia or Jamaica, they may be right)
Tl;Dr if Obama really cared about gay rights as much as they say they do re: Russia, why doesn't he send an openly gay ambassador to Saudi Arabia, for example? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: In order to obtain the best quality possible, vegetarian food should not attempt to mimic meat in form, taste, etc. +
+ I'm a meat eater. I've been dating a vegetarian for a couple years now. She will often make sandwiches with soy coldcuts, or heat up some veggie "chicken" nuggets. Now I have no problem with vegetarian food. I love tofu. I love seitan. Soy chorizo is amazing. Even those fake "chicken" nuggets don't taste too badly. However, the soy cold cuts? Fakin' bacon? No thanks.
That said, I really believe that vegetarian food should be "doing it's own thing" instead of attempting to mimic meat. I understand some of the reasons for such products; they help meat eaters transition and they also play nicely with existing recipes, items in your pantry, etc. However, in order to elevate vegetarian food, the thought of mimicking meat should be abandoned, vegetarian proteins and other food should be treated as their own ingredient and utilized as such. The desire to mimic meat products often neglects that particular ingredients ideal usage.
I do recognize that there are cases where these concepts overlap and are not mutually exclusive. If an ideal usage of a vegetarian inredient just so happens to be in the same form as a meat product, so be it. Veggie burgers comes to mind; I've had some incredible black bean burgers. But fakin' bacon? Tofu in the shape of a turkey? These are obscenities against food and vegetarians deserve better.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I don't think major sports athletes should be paid as much as they are. +
+ I personally feel that the amount of money they're being paid is too much. Now I'm not trying to be the one to say this from a jealous standpoint because I don't get paid enough from my job. I'm not saying it isn't fair they're paid as much as they are. I'm saying that I think they should be paid a comfortable salary for a nice home and not have to worry about bills and such. But, they shouldn't be paid such gross amounts when that money could be recirculated to help the economy or other critical areas of our nation instead of just hoarding all of it.
Yes, this may sound stupid, but I'd really like some insight as to why sports players deserve the amount of money they're given.
| 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 women should focus on having children in early adulthood rather than careers. CMV +
+ In the current first world model, its becoming normal for women to focus on higher ed and careers in their 20's and then start to think about having children in their late-20's and early 30's, or even later.
I think delaying childbirth is leading to plummeting fertility rates.
This is bad because in the future there will be a large imbalance between tax paying, goods/services producing workers and retirees which will have overall negative consequences.
See here for an explanation: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323375204578270053387770718.html
Also, the population will become genetically inferior for 2 reasons:
(1) More negative mutations will be passed on due to later childbirth
(2) The women most likely to follow this trend are higher IQ, conscientious women. So, they are having few children than lower IQ, lower conscientious women leading to an "Idiotocracy."
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgenics
I believe its ok for women to focus on children earlier because they live longer than men, so its not such a big deal if they start their careers later.
So, to sum up: Having children earlier makes use of more of a woman's fertile years --> more likely to have more children --> adverts negative consequences of greater retiree/worker ratio and strengthens genetics of the population
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 don't believe the calculation of child support should be tied to income. +
+ I have seen a lot of CMV posts about opting out of child support entirely, but I have a slightly different perspective on the issue and would be interested to hear opposing views.
From what I've read about child support calculation there are a variety of models used by different states and different countries, but the common thread between all of them is income. Some also consider age of the child, difference in income between parents, standard of living adjustments, etc.
In theory I get it, but the implications in practice really bother me and I think the basis behind the laws regulating child support calculation are a little outdated and unfair.
Here's a summary of my objections:
* Above a certain amount why should income be taken into account? For example, let's consider two friends Jane and Anna. Jane has a baby with her ex-boyfriend who earns $25k per year and Anna has a baby with her ex-boyfriend who earns $150k per year. Assuming both women have similar incomes and lifestyles before children, most child support calculations would award Anna much more child support than Jane. But why? Is Anna's child more deserving of money than Jane's child?
* Why should calculations assume a relationship or marriage? Many child support calculations are based on the income that would have been dedicated to the child if the parents lived together. If a woman gets pregnant from a one night stand or a non-serious relationship, why should there be any assumption by the courts that the parents would have lived together and raised the child together? A married couple living together with children spend their income differently than single people without children. So why should a relationship be assumed and considered when it did not exist in the first place?
* Why is standard of living important? Some child support calculations take into account the accustomed or increased standard of living when calculating support amounts. Let's be honest here, is there ever really a need for $5k per month in child support? Just because someone is wealthy, why does that mean they are automatically expected to provide a high level of financial support to their children. Where exactly is that money going? In most cases it isn't all going to the child and I think that is problematic. The point of child support money is for support of the child, not the creation of an expensive lifestyle for the child and custodial parent.
In my opinion, a basic formula should be developed (adjusted for cost of living by area) that accounts for the average amount required to support a child's basic monthly needs at varying age levels. This amount would take into account food, transportation, clothing, medical and other miscellaneous expenses. The child support amount could be then simply read off a table rather than dedicating time and resources into courts and legal decisions.
If this amount is more than 15% of monthly net income, the child support paying parent would be limited to pay 15% as support for that child. A parent shouldn't be struggling financially to pay their own bills in order to be able to keep up with child support payments.
For parents where this amount is less than 15% of monthly net income, they would pay the set amount as given by the formula.
If parents have 50/50 joint custody, there would be no child support awarded, because both parents should be equally supporting the child. For other custody situations the child support amount would be calculated down or up based on custody percentage.
So am I missing something here? To me what I've described above seems to be a much fairer system than the way child support is currently calculated. So please, CMV.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
University system (in the US) is an enormous scam that focuses on separating as much money from you as possible instead of quality education. CMV +
+ My experience thus far in University has been incredibly disappointing. The majority of my professors are not efficient teachers of their respective subjects. Each year the required books for the courses are updated (rarely have I been able to use the same book twice.. I don't understand how basic math/science can change every year..) and are extremely expensive. I am forced to pay extra (on top of my tuition) to have access to online homework that is required for the course. Every professor seems to have a different system to disseminate information, so I have to keep track of 4-5 different websites just to ensure I don't miss an important announcement or assignment. Many times I feel I am paying thousands of dollars to be told to teach myself. Much of the subject matter is available online, for free.. and it is presented in a MUCH better format (kahn academy, code academy, w3 schools etc...). Such a high priority is placed on grades and exams (above functional knowledge of the material), that I've observed many students taking shortcuts just to keep their GPA up, and not really learning the material in a useful way.
That being said, I do not think that the entire experience is worthless.. I have met some great people, and learned from some good teachers. Unfortunately this experience has been the exception, not the rule.
I feel that since a University is the only place you can officially earn a degree, they have a captive audience (one that has been indoctrinated by years of 'Go to college or you'll be a bum' propaganda). I feel they take advantage of this fact in an attempt to extract enormous amounts of money (that place students in crippling dept).
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 most higher education is useless, given today's horrible economy. CMV +
+ Here's where I got this idea from. I originally was going to major in a science field, but my school was very rigorous and I flunked out. I was desperate to pass college, so I majored in a liberal arts field instead. When I got out of college, I couldn't get a job and so I had to sell my soul to the military.
This experience has made me resent my higher education. My school always told its students "don't major in what makes money. Major in what you like." Well, I followed their advice and it caused me to move back in with my parents and get rejected from every job interview I got, and I got a lot of them too. I now consider my school's views to be propaganda, and I no longer associate with my alumni or wear my class ring. I think unless you're going to major in something practical, like business, education, or a STEM field, you shouldn't even bother with college at all. I think all majors that have a high enough post-graduate unemployment rate should be abolished. If I ever have children and they tell me they want to major in something useless like that, I won't help them with their tuition. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
A psychedelic experience is a Qualia, therefore the opinions on it of those who haven't gone through one is illegitimate and irrelevant, similar with a deaf guy trying to narrate by gestures a musical symphony to other deaf guys. CMV +
+ Those who have gone through a psychedelic experience know that those moments are hard, if not impossible to put into words, and any attempt to convey their experience to others doesn't make any justice to what they had really felt and saw and thought. During a full blown trip one surpasses all the borders of any mundane experience.
All the guys that had their first experience admitted that it had been something absolutely different from what they had ever imagined before.
Still, there are people who didn't try it but still make assumptions, speculations and look like they understand what would happen if they did it.
So, is there any way for a guy who didn't go through a psychedelic experience to understand what is it like? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Naturopaths should not be allowed a legal title or designation. +
+ By granting protected titles such as Naturopathic Doctor (ND, NMD), we lend credibility to a field plagued with pseudoscience and practices of unproven or disproven efficacy.
This appearance of credibility leads some people to avoid proven medical treatment in favour of superstition simply because they are suspicious of that which they do not understand.
This is harmful to the people not getting proper care, but also harmful to society as a whole as it creates a barrier to education by reinforcing the idea that different beliefs should carry the same weight, despite vastly different supporting evidence. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I'm beginning to dislike the United States, it's culture, and the general temperament of it's citizens. +
+ I'm in my mid 20's, white male, and have lived in America for about 75-ish percent of my life. The other portion of my life has been spent travelling abroad due personal reasons. Because of this, I've experienced many quirks and cultural attitudes that, when compared to the U.S., is, I suppose, mostly "humble". My general view on Americans is this (I'm a U.S. citizen myself btw), I feel as tough American citizens feel as though they are the lead characters of their own lives, or in other words, feel they deserve to "win" in life which comes off as arrogant. Not to say people dont deserve to achieve happiness, that yearning to be successful is something I myself share. It's the attitude and psychology associated with Americans thinking that they can be anything they want to be when they grow up I have a problem with.
American culture is also something I have a disdain for. whether it be the political landscape, mainstream entertainment, or just the social attitudes American's have in public. Again, just as before, this sort of mindset of how each individual is somehow special in some arbitrary way is mirrored in popular movies, music, and books. In politics (although I really love our politics...so exciting!) has come down to two sides and two sides only. We claim we live in a democratic country but in hindsight it's next to impossible for any alternative political movement to enter the mainstream. Despite this we still claim to be "free" when in fact the U.S. is already ruled by a ideological King.
And lastly, Western temperament. Whether Americans like it or not the rest of the world sees us as very "optimistic". I've lived in the UK and people their have this sort of lovingly teasing way of talking about Americans. They dont hate us or anything. It's more like "can't live with them, can't live without them" sort of manner. But my personal problem with American temperament is that the mindset of this nation truly believes to be above everyone else. American temperament lacks humility and harbors a large ego and yet is always happy, this in itself is probably why the rest of the world looks at westerners as "a bit slow" (in a stereotypical sense). I can really put my finger on it but all I can say is I understand how looking at America from the outside feels. so yes, 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? |
The oral tradition of mythology, and the surrounding celebrations is something that has no secular equivalent. CMV. +
+ I am an agnostic atheist and would even call myself antitheist, but my folks were religious. Not very, and they never forced stuff on me.
http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1bki6u/i_think_that_all_religion_is_bad_and_should_never/c97i69h
Is a description of my experience with it growing up.
Now I like the fact that these festivals existed and people take time to celebrate them.
It's kind of like a fan convention - with great food and celebration.
Diwali, Holi, Christmas, Eid and many more.
***Perhaps*** you can say Halloween, but it is a very exclusionary holiday (kids trick or treat, teens are in some weird limbo, college kids go crazy and it is less accepting of older people).
Thanksgiving is based on questionable grounds and is - in my opinion - rather dull.
No; not 4th of July.
The gift exchanges and such (not SS) give me some hope for secular celebration (of sorts), but it is too limited in scope and definitely doesn't have the scale.
Perhaps you will regale me of historical celebrations. I would love to hear of them, but they don't seem to currently exist really and there don't seem to be any interest in setting them up.
I suppose carnivals and concerts - but relatively these too are limited in scope.
Anyway - I am of course assuming that these things are interesting and fun and shouldn't go away so saying "good riddiance" is not a convincing argument. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Graveyards are a waste of land and a new approach to handling bodies should be adapted, rather than continuing a superstitious tradition. +
+ I saw a beautiful plot of land to day that would be great to build a house on. However, scattered across the green grass were hundreds of presumably 50+ year old gravestones. Does anyone remember these people? Unlikely. We don't need our bodies anymore after we die, why can't we find a more efficient solution while still keeping grieving loved ones comforted? If cremation is the answer, how do we make it more socially acceptable and commonplace?
Additionally, how can we reclaim old burial grounds without an uprising of suddenly-nostalgic people? I've heard that there are companies that get paid to remove old caskets and "replant" them in other graveyards. Really? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The word "thug" is not racist and is not comparable to the N-Word +
+ A lot of people on the left claim that saying "thug" is the same thing as the "N-Word", and claim that it's just offensive. I, even though am a liberal, disagree.
[Article that criticises the usage of the word thug](http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/baltimore-official-battles-cnn-host-just-call-rioters-if-youre-going-to-call-them-thugs/)
The definition of "thug" is: a violent person, especially a criminal.
With the synonyms of: ruffian, hooligan, vandal, hoodlum, gangster, villain, criminal
When someone says "thug" or any of the synonyms, I don't think they are referring to a race of people. Actually, I've heard the term "thug" to describe corrupt politicians, CEOs, and other people in power. I do, however, believe that "ghetto" is pretty racist, but that's a different argument.
In my opinion, whenever the media uses the word "thug", I don't think they're being racist. I think they're often talking about people who commit violent crimes, regardless of race.
For those who STILL think it's bad as the N-Word; Have anyone of you ever heard the term "thug" to describe a law-abiding PoC (person of color)? I know I haven't. But I have heard racist people call Obama and other law-abiding PoC the N-Word.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Anyone should be able to opt out of Social Security if they want to. +
+ I firmly believe that there should be a law allowing anyone who wishes to opt out of social security to do so. Social Security forces people to contribute money to those currently retired with the promise that future generations will contribute money to them when they retire.
In this way, ones "saves" for his or her retirement. Why should we, as individuals, be forced to "save" if we don't want to? Or, why should be be forced to "save" in a certain way. My money may be more valuable to me right now, or it may be more valuable to me in the future if I invest it, put it in a 401K, etc.
I could argue about the return rates, whether or not the program is doomed to fail, etc, but I want to keep this to a discussion of the morals of the program.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Students with learning disabilities should not be given special accommodations for exams, and doing so does them a disservice, because in the real world employers won't give you special accommodations for things that impact your work +
+ In school there were lots of people who got extra time on exams (or even exams in a different format entirely) for reasons like having learning disorders, dyslexia, ADHD, etc. I contend that this is doing a disservice to those students, because rather than teaching them effective coping strategies to deal with the same kinds of things as everyone else, it's giving them special treatment that they won't get out in the real world.
I started thinking about this recently because I've been doing a lot of interviews for potential developer hires at my job recently, and none of us has ever even considered giving special accommodation to anyone. Everyone gets the same format of interview, and if you needed a lot more time to solve the problems we give for some reason, that probably means you'll take a lot more time to solve similar programming problems in the real workplace, meaning you'd be a slow developer and we wouldn't want you! I haven't heard of any employer anywhere giving special accommodations in interviews, as the interviews are intended to measure the performance that you'd expect out of the interviewee on the actual job.
What's the point of coddling students when they're young if those accommodations abruptly end as soon as the student graduates? It seems to me like we're setting them up for failure. The transition between schooling and working should be a smooth one, not a chasm so vast that it is unbridgeable. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I refuse to work minimum wage because I know I can do better if I put some thought into it +
+ I refuse to work for 8$ an hour. The work is usually menial and grueling. They are rarely things I am passionate about. I once worked a minimum wage job over the summer and it was extremely boring and felt pointless. I came to this conclusion as a consequence from working that job.
My viewpoint has pushed me to work harder to find better opportunities. For example, I always strive for better paying jobs by searching through multiple mediums (web, newspaper, friends, etc.). I also once came up with my own lesson plan to teach junior high students which landed me 20$ an hour. I sell things on the internet for profit. I own stocks and do market research. I also simultaneously have MORE time for personal use such as reading, leisure etc. If I want to go to the library, I can. If I want to hang out with friends, I can because I don't have to work a grueling night shift for measly pay. If I settled for a minimum wage job, I never would have pushed myself to find better opportunities out there which takes time and effort. By the way, I am 19.
I'm asking because it seems like my view point is offending a lot of people. I think it is because some of them work for near minimum wage and they believe I am looking down on them as people. I never judge people for working minimum wage, if it works for them, I respect that. But for me, I set a higher standard for myself to meet for my own good, and that's something I believe in.
CMV reddit? Am I a prick?
-ehnree
| 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 the emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, “it’s a girl.” CMV +
+ This is because, there are set stereotypes for women in our society. They are expected to be skinny and good looking. This has caused depression as well as eating disorders in millions of teenage and middle aged women around the globe. From the day a women is introduced into the world, they have a set path that society says they must follow (They are expected to be good cooks, cleaners, wives). If women do not abide by these gender roles their sexuality is questioned. Women are often viewed as objects by men in highly paid positions. They are expected to be there as a comforting/babymaking machine. In society women are still treated as inferiors to men in the workplace. This is shown on the internet, where men can hide behind computer screens and take out their anger on the progress that feminism has had.
CMV | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
Arrest records shouldn't exist - CMV +
+ Conviction records are fine, but I'm opposed to arrest records.
If you were arrested and convicted, great, that goes on your conviction record. If you were arrested and found not guilty, or the DA decided that there wasn't even enough evidence to bother prosecuting then I feel that it shouldn't be held against you.
Police can literally arrest you for anything, at any time. To counterbalance that, the obligation is on the state to prove guilt, rather than the accused to prove innocence. I feel that having a record of arrests sways officer judgement, perhaps leading to more arrests, and can potentially have negative impacts on employment opportunities for people that were ultimately acquitted.
Alternatively, I'd be okay with arrest records if there were harsh penalties implemented for police officers with low conviction rates for their arrests. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I believe condescending sarcasm and snark can be valid in discussion, particularly in relation to this subreddit. CMV. +
+ Recently I got into a discussion(argument) with some folks in a CMV. Par for the course. As the conversation progressed I eventually turned to snarky, or condescending sarcasm to make a point to my opposite. This resulted in him reporting the comment(Or maybe a mod just saw it, not really important) and a mod stepping in to address rule VII on the sidebar, that the comment was ruled rude or hostile.
Now I am declining to link the actual comment because I don't want this discussion to be about whether or not I was in the right in that particular situation; rather this is a conversation of a broader nature.
**Is snark or sarcasm valid in a subreddit that tries to breed intellectual conversation**?
The Mod said snarkiness only breeds more snarkiness, which is why he wishes to discourage it.
Meanwhile I believe that snark and sarcasm is the most appropriate and effective method for bringing certain aspects of a disagreement to light. In this case, I felt my questions were being dodged by my opposite and I condescendingly remarked "Oh, I assumed you actually read the conversation, my bad".
I can see quite clearly how this can degenerate a conversation, but as a purely situational and responsive mechanism, I believe snark and sarcasm is valid in a place that tries to foster intellectual debate. Intellectuals are the most sarcastic people I know anyway. CMV! | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I am a Black Make who does not believe drunk sex is rape. CMV. +
+ Don't misunderstand me please. I believe date rape is totally, of course, rape. But as long as the woman/man is sober enough to give consent, it isn't just rape. If we can say that men/women aren't responsible for their consent when they are drunk then we risk redfining the definition of murder, because murder implies intent, right? Would we call every drunken fight that ends with one person dead just manslaughter? please 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 think that war is good. CMV +
+ I understand that this subreddit's potential is great, and that this topic exposes great sores. But I have given a delta as well as received them, and I assert that this is *not* a devils-advocate post and I *shall* change my view if shown how. I am a tormented person who wants peace.
I feel that true understanding demands the contemplation of the unthinkable, so here is my hypothesis:
War is the human equivalent of forest fires.
In spite of incredible suffering, to a degree that no sane person can desire, war will, nonetheless, burn away stagnation and leave opportunities for the survivors to re-shape the future in a way that isn't otherwise possible.
Just as forest fires will eradicate old growth and make it possible for new plants, with new genes and genetic combinations, to grow in an environment where the sunlight isn't stolen by elder oaks and maples (yep, I'm a Rush fan with a copy of *Hemispheres*), war is a necessary intervention in human evolution. There must be periods where both stagnant bloodlines and stale hierarchies are swept away to let something newer and more vibrant grow in its place, even though the process is horrific.
I think war is a natural process, and I think it will continue to occur, and I think it's an ugly necessity for progress.
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? |
[Mod Post] Minor changes, feedback needed, + looking for 2 mods! +
+ **This is Mod post 39. You can read the previous Mod Post by clicking [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1mob2z/mod_post_deltabot_programmers_needed_link_to_the/), or by visiting the [Mod Post Archive](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modpostarchive) in our wiki.**
Hey /r/changemyview subscribers! We haven't made any major changes in while since we're pretty comfortable with the way things are right now. That being said we're always looking for ways to improve the subreddit.
Most of the latest improvements have been behind-the-scenes. I'll list some of the changes here as well as some changes we've discussed so that we can get your feedback.
---
*Current Changes*
* **1: The delta scoreboard is now listed as a monthly leaderboard.**
* Why? To give new users a shot at making the leaderboard.
* Your total delta score still exists in the subreddit's flair system. We will have a page for the top all-time leaderboard as well. Note that we don't actually have a page for this at the time, however, pulling the flairs from the subreddit and sorting them is trivial.
* **2: Wiki visual changes**
* Why? The popular topics wiki was hard to read. We're trying to fix that.
---
*Feedback*
* **Please note: we've already discussed these ideas in depth for a long time now. We're getting some final opinions from you all before we choose what to implement.**
* **1a: Should OP be required to participate in CMV threads? And if they do not, what do we do?**
* Why? This is something a few users have been asking for for a long time now. We've debated whether or not to do this (and how we would do it), but now we know for certain that we can do this. Using a bot and the flair system, we can monitor when OPs post replies to their own threads.
* Thus: **tell us what you think below!** Should we remove these posts?
* **1b: Instead of the above, should we implement a flair filter system?**
* What do I mean by this? Check /r/relationships for an example. Posts can be given a flair, and based on this one can search for posts that fit topics they like. Since this requires using flairs, the flair filtering can't coexist with 1a. The categories we would use are found in the Popular Topics wiki. ex: the Social Justice tag would cover issues such as gender, human sexuality, race, etc.
* **2: What to do about TCMV Tuesday?**
* Unfortunately, these posts aren't very popular, even when stickied to the top of the page. We're looking for suggestions on how to improve these posts (change of topic? change of day? etc.) so they can be more interesting for you all.
---
*Upcoming changes*
* **More mods**
* **If you want to help mod, and ESPECIALLY if you're living in Europe or Asia, please leave a comment below! Prior mod experience not necessary.**
* Why? Don't you have enough?
* Recently, the reddit admins have allowed us to change the spam filter strength by post type. This means we can set all posts to be spam-filtered the moment they are posted, and they can be subject to moderator approval before they show up in the new queue. There are MAJOR advantages to this, as well as some possible disadvantages. I will briefly outline the pros and cons.
* **Pros**:
* Troll posts = effectively gone. You will have to try really hard and be extremely convincing to troll this sub. (No this is not a challenge to try it, that's an easy way to get banned.)
* No more annoying bot messages, and no more having to re-post multiple times. This has unfortunately caused a few people to give up posting. We don't want our bot to drive away good posters!
* Removal of rule E. This was a catch-all rule to ensure a minimum level of depth, but since mods will individually approve posts, we can subjectively allow posts that we think are okay.
* **Cons**:
* More work (for us). **That's why we would need more mods.** Every single post would have to be approved by one of us. Fortunately we're not a super high traffic sub, so I don't think this will pose too much of a problem.
* Even if your post meets all the criteria, you might have to wait a little bit for your post to be approved. The same is true of other subs that do this, like /r/askscience.
*Hopefully if this change isn't too taxing on us, then we'll permanently switch to manually approving each post!*
---
Sorry for such a long post, but it's been awhile since we've had a feedback and general what's new thread like this. I'll leave this post up for a few days so people can get their say in! Thanks!
- The mods of /r/changemyview
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
[META] Casual AMAA of the CMV mods +
+ Hello everyone. These are the mods of CMV, and we thought it would be fun to have a small casual AMAA.
Ask us about your concerns with the sub, ask us about our modding philosophies, tell us about ideas you have for the sub, berate us about what terrible mods we are, tell us how awesome we were, etc. etc.
We both thought this would be a bit of fun, and help us get an idea of how you guys think the sub is being run.
Ask away!
Remember the mods are volunteers, so all of them may not be available to answer your questions as we are not all on at the same time, but we will all try our best to answer your questions.
A bit about some of the mods (and we'll add more as more join us):
**PepperoniFire** - Moderator for nine months. Loves goldfish crackers and bubblegum.
**Grunt08** - Moderator for several months. Called a Nazi on his first comment removal, haunts him to this day.
**PixelOrange** - I primarily work behind the scenes. I mostly support DeltaBot. I'm currently working on new code for him in my free time. Ask me DeltaBot questions!
**GameboyPATH** - Occasionally appears from the shadows to do this whole "mod" thing. Also loves goldfish crackers.
**cwenham** - I'm the one who removed your post. Biased against everything. Will probably write a memoir about all this, someday.
**howbigis1gb** - Mod for 7 months. I like the place, and often have harebrained ideas for the place. I like Daim candy.
**GnosticGnome** - I like cheese and chocolate. Also salt. Definitely salt.
**hacksoncode** - I always shout the words "BACON!!!" and "SCIENCE!!!!"
**convoces** - Moderator for 12 months. King of pedantry. No fun allowed.
**TryUsingScience** - I come up with ideas like Fresh Topic Friday and don't actually do any real work. Sometimes I try to convince people that you can be religious and also not an idiot.
Here is a full list of the moderators:
http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/about/moderators | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
There are way too many people in universities. The 'degree' is inflated. CMV. +
+ These days you need a degree for almost anything. Thousands of kids are stuck into thousands of colleges, who have no idea why they are there and end up taking whatever classes just to get their degree: no Passion needed. Then you have thousands of kids with useless philosophy or poli sci degrees trying to get jobs. As a result, there are kids that actually want to learn a particular class, but have to be squeezed into a 600 person lecture hall... the degree is now somewhat inflated and is experiencing a loss of meaning.
some qualifications:
my beef also includes the fact that im thousands of dollars in debt, with little job opportunity. I love what I study, but i paid way too much for it. Also I'm getting a lot of hate because of my views on education, first I believe in education for educations sake, and also, I have a philosophy degree. | 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 care about the environment. The human race is going extinct, it's just a matter of time, and it's not going to happen within my lifetime. CMV +
+ I really don't care about how much carbon dioxide emissions I contribute to. I don't care that the meat industry is bad for the environment. I almost only think about myself when choosing what to eat, what to buy, when I drive to places. I have seen graphs of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, and I've seen "An Inconvenient Truth", and I have friends who try to push me to eat less meat (even become a vegetarian).
I'm slightly ashamed of it, but I really can't find the motivation to care. 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 think pre-order bonuses is one of the worst things to ever plague gaming culture. CMV +
+ There's a few reasons
* It discourages informed purchases. I've pre ordered games because of how essential the extra content seemed, and then ended up really not liking the game. I probably wouldn't have bought the game had I had more information about it. (Assassin's Creed 3 for anyone who's wondering)
* It (sometimes) results in an incomplete game for anyone who doesn't pre-order it. This isn't always true, but sometimes the 'bonus' is a lot more than some skins or a new level. Arkham City (and now Arkham Origins) cut extra playable characters from their game.
* It divides the community. Again, this is much more prominent with games give really essential content as a pre-order bonus, but it's hard to talk about something when you and the other person got two different things. For me Arkham City had 3 playable characters. For my friend it had one. Go figure, I thought that game had a lot more replay value.
* Sometimes it's impossible to get the entire game because different stores give different bonuses. This is also further community dividing, people who bought the best-buy version of the game might have a different experience than the people who bought it from gamestop.
Pre-order bonuses a shitty. CMV. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
There is a strong incentive to discriminate against gays and blacks in hiring for small businesses, and in some cases women & religious. CMV +
+ * Fair hiring laws exist
* These laws give legal teeth to people of protected classes
* There are often equally qualified candidates that are not of protected classes
* Lawsuits of these types are often hard to defend, even when firings are justified
* It is orders of magnitude more difficult for people of protected classes to file a lawsuit successfully that they were not hired because of this reason
* It is more likely that a person of a protected class will threaten or file a lawsuit if hired and then fired, than a lawsuit is filed for not being hired.
* Protected class members are more likely to associate their firing to their protected class
* I am unconvinced "diversity" is a tangible benefit when the liabilities are very real and measurable.
Therefor it is logical that when a candidate of protected class presents themselves as being equally qualified to a non-protected class candidate, the logical hiring choice is to discriminate.
In small companies this is easy to get away with and certainly the smarter business move. Since hiring liabilities have a disproportionate impact on the long term viability of a business when it is small. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I absolutely could not care less if girls play video games or not, or if people are mean to them while playing. +
+ For the first part: I don't care if girls do or don't play games. From girls who game to gamer girls to girls who are discouraged from playing, its no skin off my nose whether the faceless person on the other end of the internet has a penis or a vagina, so encouraging or discouraging them really means nothing to me. Even if every girl were to go Amish right now, my gaming experience would not change in any way, as there are millions of guys playing already. Expanding the market only matters to companies, and those companies will continue to cater to my demographic anyway.
For the second part: gamers are mean and vulgar. You put people who are generally impotent in real life (kids, nerds, etc) and give them an anonymous way to vent, they're going to be vicious. Its like the porch scene in fight club: if they're fat, they're fucking whales. If they're old, they're fucking loser grandparents. If they're kids, they're babies. And if they're better than you, they're cheating faggots. Also more racism than at... Some... Really racist place.
The girls who complain (or actually, if you look carefully, the people who complain on behalf of those girls) just make female gamers look like a bunch of whiny brats who want special treatment.
So CMV: It doesn't matter whether girls play games and people shouldn't ask the section of arbitrarily hostile gamers to censor themselves and be nice to girls because they're girls (implying they can't take 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 that people complain about the "fake girl gamer" shaming trend GREATLY outnumber those who actually participate in it. CMV +
+ I don't want to be stuck in my own little bubble anymore. I'm an active gamer and I have NEVER heard anybody bash a female cosplayer, gamer, fangirl because she's a girl. Yet every single day (I wish I was exaggerating) I see at least one post on Reddit or my Facebook saying that men should be ashamed of themselves for how we treat girl gamers.
When I play COD and I hear a girls voice, nobody gives her a hard time. When I play league and a girl announces her gender, no guy says "oh shit, she's gonna feed, GG". Am I just EXTREMELY lucky that I've dodged this apparently rampant problem my whole life? | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Piracy is not wrong. +
+ I do not think piracy is wrong. Before I continue, I only think piracy is not wrong when limited to personal use. When you make money from another's work, that is wrong.
Many consider it stealing, even though stealing implies that the original owner loses the "stolen" object, which is not the case when downloading a movie/TV show.
Another argument can be said that since you downloaded something, such as a movie, the owner loses out on revenue, since the pirate is less likely to buy the media. I do not believe this to be universally true for two reasons: first, after you are done watching something, you are likely to talk about it with others, increasing the chance of them buying the media. Second, there is no guarantee you will buy the pirated media in the first place, making this argument a moot point in some cases.
Also, by the logic that pirating something will make the owner lose out on revenue, this would mean that borrowing a movie from a friend, or checking out a book from a library should be equally morally reprehensible and illegal.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
There is nothing wrong with following speed limit laws regardless of the lane you are driving in, CMV +
+ I do my best to follow all speed limit laws (mostly because I don't want to get a ticket), and I am getting tired of people telling me that I am driving dangerously on the freeway when I am driving at 65mph in any lane but the far right lane.
The argument I always hear is that I am impeding the flow of traffic.
The flow of legal traffic maxes out at the speed limit. If I am traveling at the speed limit, I am only impeding the ability of others to travel faster than is allowed by law. I am not trying to regulate their speed or act as a vigilante speed enforcer or anything, but I do not want my own driving to be regulated either, regardless of common practice. Any danger caused by our discrepancy in speed should be attributed to the driver that is breaking the law.
A person that disagrees with speed limit law should try to make changes through the appropriate government channels rather than trying to persuade cautious and law-abiding drivers to change their practice.
In case it is important, I live in Southern California. And for the record, I do try to leave a lane or two open to the left of me on freeways to appease faster drivers, but I don't like it. On surface streets, I do not speed up or change lanes (unless I need to in order to get where I'm going) when someone who wants to go faster is behind me. I drive Price-is-Right style: as close as I can safely get to the speed limit, but not over.
| 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 'culture' around alcohol is extremely toxic and needs to be fixed. CMV +
+ To start of, I realize how difficult of an issue this is. Banning alcohol flat-out would only cause problems and probably more than I know of, but my opinion is that the 'culture' we have built around alcohol in western society (I'm Western European, if anyone's interested) is very toxic to our every day life and especially children growing up.
My background preceding this view is, I think, important. So I'll start of with that. I grew up in a small village where alcohol and straight alcoholism is not treated as much of a big deal. In fact, people fail to recognize alcholism and problem-drinkers so extremely much that my own mother has grown up into extreme alcoholism without ever getting the help she has been needing for over at least 40 years. It has affected both herself and those close to her, including me. She has recently confessed to me that her problem had been going on for this long and that the people around her in her youth (my guess would be early 20's) thought her attitude towards alcohol was cool.
This is not rare. Especially villages have the risk of getting into extreme alcoholism and though I know I live in one of the worst places when it come to this issue (I have actually looked at statistics), I think it does highlight in a hyperbolic way how toxic the culture we live in can be to many people. Having grown up with an alcoholic has made me very sensitive to the signs of alcoholism and I recognize it a lot easier than most. My offers of help would be dismissed and ridiculed.
People who don't drink are called 'straight-edge', but not in a good way. I have made my own conscious decision to not drink, because doing so would be triggering to me. I couldn't hang around people who drink or casually go to a party without it being forced on me. I have had people get legitimately angry at me for not drinking. I 'spoil the fun', I'm prude and I'm boring. I am apparently not allowed to have fun without getting drunk.
I think every one of you at least knows someone who has a problem with alcohol and maybe even had it themselves. In how many of those cases did these people have to get into an accident, have to go through something horrible before they would get help?
In my opinion, the way we glorify alcohol in the media contributes to how hard it is for these people to get help. Commercials for alcohol are full of objectification of women and machismo. They target people who naively buy into the image of the charming man who is succesful with women. Drinking away problems is almost encouraged in some cases. I am not completely against any positive portrayal of alcohol, but I think there's a great lack of nuance.
Having said all that, I am still open to opposing views and hope to see if anyone has any information I'm missing that might get me to 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 think Feminism is a form of slave morality. CMV. +
+ It is my position that Feminism is an example of *slave morality*, and that as such can only serve to empower women in direct proportion to the amount of actual gender-based oppression they experience, and that in the absence of a strong, coherent and concrete male master class, the inherent re-sentiment of feminism is incapable of empowering anyone.
What I mean is that as a society approaches equality, the tools feminism provides for the empowerment of women become increasingly less useful and ineffective. I would argue that we have already reached and passed the point in history (at least in the West) at which feminisms diminishing returns become overwhelmed by the inherent limiting nature of slave morality.
Slave morality is fundamentally disempowering because slave morality makes no allowances for the possibility of a person to act on their own agency and exercise their will to power. Slave morality, but its nature, must necessarily condemn agency and the will to power, as these are the hallmarks of the Master class, and the primary purpose of slave morality is to demonize the Master class.
Thus feminism has no concept of healthy masculinity, seeing masculinity as only a symptom of the Master and thus seeing all hallmarks of masculinity as oppressive. This is highly problematic, since traditional masculinity is a form of master morality intended to prepare boys for their potential roles as leaders of men.
Thus, traditional masculinity places extreme emphasis on personal responsibility for one's actions, honor as an assurance of good faith and trustworthiness, and stoicism in the face of hardship and pain. The man who whines constantly about his disadvantages, blames others for his failures, and insists on being rewarded and praised for existing is defined by traditional masculinity as a loser, as not really a man.
A generation of women who came of age in a time when legal and social barriers made it impossible for women to excel developed feminism as a critique and deconstruction of traditional masculine gender bias, and launched a widespread series of social changes that resulted in full legal equality for women. The generation that followed them was raised, male and female alike, with a belief in social equality.
Yet, women do not yet posses equality of *outcomes* with men. Men are still more likely to hold political power and economic power. Why is this? My suggestion is that it is due largely to feminism, which has failed to adjust its central premises in the face of the end of institutional inequality.
Why are there fewer women in political office than men? Recent studies have shown little evidence of gender bias amongst voters, and the problem seems to largely come down to one single factor: **Women just don't run for office very often.** In fact, if women had won every single race they participated in during the 2012 elections (which they very nearly did), the make-up of the government would still have been overwhelmingly male.
The traditional feminism response is to seek out blame and find an oppressive force working against women, except there isn't anything there to find. What's lacking is encouragement to women to seek power. Something which, not surprisingly, is fundamentally at odds with the worldviews that feminism derives from, in which seeking power is Master morality and inherently anti-feminist.
Thus, strangely, we see some unusual trends in society. For example, Republican women candidates are, [according to surveys](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/11/25/why-did-women-do-so-well-in-2012-because-gender-bias-is-declining/), seen as more competent and more qualified as leaders than Democratic women. I would suggest this is due to the fact that Republican women tend to reject the *Woman As Victim, Male As Victimizer* model of feminism, and instead see themselves as true equals of men -- every bit as capable of acting on their ambitions and pursuing their will to power as men are. Meanwhile, Democratic women are more likely to embrace feminism and portray women as victims of society, which in turn makes them seem less powerful (as powerful people do not see themselves as victims).
Thus it is my position that modern women, faced with the reality of political and social equality, will never gain equality of outcomes unless they abandon feminism. So long as they rail against an oppressive state that no longer exists, they cannot truly empower women. Instead, they can only turn their energies towards more and more frivilous and meaningless displays of "oppression."
This is most vividly seen in the blogs of "Tumblr feminists" -- young women who, rather than embracing the tremendous freedoms they have and seeking to make meaningful careers for themselves, instead assign themselves to perpetual victimhood. They make charting their own victimization, mapping the intersections of their oppression, their primary hobby. Rather than empower themselves, they scream at the world "Why won't you empower me!!!"
And no wonder, when the philosophy they embrace defines being a victim as the highest good. People seek to be good, and if you teach them that being good is being a victim, they will devote their energies not to improving their own standing and achieving their dreams, but rather to proving that they are, in fact, a victim. This leads only to "oppression olympics," where different historical out-groups fight amongst themselves over who is the most oppressed, and meanwhile the straight, white men they villify continue to run the world -- because those straight, white men are the only ones actually expressing any interest in running it.
The modern feminist engages constantly in pointless, aggravating and irritating actions that only serve to make feminism increasingly irrelevant. Examples would include silly, incomprehensible and pointless forms of protest such as "Slut Walks," [censorship campaigns](http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/12/robin-thicke-blurred-lines-banned-another-university) to ban Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" (a song that literally has *nothing* to do with rape), and [idiotic complaints](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/feminists-protest-life-size-barbie-dreamhouse-berlin-article-1.1346327) about Barbie (quite possibly the most empowered fictional woman to ever exist).
I don't expect this to change any time soon, nor do I expect women to make any significant advances as a class, until the slave-morality of feminism is set aside and a new philosophy, a philosophy of the *Uberfrau*, develops to take its place.
But please, feel free to 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: Power is good. Greed is good. +
+ I believe power is good because it allows one who has proper self-control and a proper feel of responsibility to do godly things. Like fund research for immortality, or create a gigantic statue just to have it destroyed, to show how much power they have.
I believe *controlled* greed is good because it leads to a craving for more everything. Controlled, I believe it leads to a constant reminder of what one should do with their life as opposed to what they are doing right now.
Why do I believe this? Because I want to be perfect, I want to be godly. I want to get to the point where people work for me, where I would just have to say the word "make this" and this would be done without any effort done in my part.
Change my view, please. Tell me how and why this is wrong.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
I'm really tired of US veteran "touching" stories like they are heroes, after all they are overseas delivering death for oil and strategic geo-political conquers. The only true US heroes were the ones that served on WW2. CMV +
+ The only true US heroes were the ones that served on WW2, they served a purpose. A noble one. Nowadays US troops are deployed as killing machines, they are usually young and don't know much about US foreign policy or just need the money... ok I get it. So why are they treated like heroes if the wars they are fighting are not even "popular" and the goal is to bring the troops home?
When I see a veteran on a video for whatever reason I just think: You shouldn't have gone there and kill others for no good reason, I bet the stories of your "enemies" (mostly the civilian casualties) are far more terrorizing than yours.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Chekov's Gun, as a principle of storytelling, is a terrible idea +
+ [Chekov's Gun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekov%27s_gun) is the principle that in a nutshell, everything in a narrative must have a purpose integral to the story. It gets its name from a hypothetical gun that MUST be fired (within a couple chapters, according to the original quote), if it's so much as hanging on a wall.
I think this is a bad storytelling principle for two reasons. First, it eliminates a lot of chances for actual immersion in the scene and the world. More than just losing opportunities for exploring and describing the world, it creates a false sense that everything is "connected," planned, which in itself breaks believability, or at least immersion. The other reason can be illustrated by watching any episode of Law & Order (SVU is especially guilty) where something "minor" happens out of the ordinary. 95% of the time when someone from a main character's past shows up, that person ends up being the guilty party. An episode I just watched had a guy installing new phones being involved. In a word, CG makes a narrative predictable, by its very nature. Any detail can be relied upon to have special relevence if CG is in effect. This doesn't make a story *necessarily completely* predictable, that's not my view. But it does make it easier in many cases.
So, if I'm missing something, CMV!
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:The media turns us into what we consume +
+ Marshall McLuhan coined the term "the medium is the message." This means that the form of a medium (cell phone vs newspaper) embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. McLuhan proposes that a medium itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.
With this concept in mind I ask that you challenge these statements:
1. Reading print media makes us more educated, as opposed to the digital media we revel in today.
2. Playing violent video games and watching violent films makes us more violent.
3. Watching television makes us less social.
4. Life online gives us popcorn brain.
Popcorn brain can be defined as a brain so accustomed to the constant stimulation of electronic multitasking that it becomes unfit for life offline, where things pop at a slower pace.
I welcome you to come up with other statements to challenge or to develop other counterarguments. Essentially, I believe that our media consumption strongly affects our identity.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |