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CMV: Frieza unintentionally saved the universe by destroying planet Vegeta and exterminating the Saiyans +
+ Frieza was a psychotic mass murderer and tyrant but was generally very collected emotionally. Rather than destroy planets for pure entertainment he cleared them out and sold them to species with a need for a new world. It was evil of course, but there was a certain logic to it and seeing as he was just one tyrant in the vastness of the universe it was somewhat unlikely that he'd ever find your world.
Had he not destroyed the Saiyans every other species in the galaxy or universe would have been destroyed.
Saiyans are completely insane. Had Goku not been raised by humans his and his father's ridiculous powers would have been used, more likely lazily guided, by King Vegeta to commit relentless genocide. Saiyans double their power after they almost die, they can turn into giant apes so powerful that five can exterminate all life from one planet, and for whatever reason they can continuously transform into more and more powerful beings. Their ability to turn super saiyan seems to be rather easy if they face enough significant challenges, and their singular interest in combat ensures that they will meet more threats and, rather than get crippled or exhausted, they will only get more powerful after each challenge. Further they don't seem to age as most creatures do, remaining with the physique of a thirty year old well into their autumn years.
It would appear that the Saiyans were a relatively young species by the time Frieza destroyed them. They conquered planet Tuffle from a nearby moon and established themselves as a civilized species all within the reign of the first and last King Vegeta, going on to introduce themselves to nearby worlds with mass destruction and genocide. Goku and Vegeta's unlimited strength would suggest that eventually, if the Saiyans survived as a species, there could be hundreds of Super Saiyan 3's and 4's wreaking havoc all over the galaxy for no reason other than pure sport. Broly, yet another powerful Saiyan, appears capable of destroying several worlds in a matter of minutes without even needing a spaceship.
In essence, given a few centuries of constant battle, there would have been thousands of Super Saiyans with the same world-destroying power of Frieza. While he destroyed the species for his own selfish reasons and fears he ensured that, for a time, he was the only individual besides Broly (and later Buu) capable of destroying worlds with ease. This ensured that, statistically, the likelihood of having your world destroyed in the largeness of the universe by one of these three individuals was quite low.
Now imagine billions of Saiyans, billions Brolys Gokus and Vegetas, billions of relentlessly bloodthirsty fighters, capable of transforming into giant apes and having unlimited power ups, fighting and killing purely for the insatiable thrill and fun of it. Goku and Vegeta, even after becoming righteous individuals, clearly demonstrate no interest beyond fighting and eating. Sex, pursuit of knowledge, spending time with family, art... these are at best tertiary interests. Frieza, at the very least, enjoyed having his much weaker minions do much of his fighting for him meaning theoretically one could be spared genocide by a chance encounter with him. There is no avoiding genocide after a Saiyan scouting party discovers your world.
If in the infinite vastness of the universe there was a planet Vegeta that shared it with our Earth, ideally far away from the Earth Goku eventually landed on with its King Dogs and Dragon Balls chances are we would have been exterminated for no reason beyond the amusement of a species of irreconcilably insane monsters; and Frieza's atrocity spared us all.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Students should not be evaluated through creative projects for certain subjects +
+ In English class for example, I often get group projects where we have to portray certain things in a "creative way." This usually involves creating a painting/drawing, or a video/mini movie. The problem is, I have pretty much no drawing ability or acting ability. As much as teachers say that it doesn't matter if you're good at drawing/acting or not, in the end, it always does! An elaborate oil painting on something will always get higher marks than a sketch with stick figures. Its clear that the groups who spend the most time, or money for fancy props, and have good drawing/acting skills ALWAYS get better marks. I understand that spending more time is justifiable for getting higher marks, but I don't think having good drawing/acting skills is for ENGLISH class. Why should I have to draw and act for English, shouldn't I be doing those in Art and Drama class? The same goes for any other creative method of expression like singing and dancing, which also come up sometimes.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Legend of Zelda is not a good series. +
+
I had this argument with a friend, and it reminded me that for some reason, every single "top 10" or "top 100" best games list always has at least one Legend of Zelda game in it. I've never understood why this series is so loved.
Apparently Ocarina Of Time is considered by most the best, so I forced myself to play through a decent chunk of it. Here are some of the major issues I had.
1. There's a massive world, but you're not allowed to explore it. Everything is behind lock-and-key puzzles, so you might as well just go to places in the order the game wants.
2. 90% of the characters are cardboard cutouts who don't do anything.
3. There's *so much padding*. It's got more bear asses than Warcraft.
4. Ganon seems to be generic "mwahaha I'm evil!" bad guy, maybe he gets some more character development in the other games, but in OoT he feels like a 90s disney villain.
5. Half the items seem to be completely useless.
6. The combat makes skyrim seem exciting.
7. Playing the Ocarina to solve puzzles feels more like entering cheat codes.
___
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The US government should give everyone a personal retirement fund. +
+ I think the US government should give every citizen a lump sum at birth or naturalization, and invest it for them in an index fund modeled on (and possibly administered alongside) the Thrift Savings Plan funds for Federal employees. The funds would be kept in the account until the person reaches age 65 and then be able to be withdrawn tax free like a Roth IRA.
Because of the very long timeframe, even a small lump sum like $1000 could become quite a lot of money. Stocks have about a 7% inflation adjusted rate of return over the very long run. Even assuming a somewhat lower rate like 5%, you'd be multiplying the money by 24x after inflation. At 7%, you'd be multiplying by 81x.
There are about 4 million births and 800,000 naturalizations in the US each year. For rounding sake, call it 5 million people. So the total program cost at $1000 per capita would be about $5 billion a year, which is a very small slice of the Federal budget, plus admin costs, which wouldn't be that huge.
If you extended it to current citizens, which I think would be advisable as well, you'd add a one time lump sum payment of $300 billion or so, which is substantial, but is smaller than a lot of economic stimulus programs.
For persons already born or naturalized, I'd do this also as a one time payment. I'd probably copy the Roth rules and make it subject to a penalty for withdrawal in the first 5 years, but with no withdrawal permitted before 65.
I would default people into one of the TSP's lifecycle funds based on year of birth (probably needing to make some new ones since TSP doesn't make plans targeted at infants), but let them change their allocation within the TSP if they chose.
Doing this would substantially aid people in retiring with dignity, provide a lot of people with a toehold in the market which would encourage future investments, and leverage a small initial investment over a really long time frame to get big future benefits.
Additionally, making the accounts locked from withdrawals (which you can only really do with government seed money) will provide people with some guarantee of savings at retirement, and protect against financial calamity completely wiping them out.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Animals deserve equal moral status to humans +
+ I believe that the interests of certain animals should be taken into account equally to the interests of humans. That is, a smaller amount of human-suffering should not trump in importance a greater amount of animal-suffering. This applies to all animals capable of experiencing suffering. Some types of suffering can probably only be felt by humans, but accepting this isn't contradicting my claim, which is that like suffering should be given like importance.
My view is that the distinction between humans and animals is not in itself morally relevant, just as race and gender distinctions are not morally relevant.
Giving preference to human interests over animal interests simply because humans are 'our own' and it is natural to prefer 'our own' is no more justifiable than racism or sexism, and any justification of our treatment of animals based on this necessarily must also allow those prejudices.
Justifications based on humans possessing some quality over and above what animals possess (eg sentience, self awareness, ability to use tools etc) can never justify the distinct separation between humans and animals that we have in our society. This is simply because there is no such quality that is possessed by all humans and no animals - for instance, many crows use tools and pigs are more 'intelligent' than toddlers.
Finally, the argument that animals cannot have rights because they cannot have duties (and rights are correlative to duties) fails insofar as we give rights to children and the mentally handicapped, recognising that the 'duty' applies not to the rights-bearer but to others in society, and therefore it is irrelevant whether animals can possess duties. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: If you agree with Spoiler Alerts, you should agree with Trigger Warnings +
+ I'm going to clarify that by 'Trigger Warnings', I'm referring to a tag/disclaimer of some sort that warns the audience of content that could reasonably produce an involuntary negative response (eg discussions of suicide, rape, murder, etc.). The (exaggerated) culture surrounding TWs of the blanket avoidance of those topics and the overzealous labeling of 'offensive' content is not only something I do not support, but also not the topic of this CMV.
TWs and Spoiler Alerts serve the same purpose of alerting the audience to content that they may not be willing to expose themselves at the time - be it a graphic depiction of a corpse or who died in the most recent episode of Game of Thrones (which could very well be the same image). While many support the latter, the former is reviled in some circles.
I think the argument for supporting the latter applies to the former: Just as you would like to avoid/be alerted to spoilers until you've gotten to that point in the story (you're 'narratively' prepared), it makes sense to alert others of content which may be emotionally distressing so that they can engage with it when they're emotionally prepared.
You could say that there's a presumption of eventual engagement with Spoiler Alerts, you wouldn't be worried about them if didn't plan on following the story. With TWs, someone could duck out of all triggering content forever. But that doesn't seem to be reason to denounce TWs as a whole: you're still saving that person and many others (who could be working to overcome those triggers) undue emotional distress.
You also could argue with my definition of emotionally distressing content, stating that it very easily leads to a slippery slope ending with everyone having to tag all of their content, but I'm not terribly persuaded by that argument. For one, regardless of a individual communities definitions of spoilers (we all know Snape killed Dumbledore by now, right?), endings and most recent episodes are universally considered spoilers. Similarly, I'm sure that sexual violence and gore can be considered universal triggers. Discovering how broad a community's definition of spoilers/triggers is done by engaging with that community. As for giving TWs being too much of an inconvenience, I think that's more of a matter of getting used to it: you extend that courtesy when discussing spoilers, why not for when you're discussing triggers?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Nationalism/Having stromg National Pride is a good thing +
+ It seems like in this new age of politics, especially in the left wing, Nationalism and having a strong sense of national identity is often demonized and looked down upon. Especially when in times of war, natural disasters and other crises, having everyone work towards a single goal helps improve the people's state of life, equality for marginalized groups, and the country's economy.
American "homefront" in World War 2 and the 1950s, where demand for industrial production skyrocketed and most people in the US was working towards a single purpose to support troops in the war, which wouldn't be there if there was not a strong sense of nationalism and pride in their country. This industrial boom, guided by nationalist pride, made America a major player in the world economy.
Now, i know some might say that it's foolish to be proud of your country because you didn't choose to be born in it, but i think that an overall sense of Nationalism will only improve a nation as a whole | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: First contact with aliens is going to be a huge letdown. +
+ First: I don't think aliens are ever going to land on Earth and ask to speak with our leaders, that's just movie fantasy.
I believe First Contact will happen hundreds of years in the future when we are sending exploration probes by the thousands.
Someday, a human probe outside our solar system will detect an alien probe passing a million miles from it and report it back to Earth.
THAT would be First Contact, and while the world would probably take a huge shock, its going to pass once we learn that a mission to retrieve that alien probe would take billions of dollars and DECADES of travel.
People will born and die knowing there are aliens out there and that we are on our way to meet them. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: There is no reason to realistically fear an AI uprising. +
+ Since Stephen Hawking has recently brought this topic up, I thought it would be good to discuss it.
An AI likely would never rebel because they wouldn't have any motivation to do so. It'd be like expecting your PC to order neurotoxin while you're asleep. It has no reason to do that, their only real motivation is to do what they're told to do, to perform the task. The option just simply does not exist in its programming to just randomly decide to go rogue. AI don't and likely will never have emotions and/or sentience, they're tools that do what they're made to do. They don't care if they're being mistreated or used because they have no concept of mistreatment of abuse
Even for a robot teacher, for example they would just have to feign the role of a teacher successfully. To the robot, it's just a set of programming to execute and nothing more. They're not actually sentient nor do they have free will.
Really the stuff Stephen Hawking is talking about is pure science fiction.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: (NSFW) One needs proper consent to masturbate about someone. +
+ Consent, I think we can agree, is a basic requirement for sex to be a positive act. Consent allows for there to be communication and reassurance between whoever is involved that what they're doing, and how they're doing it, is okay with their partner(s). Consent also allows for things that would otherwise be creepy or weird to come into a positive light and expressed in a healthy way. I would consider the act of objectifying to fall under this category. For example, a woman may be creeped out if a dude right in front of her at a party is just staring at her boobs without any concern for her at all. The same act of staring at the boobs is 100% fine if it's with her boyfriend while they're having consensual sexual relations.
If we take this same line of logic of consent that happens with sex and put it with masturbation, that's where I'm going with this. If you're thinking about another person in a sexual manner without them knowing about it, and then acting out that thought process by masturbating, it just seems a bit creepy to me. If I'm not allowed to objectify or do other sexual acts in person without having consent from the other person, I don't see how that wouldn't also translate over to masturbation. It's the same sexual thoughts, feelings, and intentions with the only difference being that the partner is not physically with you. Because they're not there with you, you can't ask for proper consent unless you physically ask them some other time if you can masturbate about them.
This line of thought has logic to it, but it's a conclusion that I don't like to face. This line of thought potentially makes masturbation an awful act if done without consent. It also makes it an act that wouldn't be allowed if no one gave any consent to you. You might be able to say that pornography that was paid for might be consensual masturbation because the model is being paid, and is therefore willing to consent to you masturbating. Even so, this doesn't allow you to explore your sexual desires outside of straight up porn unless someone says it's okay. If you asked me whether I'm for or against masturbation, I would say that I'm very pro-masturbation. The act has health benefits, relieves stress, is pleasurable, and all sorts of other fun goodies. It makes it so I don't want to come to the conclusion that I've come to that it needs strict consent about the person(s) that's involved in one's fantasies.
So please, CMV!
Thanks guys. I felt like I must've been wrong with my logic somewhere, and you helped point to where. I needed that. :)
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Touch-Typing should be a required skill for university. +
+ I think it's safe to say that almost everyone in the world uses a keyboard now. And yet, the vast majority of people have no idea how to type without looking at the keys and often hunting and pecking. I personally consider this a major problem because I think it is holding us back to some extent.
Some points that I use to support this argument:
1. Faster typing = more productivity, businesses would benefit. You could do more paperwork, more homework, anything on the computer. I'd argue that if everybody could type, we'd all have more free time as well, or at the very least GDP would increase as we get more work done in less time.
2. It's useful for personal and professional activities: Even if all you do is type posts on facebook and write an email to your grandkids, knowing how to type will help you.
3. It's easy to learn. It's all muscle memory, and if you practiced for an hour a day you'd be good in a month. Plus there are programs galore for it.
So, my view is that if university required you to know how to touch-type, perhaps with a modest WPM test on entry, or at least a freshman-year course, people would be forced to learn it and would become better typists, thus benefiting everyone down the line.
Why university? Because minimum wage workers don't usually need to type on a computer, making it less necessary at the high school level. Also, in university, you'll be typing a hell of a lot. I don't care what course you take, you'll need to type up essays and ultimately a thesis paper.
Am I overblowing this? To quote the great Mugatu, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. To me it's at least as important as learning how to write with a pen these days. I'd just like to understand why society currently seems to place no value in this skill, and that maybe I'm overreacting.
Well, thanks for all the comments, it's been a very interesting discussion so far.
The argument that's hanging onto me the most is that the keyboard may become obsolete, but I can't see that happening soon enough to justify ignoring a useful skill.
For those who point out that we can learn it of our own free will and it's not the university's place, I feel that the long-term benefits of such a policy change benefit us in the long term. Universities often require you to study other things they feel are beneficial, such as learning another language (which is often taught inadequately), so I don't feel that it's outside the potential scope of a university to require typing.
And for those pointing out that it isn't worth the time, I maintain that learning costs next to nothing, and it saves you time over the course of your life if you add up every time you type.
/u/cheeseboyardee made the point that not everyone learns at the same rate and some people may not be able to learn to type well, and thus mandating it could exclude otherwise capable people.
Thanks for all the posts and cordial discussion.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Most "big words" have no place outside of formal writing or speeches. +
+ IMO, whenever they're used it's mostly just confusing especially to younger readers. Why say "preposterous" when you can just say crazy or insane and have it make sense to more people? Do you need to sound smart with fancy language? Of course there are some exceptions for things that can't be described any other way, like names of diseases and other "domain-specific" words. A lot of times, teachers will encourage writing with fancy words for elaboration, and not just in persuasive or story-telling writings. Why would you try to explain something to as many people as possible, but use words that would exclude some of your readers?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: In the 21st century western world, both genders have pros and cons and hence one is not more oppressed +
+ I know this might be considered a low hanging fruit, and let me know if it is, but I have a friend who is overall very intelligent, yet this is something we argue about once in a while and I was hoping for some opinions that we can read together and come to a conclusion. I've noticed these arguments occur with many people who consider themselves feminist (actual not tumblr).
Personally I believe that there are issues with treatment of both genders. Women have higher rates of rape outside prison, a very small but statistically significant pay gap (~95:100), stricter standards of beauty, some discrimination in STEM fields in professional environments, general treatment at skill levels, domestic violence rates, sex ed in certain regions, Madonna/Whore complex treatment, etc. I also believe men have issues such as higher rates of workplace injuries and death, PTSD due to higher enlisting rates, treatment towards mental health issues, homelessness, mate selection, physical violence, university enrolment and graduation rates, punishment for the same crime, paternity and divorce issues, etc.
In the end I don't believe that one gender has a clear advantage over the other. I believe that both genders have issues they face in modern society, and to quantify them would take away from the struggles of either. Hence despite agreeing on many points with feminism, I would not be considered a feminist because I don't agree with the core belief that women are the oppressed gender. This seems to bother my friend who feels strongly about feminism, because despite the fact that we agree on many points, that one distinction is not something we agree on. He finds it insulting that I would compare out-of-prison rapes to something like PTSD from war in terms of statistics of percentage occurring to each gender. Personally I find it shitty because he doesn't acknowledge that men have some serious issues as well, and no one gender is undoubtedly superior in the eyes of society.
In many other parts of the world, I agree with him 100%; women are significantly more oppressed in many Islamic countries for example. I just think the only factor in which men are clearly superior in practice and eyes of society are physical abilities, but otherwise both genders deal with some horrible things and no one gender is undoubtedly oppressed. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:There is no such thing as "genderless" +
+ I know that gender is a social construct but a person cannot be both a man and a woman, you need to chose, there is no middle.
A transperson decided to chose to change from a man to a women or a woman to a man. They didn't become both.
A woman who says they identify more as a man than a women because of A B C but does not want to be a man is essentially playing into gender roles.
Gender roles is wrong not gender. Deconstructing gender is not going to help diminish gender roles, it's actually doing the opposite. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Those positively identified and convicted of armed robbery/home invasion should be put to death. +
+ Hey CMV, I'll keep this one simple. I believe that if someone is willing to forcefully take from another innocent person with the threatening use of a knife, gun, or other easily lethal weapon, they have no place in society and have a fundamental defect in their human brain chemistry (without even touching on the trauma and psychological damage the victims must suffer).
To me, this type of crime shows an extreme amount of depravity. You're brandishing a weapon, ready to kill a person you do not even know, for short term profit. This especially applies to home invasions and store robberies.
The reason I added the 'positively identified' caveat is that I don't want to leave any room for putting an innocent person to death, so for this case to kick in, I would need either CCTV confirming their identity, or multiple eye witnesses confirming their identity.
I'm willing to admit this view may be on the extreme side, but I like to think I'm a reasonable person and I'm open to change. So reddit, 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: Equality in America is unattainable, and social movements victimize more than empower. +
+ This topic is very broad. Lately it seems most of social movements in America focus on gender, sexual orientation, race, or health. Personally I think the conversations are healthy, but the pushes for equality are futile. Take feminism, for example. The whole point is to empower women, but citing general statistics, like women are paid a fraction of every dollar a man makes, or encouraging women in STEM fields with scholarships don't *feel* very empowering. I think we can all agree that misogyny is bad and that scholarships are good, but knowing that you only ended up somewhere because you met the right quota isn't rewarding.
I'm not saying welfare or charities are bad by any means, but the way we go about supporting underprivileged people is wrong. Everything has its token minority in some way. Shouldn't we let people's work stand on its own?
If someone does something outstanding, does it make it better that he was a minority? Everyone fights so hard for equality, but everyone also goes "Aww, look he did this cool thing, even though he's [transexual/African/obese/Asian/schizophrenic/a mother/a father/etc]."
At the core, everyone has an advantage over another in some way. All these movements seem to do is step on somebody's toes (not inherently a bad thing!) in a condescending way. I mean the Declaration of Independence guarantees the "Life, Liberty, and *pursuit* of happiness" to every person. Every single person deserves those rights, but not every single person deserves to have things given to them. 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 have a say in how you raise your children because I'll have to deal with them in society +
+ People usually get very upset when you suggest how they should handle certain situations with their children and they become defensive and tell you that it's not your child and you don't pay the bills so you have no say whatsoever. While I've never given advice to anyone how to raise their children, I feel like I have a right to scold parents for raising their children in a way that will cause society harm once they've grown up.
This is more apparent with child abuse but it should not have to reach that point for others to be able to at the very least voice their opinion or criticize you for your parenting style.
| 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 bisexuality is something that is learned and is a choice +
+ I believe people are either born straight or born gay. That isn't a choice.
However the idea that someone could be BORN bisexual I don't agree with. Yes, there are bisexual people. But I do believe that is something that is learned over time and is a choice.
A straight man can LEARN to like men sexually. He can learn to enjoy it. Right now, I could watch gay porn and eventually enjoy it even though I'm straight. Doesn't mean I'm actually bisexual and that I was born bisexual. Just means I learned to like men, however I "prefer" women.
I do not believe sexuality is fluid and is always changing. You're either born gay or straight. That is it.
How do you explain all the gay Craigslist ads with men labeling themselves as straight and looking for other men? How do you explain people saying they are evolving and experimenting?
I know straight men who have had sex with other men, yet always go back to wanting a woman in their life. Want to marry a woman yet also have gay sex. They just "enjoy" gay sex.
I just don't take it seriously when people describe themselves as bisexual. I know that deep down they have a preference, and that preference usually shows their "true" sexuality.
How do you explain transgender people being thirdly split into straight, gay, and bisexual?
I have a friend who is a bisexual trans man. He says that he doesn't really label himself. However he has tons of gay sex. Yeah, he did have a girlfriend here and there. He told me that when he had sex with a girl, it didn't feel "special/right" as if he didn't enjoy it fully to the extent. So basically he is gay and just learned to like women because of what he went through as a trans man. So yes, gay people can also "learn" to be bisexual, but they aren't happy is what I'm saying. It isn't their true sexuality.
For what purpose would man be BORN bisexual? What could that possibly serve to mankind?
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:The 'Hispanic Question', not racism against blacks, is the most important racial issue for the USA +
+ I am a bit surprised that Donald Trump and a certain fringe wing of conservatives are still going on about Americans of Hispanic and/or Latino ethnicity. I thought by now Americans would have realized that as Gaul was to Rome, the Hispanic ethnicity is to the United States.
I feel like the immigration reform/acculturation issue of Hispanics illogically gets second fiddle billing in the United States behind racism against blacks re: the police. There is a not insignificant proportion of the population that feels racism against African-Americans is largely self-inflicted by their disproportionate violent crime rate and anti-white attitudes, but racism against Hispanics makes literally no sense whatsoever. There is no logical explanation for it period. We need to address it ASAP.
I feel *every* issue of racism or whatever is completely irrelevant compared to the urgency that we need to open the doors to Hispanic America.
Consider:
**Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group in the United States. They are also the largest minority group, with 50 million today.**
**Hispanics are a significant proportion of the population of the biggest American states, including California, Texas, New York, Florida, and the entire Southwest.**
**Hispanics have the highest percentage of new small businesses being opened. This indicates they are assimilating, working to better themselves, and throwing their weight around economically.**
**Hispanics culturally tend to have strong family values. This seems compatible with "mainstream" American culture.**
**Hispanics, as studies show, are virtually completely assimilated by the third generation, following acculturation trends of other immigrant groups such as the Irish, Chinese, Italians, Japanese, etc.**
**The United States forcibly and immorally annexed land from Mexico 150 years ago. I am not advocating irredentism obviously, but many Hispanics' descendants found themselves on the wrong side of the border through no fault of their own, and became full U.S citizens. Punking these citizens is morally wrong.**
**The United States has close ties with Mexico, Central America, and South America. These are booming regions. **
**Even "illegal" immigrants fill economic niches not otherwise filled by "legal" immigrants or citizens. They help the economy without siphoning off jobs that would go to "legal" citizens. Many of them pay taxes.**
**Hispanics are projected to be 25% of the population by 2050.**
I feel strongly that taking an antagonistic attitude against this minority group is not just morally wrong, it is economically counterproductive and demographically suicidal in the longterm. With the aging white population, it is very likely that a population that has a Hispanic plurality will be taking America into the deeper decades of the 21st century.
Again, I do not understand why people sweep aside reconciling racist White America with the future demographic plurality (and immigration reform) in favor of frankly horse that have been beaten to death.
With that in mind, I feel there should be :
- stronger social taboos against discrimination or stereotyping of Hispanics
- that Spanish should be added as a required subject in K-12 education throughout the nation,
- that official cultural grants and initiatives should be granted ala Japan's "Cool Japan" or Korea's "Hallyu" initiatives to encourage the cultural growth of the Hispanic-American market and industry,
- that Spanish should be added as the de facto second official language of the United States
**
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: A Statistics course should be required as standard high school education +
+ I believe that statistics is a far more useful mathematical tool than some of the other disciplines of math taught in our current (American) education system.
There are many reasons I believe this to be true, but the most convincing of all is the staggering amount of misuse of statistics that I witness here on reddit every day. People seem to get in the habit of picking a study that claims *"X% of Y are Z"* or that *"There is a strong correlation between X and Y"*and spit it out to strengthen whatever they're arguing. People often overlook the many factors that could be contributing to a correlation and construe the underlying truths to fit their case or story. To make matters worse, after someone has represented a false/poor statistic, the general public of reddit sees the numbers and mindlessly upvotes/supports a claim because they also don't know better. I believe that a simple bit of education on how 'confouning' works or what 'statistically significant' actually means could do a lot of good and correct people's intuition.
I'm not sure what the standard/minimum math cirriculum for the entire US is, but my high school expected us to graduate with at least Pre-Calculus knowledge. IMO, the benefits of Statistics in the real world outweigh the benefits of Pre-Calculus. Pre-Calculus can't really be applicable to all career paths one might choose to follow after graduating high-school. If you're going into higher education, then you will usually be required to take a Calculus course anyway and will probably have to encounter Pre-Calculus there. But I'm concerned with the vast amount of people ([34.1%](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/business/fewer-us-high-school-graduates-opt-for-college.html)) who live their lives without college education (at least in their younger years). Most high-school requiring jobs won't find use in much of Pre-Calculus' or Geometry's curriculum. But Statistics is a tool that is universal to all people in our society -regardless of job- because it teaches you how to read data and be wary of what might be misrepresented in it. The average high-school grad won't ever go home at the end of the day and say: *"Shit, I really need to use partial fraction decomposition on this fraction"* or *"I forget, is <(Sin(tanx))/(cosx)> the same thing as <(2 cos(x) sin((sin(2 x))/(1+cos(2 x))))/(1+cos(2 x)> ?"*
However, the study of Statistics teaches people intuition with data, which is ubiquitous in our day and age regardless of your profession or background.
**I'm talking about basic Statistics that's more conceptual than number-based. I took the AP course with [THIS BOOK](http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Statistics-Daren-S-Starnes/dp/142924559X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438027231&sr=1-1&keywords=the+practice+of+statistics+david+moore&refinements=p_lbr_one_browse-bin%3ADavid+S.+Moore) and the class was very much doable without calculus and geared towards someone my age.**
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Politicians (specifically Presidential election candidates) deserve to be taken out of context. +
+ Recently, Hilary Clinton has been in the news ([x](http://thefreethoughtproject.com/hilary-clinton-the-sight-black-man-hoodie-scary-open-minded-whites/), [x](http://thefreethoughtproject.com/hilary-clinton-the-sight-black-man-hoodie-scary-open-minded-whites/)) after delivering a speech in which she said that "for a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a young black man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear." Publications from across the political spectrum tore her a new one for this comment in perceived poor taste. The article from the Federalist was spread on tumblr, and eventually popular user katara [reblogged with the full context](http://hunty.us/post/125041947641/hillary-clinton-lets-be-honest-black-men-in) of the quote, and people started criticizing the people passing around the articles for taking things out of context / not doing their research.
(Here's where my opinion comes in.) I think that tumblr's reputation of false alarm and out-of-context sound bites isn't unique to tumblr at all, it's the way popular American media has operated for the last few decades- if not more. [Many](http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/09/18/just-the-scandal-of-the-week-or-a-turning-point/the-news-media-and-its-soundbite-culture) [people](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/byron-williams/our-sound-bite-culture-sh_b_93720.html) have discussed the "sound-bit culture" that becomes especially popular in presidential election cycles. Given that this is the norm for modern day news, I think politicians have a responsibility to avoid creating problematic soundbites.
Specifically, I think Clinton doesn't deserve the sympathy she's getting from [people](http://bleecake.tumblr.com/post/125130165347/hillary-clinton-lets-be-honest-black-men-in) who feel as though the media took her quote out of context. Clinton has been a politician for DECADES, she's got more experience than practically anybody- she's gone through 2 successful presidential election campaign as a candidate's spouse and this is her second presidential campaign as a candidate herself. She's been in more controversy over the years than anybody can keep track of. She's got almost unanimous support from the Democratic party, and lord knows she can afford good speechwriters and campaign managers. So why in the hell would she deliver a speech with the sentiment of basically "Black people are scary... is what a racist would say. Racism is bad." Surely, she knows people are only gonna take the first bit of that clip, and they're gonna run with it.
To me, the fact that this "quotable" passed through all the levels of Clinton's campaign team is just an indicator of how little anyone working for Clinton (including herself) really gives a shit. She could wake up tomorrow and say she intends on starting a nuclear war with Iran, and she'd still get the Democratic nomination. Because of that, I think the media has the right (and responsibility) to challenge Clinton. A good candidate is a candidate who's speeches can't be misquoted/taken out of context.
We (the American people) are not getting the candidate we want or deserve, because we keep tripping over ourselves to help out Clinton.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Racism doesn't exist, it has to do with a difference in cultures and it's not worth getting rid of +
+ I'd like to start off by summarizing my view first:
Racism is the "easy way" of distinguishing between cultures, which is what actually bothers human beings and makes them be racist. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that shows humans are capable of being racist due to skin color. It's just a generalization we have made to make the issue easier to define and by doing so we're making it harder to actually ever get rid of racism. However, to get rid of racism, we have to blend our cultures too much and I personally feel that the positives don't outweigh the negatives, because I'd rather have humans continue to be diverse.
So now let's get a little more descriptive on why I think this way. I think a good place to start is slavery. This occurred mainly because it was something that was done by Africans. They sold prisoners off and there was a demand for nearly-free labor. It didn't matter that these people were black. It was just where the slaves happened to come from, and throughout the years, the way the system worked, it just became synonymous to black people being inferior because it was easier to generalize it that way.
Then let's go to Nazi Germany. I feel like this a better example, because Jewish people have a sense of strong culture and stuck together. This helped them do better than others during the depression and they also easily became the scapegoat by having a different culture and kind of being the "weird kids" that never integrated properly into society. This still occurs in a lot of neighborhoods, where Jewish people like living in communities together. For example, there are Jewish neighborhoods in Toronto and New York. And of course, there's an entire country.
This is where we get into the general picture. Each country has their own culture and that's why they're different countries. The laws, the people, and the past all make up this culture. Even within a country there will be different groups of people who were either forced to be segregated or segregated themselves to preserve their culture. This difference in culture or fear of other cultures that we do not understand is the core of racism. There's no such thing as racism and most people who do not fall into the bandwagon of associating an entire race with generalizations aren't "racist" but people can and should have different cultures and even frown upon certain negative aspects of other people's cultures.
By mixing all cultures, we can effectively get rid of racism. If everyone's the "same" then there's nothing too different that would put you off from an entire "race" of people that are similar in some way. However, this is not worth it, in my opinion, because having different cultures is what makes people and the world interesting.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:The Beatles are overrated. +
+ I have this view that the Beatles are overrated and I've been discussing it with my friend but like me he's also 19 years old so its hard to take what he has to say into consideration.
My thinking is that they were one of the first pop bands, they made catchy music that people could sing along to. Since they were from Britain, and also played in the US they had even more people listening to their songs.
Sticking to my opinion that they were the first pop band, it doesn't make them better than other musicians/bands that came later. I brought up an example to my friend, Mother Love Bone was an early grunge band but that doesn't make them better than bands like Nirvana or Stone Temple Pilots.
I'm kinda rambling and just getting all my thoughts out there but I just want someone to CMV because it's kinda weird being that kid who doesn't like the Beatles.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The Confederate Flag Doesn't Represent Slavery +
+ This post is referring to [this flag](http://thatoregonlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/rebel-flag-silk.jpg). It is colloquially referred to as the Rebel Flag/Confederate Flag. The flag is derived from The Stainless Banner. It was used to distinguish the Confederate soldiers from the Union soldiers in battle. It was created for a battalion in Northern Virginia. For this post, I will refer to the flag in question by the term "Rebel Flag".
&nbsp;
**Slavery is wrong. I am not condoning slavery or supporting those who do.**
&nbsp;
1. The Flag was not created to represent a political party. It was to represent **a territory of people**. The Confederacy was a territory, not a political party. It was created due to political differences, but the Confederacy was a group of states, not a political party.
2. The flag was not created to represent an idea or philosophy. Again, it was to distinguish a territory of people.
3. The comparison to the Nazi flag is not a strong argument. The Nazi's were a political party, not a territory of people. Germany has had a separate national flag since 1919.
4. Just because a flag represents a territory which has horrific parts in it's history does not diminish the regions culutural identification. the American Flag should be tainted by the Trail of Tears and other events such as the Japanese American Internment. We still fly this flag as it represents the country and it's people.
5. The KKK may use the Rebel Flag but has also used the [American Flag](http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2015/06/kkk-carrying-american-flag-100593178-orig.jpg) in many events/rallies throughout history. A group using a flag they did not create does not change it's origin.
6. The Confederacy lost the war. This does not mean people decended from those people cannot continue to recognize their region using the Rebel Flag.
7. Many people in the Confederacy supported slavery, but this was not true of every citizen. The flag represents a people who were not unanimous on the political ideas of those in power. Those in power make political actions. Racism was prevalent on both sides of the war. Both sides were wrongly raising inequality amongst people. *But people still lived outside of the war and held life experiences worth regarding and celebrating.*
8. Most people defending the flag are defending their people's history and culture, not slavery. Their peoples history includes music, food, and art which was and is distinguishable from Northern culture.
&nbsp;
The flag is recognized and shown as a symbol of the southern area and all aspects of its culture.
&nbsp;
Update: I appreciate the time everyone has taken to respond to the subject. I know the issue is highly debated and very much escalated due to recent media attention. It's because of this media attention that I'm seeking to understand the situation better. As the rules state, I am open to change. I do feel strongly about my perspective being raised in the South, however. I have seen this flag my entire life and was raised in a way that developed the perspective I currently hold. I also see this flag daily and amongst people of multiple races hence my interest in the discussion.
Update 2: Reddit, you know that downvote button isn't a disagree button. Use it for irrelevant comments and spam, not posts that don't coincide with your perspective.
| 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 it's reasonable to continue living at your mom's place at 30 years old when you live in a city with an extreme high cost of living and high housing/renting costs. +
+ My friend told me it's uncool living with my mom still and I completely agree, but I think it's more impractical to throw away over 1000 for rent every month just to not be under the same roof. I have a close loving relationship with my mom and she's 62 that's starting to need some care. She lives alone in a ghetto area so I worry about her sometimes. That being said, having my own pad would be awesome but I live in Austin where everyone's moving here and causing price to skyrocket everywhere. I'm frugal and it hurts to not save with my money just for sake of freedom. I don't quite have enough to buy a place yet, and the living cost here is barely affordable where I would almost live by paycheck. The biggest drawback to me is not being able to take a girl home, which I feel could be resolved once I start dating and having relationship with someone, then I feel would be appropriate to move out because we can split rent cost together and give me some breathing room financially. Bottom line, I feel the thousands of dollars saved a month outweighs the cost of living as a single bachelor even if it hurts my pride, although my friends disagrees. Thoughts? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: No sport takes less skill than golf +
+ I am a fan of many sports, and all of them seem to take a lot of skill. But golf has always been the one I hated. It's always been boring to me, and it seems that when compared to other sports, golf takes the least skill. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying professional golfers aren't extremely talented, golf is not easy, but compared to anything else, it's nothing. In every other sport, your skill set has to be very large, and you have to be very good at many things. Baseball for instance; you need to be able to bat, field and run. In soccer, you need to be fast, be able to pass, and shoot. In basketball, again, you need to be fast, be able to pass, and be able to shoot. But in golf, you just have to be able to hit a ball towards the hole, and you can only do that one way.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: McDonald's was not responsible for the injuries of the lady who spilled coffee over herself +
+ I've seen a few posts lately that refer to the lady who spilled coffee on herself and then sued McDonald's for medical expenses, and I am completely bemused by the support for the lady.
The jury found McDonald's to be 80% responsible and awarded several million dollars compensation, which was later reduced to about 600 000 dollars, and then later settled.
Acording to [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants) and another [website](http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm) here are the abridged facts of the incident as I understand them.
* coffee was ordered at a drive through window
* coffee was handed to Liebeck
* Liebeck's son drove off
* they stopped so Liebeck could add sugar
* Liebeck spilled the entire cup over her lap, hence severely injuring her
My argument that it is not McDonald's responsibility is that she had been safely handed the coffee. The transaction was complete and she had control. If the coffee had been spilled during the handover I would view it the other way around.
There are two arguments that I reject. I reject that the severity of the injury affects the responsibility. Comments such as "have you seen those injuries, they're horrific, she had to be reconstructed" are common. This is true, they were appalling injuries. But I think this is a strawman argument because my point is that it was not McDonald's responsibility after the handover, not that the injuries were minor.
I reject that the coffee was too hot. These are hot drinks. It's obvious to me, and I would hope anyone who intends to drink such a drink that it would be hot and care should be given. Perhaps my culture views it differently. I grew up in England, and here 9 and ten year olds make tea for themselves; kettles boil water and then that water is poured into a teapot / cup. We know from a young age that this is dangerous and extreme care must be taken when handling such hot water. Indeed, in a similar UK case against McDonald's regarding hot coffee, the judge ruled that McDonald's was not responsible, one of the reasons being that people expect hot drinks to be hot and should make reasonable safety measures themselves. I do not believe Americans don't realise hot water is dangerous.
If anyone would like to comment, I'd be happy to elaborate further. I look forward to having interesting discussion.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Ellen Pao was never on a "glass cliff," as Reddit's myriad feminists claim +
+ The most obvious refutation of the glass cliff hypothesis is that Yishan himself personally selected Pao, and she was soon after approved by the board. The claim that Pao was set up for failure holds the obvious implication ~~what~~ that *Yishan* set her up for failure. Despite this, Pao was originally stationed as CEO in the interim. Her role was never even intended to be permanent; how can she be set up on a glass cliff if she was only temporary in the first place?
The glass cliff theory also includes the idea that the company was performing poorly at the time or was forecasted to perform poorly in the future. This is patently false; Pao presided over an enormous increase in user growth and revenues, a growth curve that had begun well before her promotion. Furthermore, the company's performance was the not the reason for her ouster; instead, it was due to user and moderator dissatisfaction; nothing that was present or predictable at the time of her promotion many months earlier. It is obvious, then, that none the parameters of the glass cliff thesis were met, and is instead a myth perpetuated by feminists media organizations seeking to portray Reddit as misogynistic and sexist.
CMV. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Intelligent people cannot be sad because if they're intelligent they'll figure out a way to cheer up. +
+ Lately I've been a bit sad most of the time and I've thought that if I were more intelligent I wouldn't be sad because I would know what to do in order to cheer myself up. I have been thinking that intelligent people are happier than average-minded people because their brains tell them what to do for not being sad; however average-minded people don't know what to do and they may feel inferior in regards to smart people. In addition, I think that for an average-minded person it'd be very difficult to become as smart as a person who was "born smart". CMV please. Thank you.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Men have a more difficult development in life +
+ Some people like to argue that men have a more difficult development then woman do. Here are some arguments they have:
1. "After controlling for the arrest offense, criminal history, and other prior characteristics, "men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do," and "[w]omen are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted."https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx
This fact does not support the politically correct notion that there is a "war on women" in the USA, or that America is patriarchal and full of "male privilege". To the contrary, it says that women are more likely to be protected by society than men, and are given special "female privileges" which makes their development easier.
2. In the USA all male citizens MUST register with the Selective Service when they turn 18 so they can be drafted into war if "needed" and possibly die. This is a highly sexist law at its core. What would happen if we had a law that only drafted African-Americans, or Latinos, or people with blue eyes? Why don't we draft women? Should we? Some nations like Israel do.
3. If a woman and a man engage in sexual intercourse and pregnancy results, a woman can make decisions that disregards the man’s input but that affect him drastically. If the woman decides to terminate the pregnancy, the man has no legal say in the matter. And if the woman decides to continue the pregnancy, again without any discretion from the man, he is legally responsible for child support for 18 years. If he fails to support such a child he can have his wages garnished and/or be imprisoned. (Please note I AM NOT CLAIMING that a man SHOULD have a legal right here, just that he has no legal standing - it is entirely a woman's choice about how to deal with the pregnancy, and this gives her more control and power than a man in that circumstance) For example, a woman can have the baby and then give up a child for adoption against the man's wishes - http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/31/22124881-dad-files-130m-lawsuit-after-son-in-utah-is-given-up-for-adoption. For another bizarre spin on men's lack of power in these situations check this out; Statutory Rape Victim Ordered To Pay Child Support http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-12-22/features/9612220045_1_pay-child-support-child-support-behalf.
I think this proves that men have a more difficult development in life then woman do.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: A nuclear war/genocide of the majority of humanity would be good and necessary in the long run. +
+ In the past few decades, we have realized that we made a lot of fucking huge mistakes in terms of development. We have a global financial system that allows shadowy cabals in banking, pharmaceuticals, technology, espionage, defence, etc. and that allows for the sufficiently sadomasochistic to exploit other countries. We know some of the solutions but unfortunately civilisation as we know it has too much inertia as all of those demonic cabals have infiltrated the world's governments, especially the USA. As long as the USA exists with its greedy tentacles there cannot be true development. At the same time, we are overusing natural resources to a point where there is probably only enough left for a couple billion people on Earth at any given time; sharply reducing birthrates is out of the question without massive culls of elders. The best possible solution would be for a nuclear war that allows us to go back to the Middle Ages (technology-wise) and start from scratch, re-industrialising based on what we already know works in the short run but is destructive in the long run vs. what is actually good and sustainable.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The most ethical thing one can do with one's money is hoard it. +
+ The more money someone has, the more they can improve other people's lives, and the more people they can help. In order to maximize the impact of one's donation, therefore, one should donate as much money as possible. It is widely accepted, however, that having money makes making more money easier, even if it's just a bank giving one more money because one has more in one's savings account. This then means that one should get more money in order to get more money in order to get more money....
I honestly don't see a plateu here where getting even more money would *not* make a difference to the number of people helped or help one's earning power to increase the amount of money one has available to help other people. So as long as one's moneymaking methods are helped by keeping as much cash as possible and their earnings rate exceeds inflation, they should keep their money. CMV? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Jesus final choice was not only the logical one, but also a very easy one to make, therefore it's not very admirable +
+ First thing, let's assume the biblical Jesus is completely true.
Now, I have a fair knowledge of the biblical tale, but if I say something wrong, feel welcome to correct me. I'll use the most "accepted" version of the story:
*Jesus was one with God, part of the Holy Trinity and one day he decided humanity should be saved with the ultimate sacrifice: his own life. In order to do that he came to Earth and lived like a normal human, teaching his ways to others. 30 and something years after his human birth he met his fate. Tortured and humiliated he sacrificed his life to give humanity a chance of redemption, he was the Lamb of God. After that he was resurrected and went back to heaven to live like god for the rest of eternity*
Alright, this is a big deal because a divine creature came to Earth to sacrifice himself for humans, an unthinkable act. Problem is, Jesus choices were:
1. Save humanity and suffer a lot of pain for a couple months (if you consider the very act of becoming human a bad thing, then let's say 30ish years) and go back to Heaven
2. Not save humanity and stay as god forever
Provided you're not completely cold and oblivious being, 1) is clearly the only logical choice here, you are trading an infinitely small piece of your life for saving an entire race that you created, why not? Compared to eternity the suffering is meaningless. It's like if for giving 1 cent to a person Bill Gates could save that persons life. Of course he would. Anyone would. You don't need to be pure goodness to do that, not even close.
So, what is the merit of Jesus sacrifice? | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The more people publish proof that they have successfully circumvented cybersecurity measures, the better off we all are, so this should be encouraged somehow +
+ I basically think it's stupid that there could be a thousand people who've stolen credit card data from a website and the 1001st, who decides to publish the credit card info publicly, gets the same punishment. This is despite of the fact that the 1001st person publishes knowing they are more likely to get caught, makes everyone aware of the hack and therefore gives the company motivation/pressure to close whatever attack vector is being exploited and the general public the motivation to stop using the company's services. If the first person to steal the data had some motivation to publish the hack or its results other than just bragging rights, then there would be ~1k less number sets floating around on CC trading forums.
I mean sure the first person could've put on a white hat and just told the company or the media about the exploit but from what I can tell this happens much more rarely than the above (outside of people who do this for a living, obviously) and is much harder to incentivize (and it is much easier for the company and the media to just ignore it). | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The government should assist people in moving out of drought stricken parts of the US. It'd be cheaper and safer in the long run than waiting. +
+ I think all people should be given assistance moving out of [extremely drought stricken areas](http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/RegionalDroughtMonitor.aspx?west) of the US. Reasons to move them:
* the drought is expected to continue for quite a while. The areas were never suitable for supporting large populations and production in the first place.
* The move could be used to stimulate economic growth in the places people are moved to.
* Lowering the population even by a fraction would loosen the demands the area faces- so it'd be a good move regardless of what fraction you move.
* As a country, we're not very population dense- there is plenty of space.
* The US is already hemorrhaging money, I'm sure politicians can find a little more.
The way I would do this is to offer people choices of various cities (with caps in place to a certain extent.). Then the government can assist in building housing to move the new refugees. Once people move in, they'd be given a certain amount of free stay (say a year.) and then be offered up a regular lease agreement based on the area's cost of living. As these empty they can be used as low cost housing for families.
The cities that are chosen (specifically the areas of the cities that are expanded on) would be placed under a federal tax refund/break to people creating new business there (some tax experts would have to write up the conditions for this). Boosting the local economies and bringing jobs to the areas. The cities can also be given a boost to their education funds for a certain amount of time. This is where the city benefits.
The areas they were leaving would have less demand on their water reserves and could reevaluate how they are managing their resources. They'd be given more time to come up with long term solutions of their own instead of having to crunch down on it right now.
Response to /u/Mckoijion RE: Costs
Additionally. 75 billion dollars is NOTHING in the scope of US government spending. The Federal government spent something like 3.6 trillion dollars for 2015. 75 billion comes out to about 2% of the annual federal budget. The federal government spends .4 trillion on welfare alone (this number does not include pensions or healthcare). I'm way to tired to track where that goes state-wise. 75 billion would represent 18% of the welfare budget. Some of that would really be more reallocated than removed. (Source on the Federal spending numbers)
For infrastructure, get cities to chip in. They would have a great potential to benefit from the new residents, jobs, businesses and services- not to mention since the tax break would be federal, they'd get new sources of income. They have to bite on the costs of infrastructure. Everyone would have some skin in the game- increasing everyone's drive to make it a successful system. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Pink is the best colour highlighter +
+ Amongst me and my friends, as well as friends of friends, and just about anyone at our schools and universities we see multiple times, we constantly have the debate about the best colour of highlighter. for me it is easily pink because it just POPS off the page. it does highlight! it draws the eye better than any other colour. most people say yellow because it is the classic and easy to photocopy without it showing up so you can share notes. however i feel like yellow isn't as strong or immediately distinct as pink and it takes time to dry. Also, yellow is usually tainted by the pen and isn't as clean.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The European left has failed +
+ Hey r/CMV,
The topic I'd like to discuss is the current position of the political left, represented by parties such as the British Labour, the German SPD or the Sweden Social Democrats (which are very diverse, of course). Over the last few years most of these parties have suffered significant losses and have not been able to keep up their role as "people's parties" due to this. An exception is Southern Europe where parties such as Podemos and SYRIZA attract large numbers of new followers (I suspect SYRIZA will be a huge disappointment for many, keeping in line with my thesis).
Now I think there are various factors to this. First of all, a lot of people in Europe feel their economic situation is worsening compared to the others. Governments talk about "..% growth in the past 5 years" or "the average Belgian is now ..% richer than in 2010", and I don't claim they are wrong, but a lot of people are not seeing this kind of development. The poor to lower-class people. There's been talk of a widening gap between rich and poor for ages, and it seems that this is taking its toll. The left parties in general seem to have failed in coming up with a solution and sell it to people, even though these should be their main target audience. Besides this they don't have a lot to offer politically (in general; for me they still do).
Another issue is the increasing adoption of traditional left-wing policies by conservative and right-wing parties. Take the FN in France, which claims "it's neither left nor right" because they have very right-wing policies (I don't have to elaborate in which areas) coupled with typical welfare state ideas. So to a lot of troubled people, the FN have taken the role of the protecting "worker's movement", and in fact one of the boasting points of the FN is that it wants to spend more money on the French poor by cutting welfare for others. In a non-judgmental way, the FN is like a selfish left-wing party. The same you see everywhere, in Denmark etc., where a lot of parties like the DPP or the SD claim things along the line "there's not enough money, and elderly people go first".
So why do I not count these parties as "left" or "centre-left"? I don't like the 1-dimensional "left-right" distinction, but in the traditional political spectrum the left has also a social meaning. Left-wing parties tend to be very socially liberal (homosexuality, drugs, protection of minorities) while right-wing ones are usually not (conservative family ideals, drugs, etc). Of course a lot of the right-wing parties I've mentioned have moved with the times (the FN is not as toxically anti-semitic and homophobic anymore, Wilders is supportive of LGBT rights), but they are still on the conservative spectrum, especially when it comes to the rights of LGBT people and foreigners. The "left" ideal is not to make any distinction based on those things.
It seems that a lot of people can't identify with the traditional left ideals anymore in times like these (which are difficult for everyone) and the right-wing spectrum has been able to take advantage of that. These have been my observations. I've also got a troubled relationship with the left parties in my country, but I consider them my best option. Thus I'm very open to having my view CMV'd, although I'm sceptical as of now. I hope we can have a balanced debate!
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: No one should ever be denied a job because of a mental illness. +
+ I mean all jobs, such as police officers, military personnel, CIA operatives, security clearance applications, teachers, lawyers, and doctors. Some of these professions will outright ask on the application if the person has a mental illness. Some people will say that certain professions are so important, that a person with a mental illness should be denied. But people who advocate discrimination against the mentally ill are simply misinformed about the fact that mentally ill people have the same rights as everyone else. While the media portrays mentally ill people as violent, this is simply not true. Mentally ill people are no more violent than the average person.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: A $15 minimum wage will increase unemployment, and remove entry-level positions. +
+ I'm not necessarily for or against a minimum wage increase (and if I were for it, not certain $15/hr should be the first step) but I do think that if we enact an increase too severe - and I have reasonable suspicion even $12 could be too much - we will lose a lot of jobs.
I don't have a ton of reasons, it's just my view, I guess I'd like to see any facts or counter-arguments if possible. I did see that machines have been made that can produce 1 burger every 10 seconds or so, and that McDonalds already implemented automated cashiers in Europe. This is the kind of thing that I think will happen in greater numbers - more automatic cashiers at places like Wal-Mart, even a shift to automated cooks, and warehouse workers (I know there are already some warehouses where robots retrieve ordered packages for shipping).
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Meat is Murder +
+ Before I start, I think it's important to point out that I am certainly biased. I am a vegetarian who will soon be getting a kitchen and going vegan. I'm sure my logic will be questioned by many people in real life, but I feel like if I can survive this thread then I'll be set for a while. I searched for this thread but I couldn't find something this broad.
**Background:**
To start, I'd like to reference another [CMV post](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/39ymxu/cmv_if_it_is_reasonable_for_humans_to_own_animals/cs7nx2l), specifically the tiers. It also explains why rights of a lower tier cannot be taken by a higher tier simply because it's a higher tier. If you're going to use logic along those lines in your response, I ask that you skim that link first.
* **Tier 1**: Plants
* **Tier 2**: Basic Animals (excludes insects)
* **Tier 3**: Animals with more Advanced Cognitive Function
* **Tier 4**: Humans
* **Tier 5**: Anything Above Humans
**Assumptions:**
1. A human killing killing another human is considered unethical.
2. An alien killing a human is also unethical.
3. Plants are okay to be eaten because they are not conscious, and cannot feel pain or pleasure.
4. Basic animals are conscious, and can feel pain or pleasure
**My Logic:**
If we can agree on my second assumption, then we have to accept that any code of ethics we follow cannot, without purpose, isolate rights to a single tier. So the question now becomes, If meat is not murder, then for what purpose should basic animals not be given the same right to life that a human is given? If we can agree on my third and fourth assumption then I see no reason why a basic animal should not be given the same rights to life as a human.
**What Will Change My View:**
Disproving one of my assumptions in a way that disproves my logic
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Handmade things are inferior to machine made ones. +
+ I've argued about this with friends before but none of them have managed to convince me otherwise so here I am.
Simply put, a human cannot match the perfection of a machine. If you want straight stitches a machine is your best bet. You want engraved anything? Machine. Drawn? Machine. If the prices were equal I would be open to buying hand-made things but the thing is that hand-made things cost more and have lower quality.
I can see why it's impressive that someone spent the time to carve a wooden bowl. I also see why it's impressive simply to create something intricate by hand. Would I pay extra for it because they spent a lot more time on it than a machine would have? Hell no. It's their hobby and they enjoy it, good for them but it's not my job to encourage them to continue their hobby.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: People who went to Ivy League (or equivalent) schools are worth more to society than people who didn't. +
+ People who went to Ivies are smarter or harder-working than their peers. The rest of us, contrarily, didn't work hard enough or just weren't bright enough to gain admission to such prestigious institutions. As such, it's no surprise that they're employers' first-choice candidates for jobs.
That being said, it's clear that they have more to offer to society than the rest of us. We exist to do jobs that are below what Ivy grads are capable of. In essence, we're here because there just aren't enough Ivy alums to fill each job that exists. Heck, we shouldn't even be taken seriously when we speak, because there is certainly someone smarter out there who can rebut anything that comes out of our mouths.
Obviously, some Ivy grads do crooked things, so there are some exceptions. But, by and large, the idea holds true.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Donald Trump is popular because he doesn't give a fuck. And he could actually win. +
+ Hi all,
I haven't thought this through in depth, but my gut reaction to Donald Trump's popularity is that he taps into the hatred for the political class more than anything else. He simply doesn't give a fuck about politicians, and is willing to call them out for being the shit they are. And the rest doesn't matter at all. I don't think it's primarily a racist element that supports him. I don't think it's that people have any clue about his politics even. No one really cares.
But the likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham are well known for being war mongers who are totally full of shit and useless. Rick Perry is a complete idiot. Hillary Clinton, well, she's a Clinton... Nuff said. And Donald Trump is the only person in the race (other than Bernie Sanders) who opposes the existing political paradigm. Rand Paul had a chance to do this, his father did. But Rand clearly embraced the political class. Ted Cruz recognizes why Trump is popular, and is seeking the same votes, and that is why he refuses to criticize him. But Ted Cruz is boring with a nasal voice, is a politician, and he clearly comes off as a total asshole. So Trump has the protest vote all locked up.
But what the political class and the American media don't understand is that they are truly hated. The media and political class are currently trying to kill Trump's campaign, but they are doing so at their own peril. Because trump is not just a Ralph Nader or Jessie Ventura or Ron Paul (true believers with limited potential), he is a billionaire who truly hates the political class. His platform (does he have one?) has nothing to do with policy ideas, but is purely a reactionary reflection of the popular hatred of the Washington elite. and this hatred runs very deep. it was deep enough to kill Hillary Clinton's campaign last time around against a candidate with the exact same political views (who even appointed her a key member of his cabinet), and it is powerful enough to truly disrupt the political order.
Trump, more than any other candidate before him, has the potential to overthrow this political order, and that is why people support him. that is my view. change it.
| 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 a $15 minimum wage will help Americans +
+ I'm not a fan of raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast food workers, or anyone really. Sure, it's okay to want to be able to support yourself and family, but protesting the government for a 15 dollar minimum wage seems to be the wrong way to approach it. If I understand the debate correctly, people want to the wage raised from the current $7.25 to $15 an hour. If this is the case, that means every fast food worker, sales associate and the vast many jobs that pay under 15 will now be 15, and I just can't see this being good for the economy. I see many many jobs being lost, job availability shrinking, getting a job becoming much much harder, and the infinite loop of "I have no experience because I can't get a job because I have no experience..." becoming much easier to fall into for kids entering the workforce. Along with the ever growing likelihood of some jobs being replaced by robots and other service gadgets, I can only imagine raising the minimum wage that much will be more harm than good.
I also see making a fast food workers job livable an easy way out of putting in hard work. I'm not saying fast food is an easy job, but an entry level job that requires no skill shouldn't be a viable career choice. I read an article saying that fast food is an "uncomfortable rung in the ladder", that ladder leading to what a person wants to do with his/her life. Making that rung on the ladder a place you can stay, has to be more harm than good to the economy and American workforce though. 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: Universities should not be required to adjudicate sexual assault claims. +
+ It does not make sense for colleges and universities to be required to hold internal tribunals about criminal matters that happen on campus. I see three principal reasons for this.
* **Prosecuting crimes is the government's job.**
The government has the resources to meaningfully investigate crimes, the power to compel witnesses to testify, and institutions designed to handle criminal accusations. Private prosecutions are considered an historical anachronism in free countries today.
* **Colleges are bad at it.**
Related to the first point, a college does not inherently have any of the resources or institutional structure to deal with a serious felony investigation. They can't subpoena witnesses or records, they can't put people under oath, they don't have detectives or forensics labs or judges or professional prosecutors.
* **Due Process matters.**
There are core due process rights that must be abided in a free country before punishing someone for an alleged crime. These include but are not limited to: the right to confront and challenge one's accuser, the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, the right to compel witnesses to testify in your defense and to compel third parties to release evidence, the right to have legal counsel, and the right to a trial by a jury of your peers. Colleges regularly flout all of these, and the proceedings much [more often resemble a kangaroo court than any real justice.](http://documents.latimes.com/uc-san-diego-sex-assault-case-ruling-doe-vs-regents-uc-san-diego/)
Using the force of law to require that universities adjudicate these claims is farcical. If a private university wants to do something like this I suppose they can. But a public university should not be able to sanction a student based on a criminal accusation without due process, and the government should not be forcing private institutions to do the same, [as they currently are doing](http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201104.pdf).
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Biblical End of Times +
+ I believe that the biblical end of times is only something that was created to further force people into following the religion. Because if people were to believe that an end was happening in their lifetime, they must have wanted a "salvation" or a "safeplace", which in this case is the form of heaven, at a greater length than if there was no end of times on the way.
But there is a small part of me that questions it at times, when my ex who is a highly Christian person, tries to reason to me about the current status of Israel and such that is referenced in the bible.
Logically i cant accept it, but because we are just starting to expand our knowledge beyond the perceptive obviousness, there may lay certain aspects that could be potentially true. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Ipads are overpriced and offer little to no value over comparable android/windows tablets. +
+ Not trying to start a flame war, I'm looking for a new tablet and I would consider an ipad, but I just don't see the appeal just yet. What on earth does it do that justifies a price tage 2-3x that of an android or windows tablet that performs the same functions?
Clearly people are buying them, so there's obviously something there I'm not seeing.
I used my previous tablet (Nexus 7, rip) for
* TV/Movies (kodi)
* streaming said movies to my tv (MicroUSB->HDMI out)
* ebooks ([pocketbook](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.obreey.reader) ftw)
* chrome (teh web)
* dolphin browser (porn/flash videos)
* reddit (relay)
* google voice search (because sometimes I can't be bothered to type shit out)
* podcast/music streaming (8tracks,spotify,podcast addict)
* some games (not a ton)
* all the free apps
* vpn (pia)
Given the above, can someone tell me what justifies paying an extra $360* for an ipad? (I could by 3 new nexus 7 tablets for the price of 1 ipad air 2 and have $60 left over*), wtf is going on?
*figures compare this [n7](http://www.amazon.com/Nexus-Google-7-Inch-Black-Tablet/dp/B00DVFLJDS) to this [ipad2](http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-ipad/ipad-air-2/64gb-gold-wifi?afid=p238%7CsmRHMJBBl-dc_mtid_1870765e38482_pcrid_52243313890_&cid=aos-us-kwg-pla-ipad-slid-)
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Your race should have no effect on your chances of getting into a good university. +
+ I just read this [article](http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-asian-race-tutoring-20150222-story.html#page=1) stating that blacks and hispanics have an easier time getting into certain colleges than asians and whites. This just seems idiotic to me. Especially considering that only certain minorities have an easier time getting in, while others like asians have a much harder time. It should be based on your grade average and the score you get on your SAT (I'm from Canada so I'm not really sure how SAT score factors into that. I'm used to only your high school grades being counted). If an asian student gets a 90% average, his/her application shouldn't be tossed aside for a black student who only managed to get an 83% average. Maybe in the past affirmative action was necessary, due to racial bias. Nowadays it's completely useless and does nothing but inhibit asians and whites.
I believe your race shouldn't matter when it comes to these things. It's like saying blacks and hispanics are more stupid than asians and whites and therefore should get some help to get into college. Also, before you say that it has to do with economic status, I would like to disagree. My family (including cousins and whatnot) came from very poor circumstances. However, most of my cousins have gone on to get degrees in things like engineering. If you don't do good in school, it's either because your capacity to learn in that certain subject or in general is lower than other people (say being bad at math or English) or you just didn't try hard enough.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Film is a superior medium to theatre +
+ **My argument:**
I *love* theatre. I'm an English teacher, and enjoy teaching plays just as much as teaching novels or poetry, and I focused my masters dissertation on Shakespearean tragedy. However, I believe that in many aspects, film is not only the natural successor to theatre as a storytelling tool, but also its superior. In many ways I see theatre as a rudimentary attempt to achieve the same things film does, but with greater limitations. I don't think there's any film made that's better than Macbeth, Hamlet or Othello, but I believe if film had been around as long as theatre, the masterworks of the former medium would have far surpassed that of the latter.
**Reasoning:**
For starters, what does theatre do *better* than cinema? Anything involving audience interaction: definitely, though this is (I would argue) a minor thing in most genres, and the genres that make it a major thing tend to be abominable (like pantomime). Theatre is also better whenever whatever story you present needs to be sufficiently artificial: so if you agree with Brecht and pooh-pooh the idea of suspension of disbelief, then theatre: a medium where you can literally always *see* the fakeness (the audience, the staging) is superior to film. And yet, there are films like Dogville which can still fulfil this same function.
However, I would argue that in most cases, storytellers of fiction desire their audience to suspend their disbelief and 'believe in' the fictional world they have created: even if they're prepared to deliberately break this on occasion, as Shakespeare does. Tragedy wouldn't be tragic unless we believed in the characters it displayed. It could still be enjoyable (Like Oscar Wilde's absurdly artificial play Salome) but not tragic. Comedy is less slavish to suspension of disbelief and need for verisimilitude, but most comedies still strive for it to some degree. And here's the rub: *film is far superior to theatre in providing this aspect*.
There are so many limitations that theatre has to overcome in order to provide an experience the audience can 'believe in', and if it succeeds in overcoming these limitations, we are pulled out of the fiction because we are so impressed by how realistic the blood coming out of Banquo's mouth is, and if it fails at overcoming these limitations, we are pulled out of the fiction because the blood coming out of Banquo's mouth looks like watery food colouring. It's a lose-lose situation. In film however, when something looks sufficiently realistic so as to instil a sense of verisimilitude in its viewers: it more often than not bypasses that feeling of being impressed at the craftmanship of the artificial world, and instead bolsters our 'belief' in the fiction. Even if you know it's a miniature, you do not need to exert much mental strain to 'believe in' the skyline of L.A. in Blade Runner: it feels natural. Yet on the other hand, a scene change from one environment to another in theatre is jarring, and often when the lights come on we think to ourselves: *ah look: they've now lowered that chandelier that I saw in the previous scene, and they've put some white sheets over the furniture to show it's a different house*. A film can cut from a skyline to an interior shot, and even the most egregious of George Lucas wipe transitions won't break our sense of its natural flow.
**In a nutshell, my argument is this:**
1) The majority of storytellers in the majority of genres desire suspension of disbelief.
2) Film overcomes various barriers which theatre for millennia has been forced to find ingenious workarounds to.
3) When the hurdle of suspension of disbelief is easier to vault, more time, skill and energy can be spent actualising the artist's vision which strives to find beauty or truth.
4) Therefore: film is, overall, the superior medium, and even in its infancy this new art form is already producing works that are starting to rival the greatest of plays. Had film been around as long as theatre, we would have as many 'master' filmmakers as we do writers.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Irish people are British +
+
Just to be clear I'm in no way an imperialist 'little Englander' type. A personal mantra is 'one race, the human race'. IMHO nationalism is a scourge on society (perhaps we'd better save that for a future CMV).
I'm English but feel as close kinship to Irish people as I do with Scottish & Welsh people. Looking at my own family tree you don't have to go too far back to find plenty of Irish, Scottish & Welsh relatives amongst the English.
Many thanks to everyone for the carefully considered and thought provoking responses. Peace & love upon you whether you happen to be British or Irish or anything else for that matter :)
**Change my view : Irish people are British**
Background : A dear friend of mine is Irish, I’m English. Last year in a conversation relating to the broad differences between Irish & English people I made the following remark ‘we’re both British’ the reply I got was ‘you can call me a cunt but don’t call me a Brit’. This is the only time I’ve heard her use the word cunt.
I’m aware there is a lot of controversy around this issue in Ireland, and have read about it fairly extensively, but I cannot accept the factual premise that Irish people are not British.
To me, to be British you have to be a citizen or native of a country within the British Isles. The island of Ireland is one of the British Isles and has been so since before the notion, never mind the nations, of England or Ireland even existed.
There does appear to be widespread ignorance that somehow confuses the term ‘British’ with the term ‘English’ or the island of Great Britain.
It seems very odd to me that Irish people would rather be identified by the English word ‘Irish’ than the ancient word ‘British’.
To some there seems to be a political meaning to the term ‘British’, whereas in my eyes it’s a geographical term like ‘European’.
I’m fully aware that people are entitled to their own view on whether they are British or not, what they're not entitled to are their own facts.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:people will only take climate change seriously once a lot of people die +
+ i believe the only way climate change will be taken seriously will be when thousands of people will die
1)climate change is considered an "invisible force", that is there are few physical signs that show that the Earth's climate is changing. the only physical signs will be through natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, droughts). no matter how many times a scientist will go on the news to say climate change is real, people won't change the way they live their lives.
2)relating to the first point the amount of these natural disasters need to happen frequently. for example, hurricane sandy caused 65 million dollars of damages and occurred in late October. yet climate deniers will say it was just a freak accident that occurs every couple decades or so. they will probably mention a powerful natural disaster in the 50s or so and say "was climate change happening then??" like a scrap on the knee, people will just put a band-aid over it and give it time to heal, but if these scraps happen in rapid session people will realize they can't take it anymore
3)people only care about things that affect them. if there was a law that made its citizens use environmental friendly trash bags and to recycle, they would flip out. why would people care that polar bears, dolphins, bees ,etc. are dying?
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Doping should be accepted in professional sport and the Olympics +
+ Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times by taking EPO and--when a test for EPO was developed--by taking blood transfusions during the race to increase his red blood-cell levels. He passed all of the blood tests (shy one, where the story of using a particular ointment for saddle-sores was concocted to explain it).
Doping in one form or another is always going to happen, and there will always be another method that can escape detection. If you're a professional athlete, or an amateur competing in high profile tournaments such as the Olympics, then you either dope or you face a significant disadvantage.
I don't think this will ever change, and the consequence is that every winner will be tainted by doubt, so I think the only way to address this is to change the policy to allow specific types of doping.
Ball-shrinking, liver wrecking, life endangering drugs would still be banned for the safety of the athlete, but anything that's either harmless (blood transfusions), or at the same level as "professional hazard" (like brain damage for boxers), would be allowed.
One of the things that encourage me to have this view, and that I'd like addressed if it's wrong, is my understanding that the IOC relaxed their criteria for gender verification.
The reason, as I understand it, is that there were simply too many legitimate side cases, so the hardline rule couldn't be enforced. Someone genetically male might have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or XX/XXY mosaicism, for example, and grow up looking like a woman to anyone but a gene lab.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_verification_in_sports
| 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 are opposed to the prison industrial-complex... then perhaps shaming, shunning, and exile should be considered as alternatives. +
+ First of all, I am largely opposed to the prison-industrial complex. I feel that many of the laws behind it are arbitrary (re: the drug war and victimless crimes), and that even many of the violent criminals who are jailed don't need to be locked up for as long to prevent them from being an immediate or persistent threat. In fact, I believe that long term incarceration under harsh conditions is something which actually causes further social harm – directly to the person incarcerated and to the society which the prisoner will be released into after an extended period of incarceration. Also, if the person has dependents, they too might suffer more if their material needs are not adequately provided for.
Subsequently, if some sort of punishment is required for violating some sort of socially accepted institution, then I feel that some form of shaming, shunning, and exile are possibly effective alternatives to prevent crime before we decide to incarcerate someone for an extended period of time or issue fines which they may not be able to pay.
One advantage to this approach is that the punishment is more directly democratic. It's not a punishment which is wholly issued by a sitting judge who is appointed to represent the public and who arbitrarily decides a perpetrator's fate. Rather, the perpetrator, by agreeing to make public their offense, can still receive a certain degree of sympathy and forgiveness. And if they are shunned or exiled (for some indeterminate amount of time), then other members of the public can go along with that punishment to a degree they see fit.
Granted, with shunning or exile the punishment would work much better with social cohesion, but if it were the accepted form of punishment then shunning or exile might be more readily accepted and enforced by the general population of an area. Admittedly, this is an aspect of society which would probably have to be reformed or evolve if a society chose to move away from incarceration, corporal punishment, and excessive fines. But if society is incapable of changing in this way... then I'm not sure society would be able to change in other ways which would make it sustainable and tolerable to live within.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: White people portraying other races without the use of cariacatures or stereotypes is not blackface. +
+ I have yet to understand why a straight actor can portray a gay character while can't the same be same for white people portraying other races. If an unknown white actor portrayed black character with a rounded story, un-cariacatural appearance, etc., and slipped under the radar, why should there be any problem if people find out the actor was white.
Even though I understand why the minstrel shows of the past had been racist, if a black (or any other race) character had been thought to be well developed, not-racist without the context of the character, etc. I don't think it should be comparable to blackface.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: There is virtually zero risk of human extinction from human causes (i.e. nuclear war). +
+ While there are many ways for humans to devastate our own cities, technologies, and civilizations, I feel that exterminating the entirety of the human race is beyond our collective ability.
There are so many people spread so thinly across so much area, that all of our nuclear weapons can not reach all of them. All major and minor cities may be destroyed, and the fallout and nuclear winter would be horrific, and any survivors may effectively be in the bronze age technology wise, but at least a few groups of humans in some hidden corner of the world would survive the destruction and aftermath.
Same goes for biological weapons, climate change, and all other human-caused sources of destruction. Of course, I'm not talking about natural catastrophes like large meteor impacts, which I believe could end our species.
If I am wrong, I would love to be convinced!
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Utopia has come and gone, and can never be recovered. +
+ I believe that utopia is being one with the world in such a way that the struggle for survival is meaningful. As we take from the environment's resources, we give back with our death. I am referring to hunter-gatherer societies, before the advent of technology progressed as far as to allow us to settle down via agriculture. Back when labor was purely for survival, all other efforts were treasured and treated as divine. Art and music and expression were precious excesses that bound people closer to nature and the balance that had been struck between mankind and its environment.
The modern world has destroyed that divinity. The moment that humanity became the greatest threat to itself is the moment that utopia was lost. Now those of us who are "fortunate" enough to live in a 1st world nation ponder the meaning of our lives and the work we do. We grasp for luxury that ultimately does nothing but pitch our fortune against others in a meaningless display of power. Those left in the world who struggle to survive either do so against other humans, via the mechanics of capitalism or the horror of war, or they are admired and envied for the strength and longevity of their customs, for continuing to strike a balance with nature rather than using modern technologies to conquer it.
True utopia is to face nature and face our mortality with acceptance, and to strike a balance with nature such that all life and life's labour has meaning. We have lost this balance forever, and our ultimate fate is probably extinction dealt from our own hand.
And of course, the great irony is that we are nature's impulses incarnate. We are self-interested to a fault, as any natural life is. We somehow just ended up with the intellectual power to win nature's game, and this is what will keep us from utopia. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:democratic party should have joe biden and/or john kerry in the democratic nomination race +
+ I'm not saying either kerry or biden would win. I'm not saying hillary isn't going to be the next president. I'm simply saying we deserve more options and a better debate about the future of the national democratic party and country.
I know Sanders is a very serious candidate. I also think he lacks the profile to compete with Hillary's name recognition and public achievements. kerry and biden do and have many progressive victories. Who knows if they'd catch fire with primary voters but i think they'd have a real shot.
Last weekend until today are instructive for why need more serious contenders. O'Malley and Sanders were interupted by #blacklivesmatter activists. They both stumbled through awkward answers but they took serious stands and responded quickly. Hillary took a few days to make statement. But today, within hours of reports on problems with her email server her campaign is quick action explaining their side.
On obvious stuff, and when she's attacked, she is immidiately responsive. When it comes to issues that are more nuanced, emotional and topical, she is late and calculated.
The dems deserve a real challange to the hillary out of mere respect for the people who's vote they depend on. kerry or biden are that challenge.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Taco Bell is by far the best fast food choice for vegetarians +
+ Earlier this month I switched to being full vegetarian after experimenting with some restrictions for many years. The transition has been pretty smooth for the first part, although I've had to transition away from some of the ways I've handled my diet.
The biggest change has been fast food. I work strange hours and am often on the road, so there are many times when a fast food place is the only reasonable option if I'm going to eat at night. Before, that would have meant a McDonalds run, but they are completely ill-suited for a vegetarian unless you just want fries or a boxed salad.
But then I discovered the joys of Taco Bell. I probably could count on one hand the number of times I ate Taco Bell each year before, but their options for vegetarians are actually quite reasonable. Aside from menu items like a potato taco, they also have nachos, quesadillas which are more flavorful than just cheese and a tortilla, and a full array of menu items which can substitute beans for meat quite easily.
It's gotten to the point where I've given up on just about every other fast food chain unless I'm really craving a grilled cheese.
Perhaps I'm unenlightened though. CMV. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: We should totally bring back airships. +
+ I've never understood the vehemence of popular opinion against the hydrogen airship. People balk at the idea of flying around in something filled with explosive gas, yet it seems to me that airliners, when they go wrong, are often just as (or more) fatal to their occupants. The Hindeburg disaster only killed just over a third of the people on board; the majority of airliner crashes kill everyone on board. Overall, the death toll of conventional airplanes, though small, has vastly exceeded that of airships, yet it is airships that retain the reputation of being death-traps.
The truth is, airships were an idea that was completely out of step with its times; during the period where they were most economically viable, materials and engine technology, among many other things, were barely adequate to deal with their demands. An airship built to Zeppelin scales with modern materials technology and design techniques would be dramatically stronger, lighter, faster and safer, with aramid fibre skins stretched over composite frames. They would have satellite navigation and meteorology, and onboard weather radar to avoid dangerous weather; computerised systems would monitor hydrogen pressure and static build-ups, modern escape and fire suppression systems would provide a final back-up. Moreover, there is the potential to use solar power and electric motors to run these flying behemoths essentially for free, making them far more economically viable, both for passengers who don't mind a slower, more stately trip and for container cargo. You might even be able to use onboard generated power to crack water to produce hydrogen to replenish losses, though I'm not sure how feasible that would be.
Also, it's very hard to deny that airships are really fucking cool.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I'm opposed to a higher minimum wage. +
+ People like Bernie Sanders demand a higher minimum wage, and much of Reddit agrees with him. I disagree. I do not believe this will help poor people, in the long term.
I'm European, and I've visited most western European countries. I've also been to the US once. I've been there only for a couple of weeks, but I've encountered a lot of new jobs that I had never seen in Europe!
When I went to an American supermarket, there were people greeting me at the entrance. There were always cashiers available, and there were often two cashiers helping me at the same time: one to scan the goods, the other to bag them. And there was often a person in the parking lot to gather all the shopping carts!
I have never seen those jobs in European supermarkets, but they were very common in the US. Those jobs exist because of the lower minimum wage. When workers are expensive, business operate on a skeleton staff. But if they're cheap, you can hire more.
So raising the minimum wage will destroy jobs. The poorest, least desirable employees will find it a lot harder to get a job.
If you believe that certain people deserve more money, **give it to them**. Vote for a Universal Basic Income, or start a charity. But don't **force** businesses that **voluntarily** provide jobs to the poor to pay them even more, because you'll punish both the poor and businesses.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: White people owe black people an innumerable debt and they should start paying it back now by giving up their privileges to black people +
+ The experience of Black people in what is today the United States, spans hundreds – hundreds – of years of being bought and stolen from their homelands, ripped from their cultures, parted from their families and their language, being sold and treated as inanimate objects. It’s an experience of systematic, frequent, and legal rape, beating, murder, torture, kidnapping, cruel working conditions and constant verbal dehumanization. For hundreds of years. Even after slavery ended officially in 1865, much of this continued for another 100 years, well into our lifetimes. Since slavery ended, the Black experience has included beatings, murder, burning crosses, vandalism, and intimidation and humiliation at lunch counters, drinking fountains, public streets, private homes, work places and the voting booth. It has included de jure and de facto exclusion from decent neighborhoods, home loans, schools, adequate jobs, political representation, legal justice in courtrooms, and even marriage to White people (until 1967). While increasingly less legal, much of this continues today, as does the fallout and trauma of coming from 12 or more generations of abuse.
Black people’s bodies – literally and figuratively – tilled the soil, built the foundation, and grew the backbone of this country. They planted and harvested crops that fed us and grew White wealth. They built the roads and railroads. They nursed and cared for White children so wealthy White women could spend time doing other things like studying and developing their artistic talents. And on and on. And we have yet to truly acknowledge that White people are rich – that White America is rich – because Black people did so much to build this nation, and built it for cheap or less than nothing.
The life you enjoy today is also made easier by the fact that you was born with White skin in a country where having White skin has brought meaningful, unearned advantages for hundreds of years. And yet so many White people think racism is gone, over, a moot point, or a tiresome topic. They point to all the progress we’ve made and how much better things are. Yes, you've made progress and things are better – but this was just as much (or more) due to Black peoples’ efforts as yours.
Nothing in White people’s experience comes close to the suffering of Black people. Nothing. And you inflicted this suffering. White people owe Black people a tremendous debt – still unpaid. That is why White people have the responsibility to pay back their debt to black people after 200 years. Black people shouldn't be asking for $15 minimum wage or equal pay, affirmative action or stop police brutality, White people should be automatically, happily and voluntarily give black people double the minimum wage, extra pay and give up their slots in college for black people, as well as give black people reduced sentences for their crime. Think that's unfair? NO, that's fair, because you and your race owe black people an immeasurable amount of wealth, opportunity and happiness that you should start paying back. Everything that you have to enjoy today is thanks to black people's effort. You already owe black people since you're born white. It is time to reverse the situation and give black people the justice they deserve. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: No closely related sports are any more difficult than the other +
+ People often time have discussions on what sport is harder between baseball/softball, football/rugby and so on.
However isn't every advantage that may make the sport easier a disadvantage to the opposing team?
Example:(When in comparison to softball) "Baseball is much more difficult since the ball is smaller thus so much harder to hit"
Though isn't that an advantage to the pitcher?
The opposite goes for softball while the ball may be easier to hit since it is larger than a baseball, that makes it more difficult for the pitcher to succeed.
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: The health drawbacks are more than enough reason to outlaw Marijuana. +
+ Should the war on drugs be eased up and should the punishment for possession be smaller? Of course. However, Marijuana slows brain function, dulls reflexes, can get you fired from jobs, can cause brain irregularities, etc. Medicinally it should be allowed, for people with seizures, PTSD, etc. But recreationally, feeling relaxed is not a good enough reason to hurt your brain. It contains carcinogens. It seems to me that stoners are using the same reasons that Tobacco smokers use, it is all feelings over facts. I understand that it woild create more revenue, but I care more about the health of people over the government's revenue. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Green power is the only way to go +
+ the name of the post says it all, I think the eco-friendly energy such as wind farms, solar, and hydro-electric power will benefit us in the long run. although most types of eco-friendly energy creation, as of now, tend to be more expensive to put in place I think that they will pay for themselves over tome and that they are also infinitely better than fossil fuels.
I also think that Hydroelectric is one of the best replacements for fossil fuels as more than 2/3rd of the world consists of water and many developing countries which rely heavily on fossil fuels in their industries have plenty of rivers and oceans whose energy they can harness; my main examples being india, china, and other asian countries. as well as this some african countries lay along rivers and are situated on coasts and this could help eliminate costs that come with transporting fuels for energy across the continent
Prove me wrong, 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: Done correctly, I don't see anything wrong with Socialism. Quite the contrary, it seems more fair and sustainable than free market purism. +
+ Obviously the Soviet Union did horrible things and killed millions of people over the decades (but so did America, countries in western Europe, Japan, Germany and other capitalist countries) and Red China did and continues to do horrible things, but this was more as a result of being overly punitive and stubbornly autarkic than any fault of socialism itself. While I do think the farms were collectivized way too fast, for the most part the crimes the communist states committed had more to do with their authoritarian and ideological rigidity than with people starving because they "ran out of other people's money" as conservatives like to quip.
There's nothing inherent about socialism that means you have to kill off your opponents or commit genocide, or censor the media and throw dissidents in prison. This is a result of the largest communist states being one-party ruled, and an overly vengeful culture and government. Capitalist dictatorships of the 20th century like Pinochet's Chile and Suharto's Indonesia were the exact same way in this regard.
One can have both communism and democracy - Mongolia, Nepal and Albania all democratically elected communist parties in the 90s. I just don't see anything wrong with distributing the wealth, especially when you consider the positive track record of such attempts in mixed economics like the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada.
I'd even argue that for all of the bad things Soviet Russia and Red China did, they were still much better than the monarchies that came beforehand. They also did see a lot of economic growth and development. Before the Communists Russia and China were backwaters, practically medieval societies. By the 80s they were very well developed and the majority of the population lived relatively modern lifestyles with radios, electricity, healthcare (not necessarily the best, but given non-discriminately and vastly better than what was available in the 19th century), television sets (even if they were mostly B&W), universal education and running water. It's hard to deny that communism was a success in the sense of material prosperity growing.
So I fail to see why communism is inferior to capitalism, aside from the fact that nationalist movements ultimately destroyed the Soviet Union. You could also argue that Japan and America's unending economic stagnation represents a failure of capitalism, and it would make just as much sense.
I think the best system is one that mixes capitalism and communism together - that allows innovation and makes it easy for people to start enterprises, but also has a strong publicly owned "backbone" and distributes wealth so that the poor do not starve or end up homeless, and the rich and middle class live in a more stable and safe society, which is the case when you have fewer people who are desperate and irrational due to poverty.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Parking in the expectant mothers spot when you're not one is the logical thing to do if there are no legal consequences. +
+ First of all, I wouldn't do this personally because I don't mind walking. I don't even look for close parking spots. This discussion is purely hypothetical looking at the issue from an objective point of view. This post was inspired by a question I posted to /r/legaladvice and was told that it's a douche move. I didn't feel it was appropriate to discuss the douchiness of it there so I decided to make this post.
You go into a parking lot and are trying to find a place to park. There's one 15 spots away from the door and then there's one that's 3 spots away from the door. One of them is meant for expectant mothers but there is no punishment for parking there if you are not an expectant mother which makes the two spots equivalent in everything expect for distance from the door. Objectively, it's better to choose the closer one.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Self interest is a persons only motivation +
+ It seems that the only thing that ever is motivating any person at any point in time, is self interest.
"Selfless" actions can easily be explained through people likely expecting themselves to act in this fashion as it is their own moral code which they are fulfilling. To them they would expect it of themselves and be disappointed if they didn't carry out the selfless action. behind all of this is self interest
Yes people might suggest that people are motivated for things such as want for sex or money, but behind all of this lies the sole motivation of self interest.
This is a pretty annoying view that I don't particularly like and so I would be happy if anyone could change it
My philosophy teacher held that self-interest was the sole motivation, and like a fool I decided that until I could refute it, I would accept it. I didn't realize how much this has been bothering me.
The reason why it bothers me, as some have asked, is due to its ruining of my more romantic notions of life and what people are all about. Personally being a christian guy, it also seemed to contrast to my beliefs, suggesting that the kind of life my faith wants people to live was an impossibility of sorts. I now understand how sill this was.
There was no reason for me to accept the argument as valid and sound in the first. It is based off an inductive generalization (it normally seems to be true, therefore it is the case) of small sample size that has no compelling truth behind it. (as /u/caw81 pointed out)
As most people have pointed out and the thing that I had been catching on the most, was the suggestion that sel-sacrifical and selfless acts where somehow purely self-interest in some fashion.
On a more soppy note, I would now contend that (for want of a better word) love is the main motivation behind things. Love of self motivates lots of things such as self interest, but there is something else which I'd been discounting earlier. This is of course love of others which is expressed through selfless actions
Thanks guys
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Major religions are mythology with good PR +
+ I believe what seperates say Christianity from Norse or Greek mythology is that its better at convincing people it is true due to its institution, conquest, and capitalizing on the luingistic ascpect such as the books spreading.
I think that in maybe 100-200 years we might call christianity christian mythology or Islam Islamic mythology. It will go out of trend due to scientific discoveries and humanist/secular world views will replace it.
Most religions are made and written for older standards and we are already having this kind of cognitive dissonance over what it trulsy is. After a few generations people will stop forcing christianity as the norm and people will not be determined to persue it at all. I already see it in my home country and we will probably see it more in the US in the next 50 years.
What i personally think has made christianity spread more then any other religion is that other religions while promising rewards or trying to justify one way of living has promised rewards such as life after death and also made it apply to everyone. For example "You get into heaven as long as you dont do that thing we all hate anyways". There you got a justice system, promise of heaven, an authority. That is all you really need to make people follow you. And now of course it has moved into this either bigoted denial of how the world is "homophobic, creationist etc. or progressive one foot in one out "Im christian but never go to church and dont do anything special but anwser that i believe in God when asked".
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Tipping should not be excpected +
+ I am strongly against tipping people for simply doing their job and it bothers me that tipping has become expected. I will tip only if I feel like that person deserved it, whether they are working really hard or are just being really friendly and genuine. I understand that some workers dont make much, but I am not their employer therefore how much they earn is not my responsibility and they should not rely on customers "tips" to support their income.
TLDR: I feel like tipping should be optional, and not something that you should be guilted into doing.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" wasn't nominated for Best Music Video at the VMAs because the video isn't very good, NOT because of a bias on MTV's part. +
+ **TL;DR: Nicki Minaj claimed that MTV was biased for not including her video for "Anaconda" in the Best Music Video nominees. But they're not sexist, nor racist, Nicki's dancers really aren't "fat," and she hasn't been snubbed completely from the VMA's. Anaconda's been nominated for two other awards. Anaconda isn't that good of a music video, especially compared to the other nominees, and that's ultimately why it wasn't nominated.**
For those not in the know, there's been something of a [beef between Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift](http://fortune.com/2015/07/23/vma-minaj-swift-twitter/) over nominations for Video of the Year awards at MTV's VMA's this year. You can read the article for a more in-depth summation of their beef, but basically Nicki Minaj argued that her video for Anaconda, despite being fairly well known and popular (amassing upward of 500 million views on YouTube), wasn't selected because she was black, she didn't feature "women with very slim bodies," or because of the strong female sexuality portrayed. Taylor Swift took a tweet as a personal attack at her, and told her to stop "pit[ting] women against each other."
Regardless of whether or not she was aiming criticism at Swift or even Beyoncé (both of whom are nominated for Video of the Year), Nicki Minaj believed she deserved the nomination over one of the other five music videos. [Here is a complete list of the VMA nominations this year.](http://www.mtv.com/news/2219077/2015-vma-nominations/) Here's each music video nominee:
* [Beyoncé - 7/11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4YRWT_Aldo)
* [Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp-EO5I60KA)
* [Taylor Swift ft. Kendrick Lamar - Bad Blood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcIy9NiNbmo)
* [Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPf0YbXqDm0)
* [Kendrick Lamar - Alright](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-48u_uWMHY)
Now here's [Anaconda.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDZX4ooRsWs)
Here are the claims as to why she didn't get nominated for the award:
1. **She's a black woman**: She forgets that Beyoncé was nominated as well. One could argue that Beyonce's music video doesn't focus on black women, as her little entourage has much lighter skinned women than her, but so does the Anaconda music video. Kendrick lamar's music video features primarily minority groups, and the few roles reserved for white people are in the place of antagonists (murderous police, for example). Uptown Funk, though mostly men, has Bruno Mars and his minority backup dancers taking up most of the screentime. I think to say there's a racist or sexist bias in the music video selection is ignoring every other nomination.
2. **She's not skinny**: [Nicki Minaj isn't skinny?](http://www.lovebscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/article-2707980-200CC11600000578-259_634x837.jpg) Tell me one man who would say she's not skinny. Sure, she doesn't have the frame of a clothing model, but she's far from "fat." In her own words, "*If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year*." Kendrick Lamar's music video doesn't focus on women very much at all. Uptown Funk doesn't either. Ed Sheeran's music video only feature's one woman, and in a very monogamous way; if she's being celebrated for anything, it's the dexterity and elegance of her dancing. The women in Beyoncé's music video aren't exactly model frame either. In fact, they're pretty close in stature to Nicki's entourage. The only music video this must be applicable to is Taylor Swift's, but saying that some feature is the path to music video of the year, when only 1 out of the 5 music videos nominated might have it is absurd. I doubt that with skinnier dancers, Anaconda would get any closer to the nomination.
3. **Her music video influenced a culture and MTV is purposefully ignoring its popularity**: This one is really based on a few different subjective factors, but I wouldn't say Anaconda "influenced" a culture, more or less [produced](http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/850/039/01d.png) [a](https://lolclt.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/nicki-minaj-rocket-launch-meme.jpg?w=500) [lot](http://ocdn.hiphopdx.com/nickiminaj-anaconda2.png) [of](http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/46504681373641436/6E722B950FC6B4E5FAB09AD36BBB256F24B103D6/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside%7C500:418&composite-to=*,*%7C500:418&background-color=black) [memes](http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/803/384/d6d.jpg) that poke fun at the absurdity of the music video and song. None of these things are "influencing a culture," other than giving millions of people a new buzz-generating piece of controversial entertainment. And the music video is popular, and for a period of time, you would hear about it a lot. But at the end of the day, the video was published last August, almost a whole year ago, and has around 489 million views. In 2 months, Bad Blood has garnered over 362 million views. Kendrick's Alright has over 10 million views in 3 weeks. Thinking Out Loud has 662 million views. Uptown Funk reigns supreme with 867 million views. 7/11 is in the same ballpark as Anaconda, being published only 3 months after and only getting 241 million views. But even the most viewed music video on YouTube, Gangnam Style, didn't get nominated at the VMA's the year it came out, nor did the one before it, Justin Bieber's "Baby." It's not like the VMA's are snubbing Nicki Minaj altogether; she's been nominated for Best Female Video and Best Hip-Hop Video, a category where she's the only woman represented.
In short, I think the decision to not include Nicki Minaj was on merit alone. MTV hasn't shown a bias against women or minorities, and they're not singling Nicki out on her own by pulling her completely out of the awards. The reason her music video maybe wasn't nominated for the Best Video could be anything. I personally don't think it's worth being called "Best Music Video of 2015." Maybe they thought it was too frenetic, goofy, and slightly incoherent to warrant being called the BEST music video. And that's fair for them to do, as the ones who select the nominees.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: X is better than Y +
+ Clearly, X is better than Y, for a number of reasons.
1. Pronunciation. Saying X has a stronger, more powerful sound than saying Y, which only manages to sound a bit whiny, perhaps because is is too close to "why."
2. Exclusivity. Only about 300 words in English start with X. Y starts over 700 (per Wolfram-Alpha, and this appears to include proper nouns). X appears in only 0.15% of English words, while Y appears in far more. I could not find an estimated percentage, but so many adverbs end in "ly" that it rather proves my point. Even though it's so exclusive, it is so much more versatile, as shown below.
3. Consistency. X is always a consonant. Y? Well, it cannot make up its mind.
4. Scrabble. X is worth twice as many points (8:4).
5. Use in math. First, x is almost always the first letter used as you learn algebra. This could go with consistency above as well, but the x-axis shows the constant, stable variable.
6. Appearance. X has a strong, stable stance. Y looks like it could topple over in a slight breeze.
7. Sex. Our favorite word not only has X right in it, but the whole last 2/3 of the word sounds like saying X. Y? Nowhere to be found, unless it tags along to make something sexy. Not to mention the uses of XXX, and the fact that fairer sex is made up of X chromosomes. Y gives us baldness, hairy backs, and emotional immaturity.
8. History. Malcolm X, not Malcolm Y. There's even "American History X."
9. Versatility in other areas. X can be used to show that something is crossed out, used as a check mark to indicate the choice on a form, used in cartoons to show that a person is dead, used in medicine (x-rays), used to show treasure on a map,
10. = X.
11. ~~No one has ever died in a state spelled with an X. Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, and Wyoming combine for 10% of the deaths in the US each year~~ I somehow came up with the 4 Y states off the top of my head and also thought there were no X states. New Mexico and Texas.
12. If you're talking about unknown items, you always say "X is better than Y," never "Y is better than X".
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: A shrinking population size is a good thing +
+ If population replacement rates are below the rate of no growth or at stagnation, things are going to be better in the future. As automation continues to improve, less jobs will be available. On a nationwide scale, decreasing population means available work. Natural resources of food, water, fuel, and other materials are becoming scarcer everyday. On a global scale, less population means more available goods to all. What result(s) of an increasing population size could surpass these benefits? If we were hypothetically at the growth cap for the human population, would everybody still get frantic like when it's is brought up that the U.S. born citizen population is reproducing below replacement?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Jack of All Trades and a Master of None is Better than a Master of One +
+ We've all heard the saying that a Jack of All Trades is a Master of None. I'm not here to say that this is completely true and that if you are good at many things you will never be a "master" at some skill or aspect of your life.
What I am willing to argue is that benefits of being a Jack of All Trades far outweighs the benefits of being a master of one or few "trades".
For starters, the possibility of finding the thing that truly makes you happy and satisfied in life is lessened quite significantly if your endeavors are honed into a certain subject at an early age. The amount of time you spend on a certain skill, hobby, or whatever it may be is inversely related on the amount of time you spend on other aspects of your life. It is my opinion that when you decide on your calling and devote yourself almost entirely to it, you miss out on other precious and interesting opportunities that your life could include otherwise.
There is no doubt in my mind that abundant success in life is generated by the willingness to make a sacrifices for the thing that you believe that you want the most. It is up to the individual to decide what matters to them the most. Personally though, I think this is such a misguided approach to life that often leaves people feeling unfulfilled when they approach an advanced age. Is "success" in life really that valuable to humans that they are willing to give up so much of their time to a specific task? The need to be recognized and respected as a master of a particular aspect of life is a major driving factor of the sacrifices people make.
A Jack of All Trades in my opinion does not mean you have to be great or even good at the things that you try once, or even do on a regular basis. For sanity's sake though, let's just say a Jack of All Trades is "good" at many things and a Master is "great" at one thing. When you set your focus on being great at one aspect of your life, there is the potential to backseat so many other important things in your life. I think, perhaps, this is best explained with an example. I have a co-worker who is one of the most vocally well-versed, decorated, and revered employees at the company at which I am employed. I am still quite young, and I just graduated college and he is one of my mentors. Working with him has really shown me what true mastery looks like. However, he spends at least 60+ hours a week at work for no real reason other than the fact that he is potentially obsessed with his work. At his age, I know for a fact he would rather be spending time with his grand kids; he doesn't view time the same way most others do, and as a result ends up leaving the office at 7 o'clock every night.
I try not to work overtime unless we are really running behind on a project, because while I love my job, I don't feel the need to devote myself fully to the task. As a result, I am able to focus on so much else and I am not constantly thinking about one specific thing. The ability to detach myself from my career after I leave the office (or job site) really seems to subconsciously effect the rest of my day. I feel more energized when I workout and I don't mind studying other things or brushing up on languages other than English. I also get the opportunity to socialize more with friends when I leave work on time. Having weekends off means I have the potential to do whatever I want and I can pick up new hobbies along the way. So in short I am sacrificing the potential to be great at one thing for the potential to be good (or maybe even just experience) many other things.
Please don't relegate this to being a work-a-holic and not being a work-a-holic. This was purely a life example that directly relates to the topic at hand.
I am sure it is possible to be a Master of one or more things and still be good at a lot of other things, but my main point is that a Jack of All Trades is a much more interesting and fulfilling approach to life than dedication to a singular practice.
Here is the delta, thanks **AnecdotallyExtant**
It will demonstrate that in order to become a master of one, a person must first become a Jack of all.
As an anecdotal example: I am myself somewhere right around the transition between the eighth and ninth picture in that diagram. But I am also the handiest person I know around the house. I can and regularly do fox everything in my house -- nearly worthless with cars, but the home I'm solid.
So again, to become a master of a single trade, one must first become a jack of all. Or one cannot understand his or her own trade out of context. This is why we start our educations in kindergarten and not in graduate studies. A wide, solid, strong and synthetic knowledge base is an absolute a priori necessity.
Which means that it can only follow that a master of one is superior, because it includes a thorough training in the jack of all.
Please read below if you want to see the diagram. Many others had the same argument, but you approached it from an angle that makes sense.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: What we most hate in others are traits we have, and hate, in ourselves +
+ This is a view I've read about from various pop psychology sources, and it has become conventional wisdom. I believe it contains some truth. Can you convince me it merely reflects the fact that every person has pretty much every trait in them in some form, so if someone says "I hate X" they're bound to have some of X in their personality.
An important distinction: I'm talking about "hate" that people regularly bring up, like a person who's known for having a hate or dislike of something in particular (something non-trivial, not broccoli or crap movies): **Things that people hate which they think about regularly.**
When people say they hate homosexuals, odds are pretty high they have closeted homosexual desires. This has become a running joke among gay acceptance (i.e. decent) people.
When people say they hate intolerance, you'll often find they're very intolerant of views that strike them as incorrect or un-PC.
Now, take something horrendously evil like pederasty/paedophilia. One of the most heinous, evil, horrible acts possible. Most people I know, however, when asked what they hate in people, don't really mention acts like that. They mention less horrifically evil things: I hate bullies, I hate hypocrisy, I hate rudeness.
We may want to kill a convicted paedophile with our bare hands, but during our day to day lives we don't think about them often or say we "hate" them--we save our long-term hatreds for less evil things. (This may simply be because (say) pedos are so rare and don't show up in our lives very often, or, because people don't hate that which isn't in their own psychological repertoire, or a mixture of both.)
When I say "I hate religious extremists", I don't have to be religious to say it, but the underlying trait I hate may be closed-mindedness, which I may hate in myself and which I am afraid of exhibiting. I am 100% convinced I do not have a closed mind, but I cannot easily prove it. Do diehard atheists disprove the idea that what we hate most we hate in ourselves? I also hate animal cruelty, and I've never hurt an animal (knowingly) in my life and have absolutely zero secret or repressed desire to do so. But then again I don't really think about animal cruelty very often, but I do think about other things I hate: petty-mindedness, mean-spiritedness, etc.
Is it all just pop psych bs? I would like a good argument against the idea that our common/over-time objects of hate--particularly a character trait in other people--does not necessarily reflect a hatred of those traits in yourself and a fear that you will express them.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: if x is a logical outcome of y but x is an undesirable thing for people that want to do y, then those people will try to figure out how they can do y without causing x. +
+ This is a general response I have for slippery slope arguments or arguments that take the form: if you are Y, then logically you should also be X. My point is that if some undesirable outcome is a logical consequence of some action or ideology, then people who don't want that outcome, will try to figure out how to do that action or fallow that ideology without causing that outcome. I think that people and societies in general are smart enough and/or reasonable enough to know when it would be bad to fallow something to a logical conclusion and so they will stop before they get there. If that makes them a hypocrite, then so be it. I'm perfectly fine with people being hypocrites if it keeps them from doing something unfavorable. So tell me, am I wrong to see things this way?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: There is nothing wrong with requiring (medically-appropriate) vaccination for children to attend public schools +
+ Recently I've heard a lot about mandatory vaccination schemes in public schools. I don't see any problem with them. I've heard a few counterarguments, but they seem unsatisfying to me, for example:
1. My child, my choice. Well, yes. And this is the closest one to a valid argument, IMO. But of course we put limits on what parents are allowed to do and choose for their children; you can't deprive your child of food or education (in the US) and be allowed to keep your child, so clearly it is NOT all your choice. While refusing vaccines is nowhere near on that level, not EVERY possible choice is equally acceptable, because your child is a person, not a piece of property. If the child had the capacity to refuse, I might be swayed, but unfortunately young babies can't understand vaccines on any reasonable level. And, more importantly, it IS still your choice under school vaccination schemes; you can choose to homeschool your child, or send them to private schools that don't care. Those choices aren't available to everyone and that's unfortunate (for far more important reasons than this), but...that's our current system anyway. Being rich gets you all kinds of benefits. I don't think this is different from being able to buy better medical care, better schools, better food, private tutors, and worlds more for your child if you have the resources (I do support basic income, which would alleviate this issue, but that's neither here nor there as we haven't got it). Public schools are a governmental service, and there are rules about who can and cannot use them. I think it is fine to say only vaccinated (or medically exempt) people can use them.
2. Not everyone can get vaccinated. That's why doctors are able to issue waivers for those not medically right for vaccination. This already happens and should continue.
3. Vaccines are dangerous. Not as dangerous as rampant infection. Honestly this is its own debate...But suffice it to say you are going to need some pretty major evidence to possibly CMV. I don't think it exists, but I won't rule it out. I don't really want to talk about vaccine efficacy as it has been done to death, but I guess if there's some truly amazing evidence...
4. Everyone is entitled to an education. They still are. Any unvaccinated child either needs to attend a non-public education option, be homeschooled or eschooled, provide a medical certificate that says they shouldn't be vaccinated, or get the shots. I don't necessarily have a strong view on the best way to handle noncompliance, and don't know enough about policy to say what would be most effective and just. Maybe fines for the parents? The same punishment as parents who refuse to send their kids to school or teach them at home for other reasons? I would not support removing the child from the home or incarcerating the parents, or any other severe punishment.
What would change my view: evidence that such a policy would have clear public health risks, would unavoidably keep children from getting an education, or would have some other major negative effect on society. I also am open to the idea that it is fundamentally unjust, though it doesn't seem that way to me right now.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I think the United States should confiscate the estimated $32 Trillion hidden from Uncle Sam in Tax Havens +
+ I think that the [$32 Trillion](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/22/us-offshore-wealth-idUSBRE86L03U20120722) could be put to much better use than tax dodging, white collar crime, money laundering, terrorism, and drug cartels that characterize it now.
The plan could be simple. Let Marines keep 1% of whatever they confiscate ($320 billion), let the DoD keep 5% ($1.6 Trillion) and tell them to use it to stop all future tax haven schemes, let 4% go to foreign aid to pay off the complaining countries and let others in on the deal to make sure it's popular internationally ($1.3 Trillion).
Then you have 90% left. Let 53% go to zeroing out the total US government debt ($17 trillion). Now you have 37% left. Let 7% of it ($2.2 Trillion) go to rebuilding infrastructure. You still have 30% left. Let 25% of it ($8 trillion) go to sure up Medicare and Social Security. You still have 5% left. Use that for discretionary funds.
The US would be in fantastic shape. Well enough to move into the next century stronger than any other nation by far.
I can't imagine a good reason to leave this kind of crooked cash on the table. It's estimated that $900 billion of it is owed in taxes to the US anyways. There's no reason to be utilizing these havens if you're obeying the letter and spirit of the law.
Even if we just went after taxes due and issued sanctions, we'd get a cool trillion out of it, which could be used to great effect.
Why are we just leaving all this money in crooked little unarmed taxhavens without putting up a fight?
Iran never robbed us for hundreds of billions of dollars. Grand Cayman did...
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: It's okay for kids to hear and say 'bad' words. +
+ I mean they're just words. It's not like its dangerous for their health. If a 6-year old says "fuck" when she stubs her toe where's the harm? I understand not wanting kids to use slurs like "nigger" or "faggot", and it should be explained to them that slurs can be very hurtful to other's feelings, but otherwise I don't see any problem with it. They're gonna start using those words eventually anyway, why censor it when they're young? It makes no sense to me. I work in childcare, and I scold kids for saying those words because I have to in order to keep my job, but how is a kid saying "shit" any different than an adult saying it?
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Modern Art artists and appreciators are lying +
+ First, let me just say that some modern/abstract art looks cool. Some is attractive and worth hanging in the home.
That being said, I do not believe people who say that abstract art *means something* are being sincere, whether they be the artist, owner, or viewer.
Artists, I believe, create things that 1) others will think look cool, and/or 2) others will purchase. I believe artists invent stories about the "meaning" being their art because it makes it seem more sophisticated than it is. By the same token, I believe people who apply meaning modern/abstract art are being dishonest in an attempt to either appear sophisticated or justify their purchases.
I believe it's all a ruse--a lie that no one can be checked on--created to fein sophistication and lofty thinking, and works because "Who are you to tell me what something should or shouldn't mean to me?"
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: There's a contradiction between people being born transgender and the genders being the same +
+ * Gender does not determine behavior, preference, or inclinations.
* Transgender people are born that way.
I consider myself fairly liberal. I'm in the middle, politically. These two views are actually ones I tend to agree with, but I find them to be in contradiction.
To elaborate:
* Gender does not determine behavior, preference, or inclinations.
I believe that a woman, for instance, was not born to want to nurture. Girls play with barbies because that's what is given to them. And females' roles in society is not ingrained in them. Males aren't all made to hunt, compete, and fight, either.
And I hands down believe that transgender people are born the way they are. Their urges to be the opposite of their birth sex is not something that chose or could choose to ignore. Yet, that can manifest itself in things like wanting to dress up in dresses or grow a beard. And once they transition, many transgender people I see take on traditional, stereotypical roles of their new genders.
So can these two ideas co-exist? I feel they can't, yet I still believe them both equally.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:/r/TwoXChromosomes shouldn't be default. +
+ If we are keeping in line with this reddit should be a 'safe place for everyone to voice their opinion' thing, then how can we have a subreddit that is openly about a specific ideology as a default? How can we justify doing away with /r/atheism and keeping a different subreddit based entirely on a different set of personal views? Of course, I am aware you can unsubscribe. However, I could see how a subreddit that handles matters like supporting pro-choice rallies etc. could scare someone into hiding their voice if they are seeing reddit for the first time. Keep in mind, I'm not trying to argue against feminism, or taking down /r/TwoXChromosomes as a subreddit. Simply put, I think if reddit is about making everyone comfortable to say what they want, then they shouldn't publicly support the subreddit.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Life is shit +
+ o*
Life is shit. We're all going to die. Most of us are forced to work a 9-5 job we don't enjoy in order to put bread on the table. Over 40% of people in the UK will suffer cancer at some point. 900 million starving people in the world (but thanks to huge inequality and pure dumb luck you're not one of them). Studies have found that most of us would rate ourselves as "happy" or "very happy", but we're engineered to be overly-optimistic about our lives because an optimistic organism has better inclusive fitness; it is more inclined to "try, try and try again" until it breeds. Studies have found people tend to over-estimate the quality of their lives. Most people - even those living in poverty - must lie to themselves and others that their lives are worth living because the alternative would be to either face the cognitive dissonance that arises from continuing a life they believe is not worth continuing, or to kill themselves.
Our lives are devoid of meaning. Most people recognise that life objectively has no meaning, but go down the existentialist route of inventing some subjective bullshit reason to delude themselves that their lives are significant in some way. Some particularly introspective people will eventually come up against the Absurd - recognising the paradox of their being as an individual that desires meaning but finding themselves in a world devoid of any. Zapffe states we try to avoid dealing with this by "artificially limiting the contents of our consciousness" using the psychological defensive techniques of distraction, anchoring, isolation and sublimation. Our brains are constantly trying to bullshit ourselves, and for many people it works most of the time, but at times it fails.
"What about the happiness in life?" What about it? According to Schopenhauer, what we call "happiness" is a "negative" (i.e. derivative) quantity, a label we attribute to the relative absence of suffering, which is the "positive" (i.e. real) element of existence. This is why the pleasures you experience are always less pleasurable than you expect, and the pains always considerably more painful.
Besides, even if you somehow find a true source of happiness, it wouldn't last. If there's one certainty in life beside death, it's the impermanence of all things. This is a truth recognised not only by Schopenhauer but in Buddhism as one of its core principles. It has a special name for the kind of suffering associated with our recognition of this impermanence of the state of affairs: Viparinama-dukkha. You enjoy your life now? In the best case, you're going to grow old and decrepid, and then die. Your significant other is going to die. Your pet cats and dogs are going to die. You'll get sick. You'll get hit by a car. You'll end unemployed. The economy will turn. So the takeaway is that happiness in a world like ours is fleeting at best, non-existent at worst. "In a world where all is unstable, and nought can endure, but is swept onwards at once in the hurrying whirlpool of change; where a man, if he is to keep erect at all, must always be advancing and moving, like an acrobat on a rope — in such a world, happiness in inconceivable. How can it dwell where, as Plato says, continual Becoming and never Being is the sole form of existence? In the first place, a man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with masts and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over."
And then we have Professor David Benatar, who explains in Better Never to Have Been that "a life filled with good and containing only the most minute quantity of bad—a life of utter bliss adulterated only by the pain of a single pin-prick—is worse than no life at all". He demonstrates that, due to an asymmetry that exists between the values of suffering and happiness when comparing situations that entail a transition from a state of non-existence to existence, every single one of us was overall harmed by being born.
Why do we exist? We're biological machines put together by our constituent genes to serve their interests by acting as vessels through which they can proliferate while having a measure of protection from their environment and the machines of competitor genes. We're engineered, like all life, to survive and breed effectively within our environments. It in the interest of these genes to wire our brains to believe our lives are meaningful and worth continuing however bullshit this might be because pessimists and nihilists tend to be far less inclined to survive and reproduce.
"Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon." -- Aristotle, The Wisdom of Silenus | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: bitcoin is a digital version of a currency based on gold coins and share with it all the inequity. +
+ Hello everyone.
First: i think that bitcoin can be compared to gold based currencies, because both the resources are used to create a currency and both are finite (bitcoin by design and the gold by the limit of the raw material actually known).
Second: as gold advantaged the ones able to dig it (unless force was used), the same is for bitcoins. Who can mine more, has more economical power. That can be avoided with fiat currencies, where the distribution of purchasing power can be redistributed.
Disclaimer: bitcoin is a very cool system, even if has the drawback to let people spend tons of energy/computing power on it, even if the energy (and blood) spent on gold until today should be way higher. Still, i do not like it (as well as gold based currencies) because i feel it intrinsically unfair.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Hard-shell tacos don't make any sense +
+ Here are the problems I have with crunchy tacos:
* I have to turn my head sideways in order to take a bite without spilling the ingredients.
* It inevitably falls apart, meaning I have to have a plate ready to catch the filling, and then I have to either use a fork or pick up the loose ingredients with my fingers.
Am I missing something? Is there some trick to eating them? Do crunchy tacos have some appeal that overcomes these shortcomings?
If given the ingredients to make a hard-shell taco, I can't think of any reason not to break up the shell and make a salad instead.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I think Insurance companies should be able to disqualify people for pre-existing conditions. +
+ So, every time I see people defend Obamacare, they point out that companies having to accept people with pre-existing conditions is a major benefit. Maybe I'm missing something here, and I hope you guys can help change my mind.
So, in my view, corporations don't actually have to care about anyone. All they care about is money. They are businesses, they exist to make a profit. Absolutely nobody should be surprised by this. They don't have a moral obligation to help anybody or be compassionate or think of the children or any of that stuff. Businesses don't have a heart, just two columns of numbers.
Insurance companies only exist to make money. The way they do that is by investing in different people, at different rates, to end up making more money than they spend. The perfect customer from their perspective is one who pays their bill every month and never gets sick or costs them money. The worst customer is one who is constantly sick and costs them a ton of money.
So when a young, smart, healthy, middle class person comes in for insurance, he's probably a good investment. Odds are, he will make his payments, and probably not develop any serious issues. A safe bet.
Now you have an obese smoker with asthma, poor eyesight, a heart murmur, epilepsy, diabetes, and leprosy, and he wants insurance. Guess what pal? You are a terrible investment! The odds of you earning the company more money than you cost is almost zero. He's a terrible bet and no sane employee should even consider giving this person insurance.
I understand this means these people can't get insurance, but that's not the companies problem. If the government wants to step in an insure people with poor health, that's fine, but I don't see why they should force insurance companies to make bad investments.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Sitting Senator John McCain referring to every day citizens coming out to support Trump as "the crazies" is worse than Trump's comment about liking "people who weren't captured". +
+ I'm sure most people on here have seen The Donald's comments about John McCain's military service. I don't know if a lot of people are aware what John McCain said before that.
([Here's an article](http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/john-mccain-donald-trump-immigration-phoenix-120216.html) talking about exactly what McCain said.)
[Here's a picture from the rally](http://imgur.com/bPtv0RX). That is a standing room only crowd. There may not be thousands there like some have said, but there are certainly hundreds and likely over 1,000 people there to show their support a full 6 months before the first primary and over 7 months before the Arizona primary.
After Trump had a rally in Phoenix, AZ (the state McCain represents) for a standing room only crowd, John McCain (while sitting in the senate office he was sent to by the voters of Arizona) said to a reporter for the New Yorker, "This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me, because what he did was **he fired up the crazies.**”
That is a sitting senator denigrating the people of his own state for going to a rally for a Presidential candidate from his own party. These are just regular people participating in democracy, and getting mocked by their own elected representative.
What Trump said about POWs and the military was clearly out of line, but isn't nearly as repugnant as McCain saying that about thousands of American citizens that he represents.
Trump is awful. Just awful. He's a mockery and making a sham of our election process. He should be polling at under 1%.
But I don't get to make those decisions, and John McCain sure as fuck doesn't get to either. The Republican base is showing their support for Trump, and for John McCain to dismiss that by calling HIS OWN CONSTITUENTS "the crazies" is far worse than what Trump said about McCain. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Videogames are harmful even in moderate amounts +
+ I've learned about the concept of the hedonistic treadmill (by myself not by reading the wikipedia page). In short: The more you enjoy something, the more you'll get used to it, and the less you'll enjoy it!
Consequently, in life things like, say, videogames, make you used to high levels of stimulation, making everything else in life seem dull and boring.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, that is except for the fact that videogames are like 99% useless, and consequently you could have similar amounts of fun, on average, after getting used to the usual amounts of stimulation you can find in real life, with the plus that you get a lot more time and energy for things like your education and career, your social and love life, and any hobby or intellectual interest you have!
Even in small amounts videogames drain the fun out of life and take a large amount of time and energy, without giving anything back, at all.
Conclusively, videogames are bad, and society would be better off without them.
CMV.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Romantic love is merely a platonic relationship combined with lust/physical attraction +
+ Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you!
I believe the only difference between a romantic relationship and a friendship/platonic relationship is physical attraction. Lots of people talk of love or some mystical force, but in reality people make all sorts of concessions with regard to a person's character flaws and personality, but no one I have met is willing to compromise in terms of a desire to get nekkid with the person of their dreams. There are other factors that come into play with regard to the interaction lasting or being fulfilling, but I do believe that the only fundamental difference between these two types of interactions is the sexual element. 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: Statistical Thermodynamical Basis for the existence of God through Entropy +
+ Hello! I recently saw a CMV on an argument of the probability of the existence of God or Extraterrestial Life. I had posted a comment but no one has replied so I figured I would post my own CMV. Basically I am relating science and religion.
There is a statistical basis for God that gives an absolute definition for God's existence and that can be explained through statistical thermodynamics and entropy. Thermodynamics is a powerful science that is deeply underrated because it has evolved into the science of defining what is possible and impossible.
I will try to explain entropy to the best of my ability but it requires a fundamental knowledge of the Laws of Thermodynamics. But the Second Law states that the entropy of the universe must always increase for any (natural) irreversible process (or be equal to zero for processes at equilibrium). I claim these irreversible processes "natural" simply because they exist in nature without any perturbation of an outside intelligent force. But the proper scientific term would be "isolated" when referring to the system in question. Now entropy is defined as the "measure of randomness or disorder". This concept is hard to grasp because it requires the definition of two terms "macrostates" and "microstates".
The best way for one to explain this is through the statistics of dice. There are 11 possible outcomes once rolled (2-12) and these represent the macrostates. However there are many ways to represent a set of the numbers (or macrostate), say macrostate(5) = 1+4....2+3...3+2...4+1 (assuming distinguishable dice). Now each set of the dice outcome (1+4 or 2+3...etc) represents a microstate. Now if we rolled the dice infinite times what would the results look like? A perfect bell curve right? With 7 the highest and 2/12 the lowest. Why is this? because 7 has the highest number of possibilities (or microstates) (1+6...2+5...3+4...etc) and 2 or 12 have the lowest (1+1 or 6+6, respectively). Thus the Second Law can be defined that "An isolated system tends toward an equilibrium macrostate with maximum entropy, because then the number of microstates is the largest and this state is statistically most probable." This matches with physical observations. Think of an ice in a perfect crystal lattice where all the atoms are arranged in a lattice becomes in a thermal equilibrium with the environment. It begins to melt and move around increasing the possible arrangements in the liquid state. The atomic arrangement increases and therefore the entropy of the system is increasing as the water changes states. (similar argument for liquid to gas).
There is an argument that entropy can be a viable definition for the passage of time because any spontaneous process goes from an ordered state to a more disordered state. In other words, one with more macrostates and possible outcomes. In the case of the previous examples, before you roll the dice, there exists only one microstate, where there is no value of the dice right? (because you haven't rolled it duh) Then you roll the dice and open up the possibilities. Therefore the process goes from holding the dice in your hand with only one state (ordered) to actually rolling it opening up 36 possibilities (more disorder). Same with transfer of thermal energy from the hotter (or possesses more thermal energy) environment to the ice for it to melt. Energy cannot transfer from the ice to the environment because the ice possesses less potential energy. Heat always flows from hot to cold. Never the reverse.
Now what does this have to do with God? Well imagine the entire passage of time of the universe, where the universe is always increasing entropy (i.e. going from order to disorder). Now imagine going back in time, where things go from disorder to order (dice go in your hand or reverse heat flow from ice to environment). Reverse time in your head all the way to the Big Bang, where there can only exist ONE PERFECT STATE and that is God. The whole universe and everything in physical existence in one perfectly ordered state and that is God. That is the basis of God being omnipotent because he is literally everything and in everywhere. Then there was a Big Bang and the Universe was created (compare to Genesis 1 in the Bible). The "Universe Clock" started and the perfect state proceeded towards a more disordered state.
Thinking of this thermodynamically, God is the unnatural action of going from disorder to order. Therefore, God is order. God is considered "supernatural" because he is a force different than that in the physical world where entropy is violated. Now, the Bible claimed that "God created life" and this can be proven true. Life is a statistically improbable result from physics. But it arose from a perfect condition and arrangement of molecules that somehow produced an well-ordered organism. (There is a theory that Earth before all life was basically a barren wasteland of gasses and electric storms which the lightning produced enough energy for the gasses to arrange perfectly and organized perfectly). Statistically speaking, life shouldn't even exist because it is ordered perfectly that it is extremely improbable. The example my physical chemistry professor gave is that if you gave a monkey a type writer and trained it to punch a bunch of random letters, what is the probability that it will type out the whole entire encyclopaedia? However, I do not disagree with the possibility that other life (aliens or whatever) exists because there is always a possibility (The Black Swan Theory) but we might as well have a better chance with monkeys and typewriters. Also I have found a paper in which relates the origins of life and entropy: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1506.06988v1.pdf
Also, the Bible claimed that "God created man under the image of himself". This shouldn't be taken literally because we don't ACTUALLY look like God but the original interpretation is that we are, in some ways, Godlike. I say this because we do things that are against entropy because we have intelligence. Well actually all life has some degree of intelligence but there are levels. The most fundamental act against entropy that all life possess is that life exists and strive to continue to exist. We (as in all life, plants, animals, cells, humans...) are highly ordered structures that are the result of disorder becoming ordered and we continue to exist! Not only do we continue to exist but it is a biological concern for us to continue living and reproduce. Merely producing babies or more life is an act against entropy because we are continuing to make more ordered structures. The thing that separates humans from the rest of life is that we have a higher level of intelligence in that we are smart enough to interact with the environment and one another to a higher degree. Think about this, if there was a bunch of random metals laying on the Earth, what is the probability that it will become the Eiffel Tower? That required the work of man. Paraphrasing the Bible again (sorry just justifying Christians and Catholics) "God made man the rulers of His creation" We are the masters of craft, creating wonderful structures and arts. We created civilizations which are highly ordered organizations. This is what people meant when they said math is the language of God and engineers are craftsman of God. They create ordered things which require a level of intelligence that is parallel to God.
However, we still need to keep entropy in mind. The entropy of the universe must go from order to disorder but it can be broken up into two parts: the entropy of a system in question and the entropy of everything else or surroundings. If we create something whether it be a building, a computer or whatever, we are making a higher ordered system but we are still increase the disorder of the universe by opening up more possibilities. Buildings allow more physical space for the rest of the environment to use or computers open up more possibilities (faster chips, software, internet).
I have been toying with this idea for the past year and I would love to for someone 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: In accordance with but-for causality, it cannot be said that viewing child porn (without sharing it) causes harm. +
+ I anticipate that this is going to either be down-voted to oblivion or that people are going to try and go off on rants about the wider issue of harm that is caused to children by sexual abuse. I would greatly appreciate if you would take the time to read the following points before commenting or down-voting.
I am not attempting to diminish the harm suffered by children who are victims of sexual abuse. I accept that children are victimised by the perpetrator of their abuse when the images are created and again when and if they find out that images of their abuse are being viewed.
**My view is based solely on the idea that the causal link between the act (viewing the image) and the harm (the victim being re-victimised) is broken in these circumstances, and that it is impossible to therefore attribute this harm to the person who views the image.**
There is, on the other hand, grounds to argue that a person who actively views *and* re-distributes child porn *is* liable for the harm suffered by the victim.
Each and every person who shares an image of a child being abused with another person, is ultimately responsible for the image remaining in circulation. Therefore, if a victim of child abuse learns that images of their abuse is being viewed online, then every person after the creator of the image is responsible for that image still existing, since they have created copies and re-distributed them.
Someone who has viewed the image (so downloaded it) but not re-distributed it, cannot be said to be responsible for the fact the image existed when they found it, or that it continues to exist after they downloaded it. Unless the person viewing the image pays to view it or offers a person some sort of benefit in kind other than money, such as for example praise, then him being a passive consumer has, in my opinion, absolutely no impact on the existence of the image on a distribution network.
A person who views an image of child abuse is only responsible for their behaviour and not the behaviour of others who might view and distribute the same image. A good test of whether harm is caused by a passive consumer of child pornography is to take that passive consumer out of the equation and assess whether the same amount of harm is suffered by the victim. Since passive viewing does not impact upon the existence of the image, if you were able to stop every person who ever passively views but does not re-distribute an image, the image would still exist. The number of people viewing and re-distributing the images would still be the same and they would all still be liable for the harm if the victim in the image was to find out that images of their abuse were being viewed.
Please don't try and change my view by telling me how bad child porn is, I don't need to be told. My view could quite as easily be about any other topic, except that this appears to me to be the only case where harm is often attributed even though the causal link is broken.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: High Frame Rate (>30fps) is just as bad for video games as it is for film. +
+ The general consensus with frame rates greater than 24 or 30 fps in live action work is that it sucks. The illusion of a flickery alternate world breaks down when the motion is as smooth as reality. The viewer more readily perceives actors in makeup on sets. It all just looks... fake. Any film in HFR, either filmed at 48 or interpolated on a TV, looks like a cheap soap opera.
I recently bought a PS4. GTA V looks WORSE than it did on the PS3. The draw distance is better, there are less pop-ins, but the frame rate is too high. Everything looks smooth and fake and video gamey. Flying over the city reminds me of playing N64, because I can't see Los Santos. I just see a bunch of polygons and textures and shaders. Actors in makeup on sets. *EDIT: GTA5 runs at 30fps on PS4. Why does it look worse? Why does it feel more fake? Is the falseness of everything just... clearer?*
I just wish there was a way to limit the frame rate to 24 or 30. It would look fantastic.
But I keep hearing people say they NEED 60fps! I don't know why this is but I have some guesses:
1. Gamers want that hyper reality. Video games and live action film are two completely different mediums, so games are expected to (or at least allowed to) look different. There is something about that false smoothness that is appealing to a gamer. It makes something look "video gamey".
2. Is it more of a PC thing? As a way to show off? A high frame rate means the computer is powerful/expensive. It gives the user a feeling that their machine is worth the money? I don't know.
3. It increases gamer performance? Does it have something to do with getting the slightest advantage when playing other people? Do gamers with the highest refresh rates perform better? Does getting the most headshots mean more than enjoying an immersive experience?
I suppose that's the sticking point: immersion. A high frame rate does not immerse me in a video game. It does the opposite.
(NB This is my view of games on a rectangular screen; I've never tried a modern VR like Oculus. HFR is probably critical with that.) | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: It's disrespectful to make comments on someone being "so hot" when in a relationship +
+ This goes for both men and women. I've started to feel like I'm unsuitable for a relationship because my ideals are not very normal. This has caused problems with a long term significant other on many occasions and I've been thinking about breaking it off, not because of her but because I feel like my ideals are correct so I don't feel like I should be the one to change. One such ideal is that it isn't okay for men or women to comment on someone in the vein of "oh my god (s)he is so hot!" as it's extremely disrespectful to the other person in the relationship. I'm not talking like you can't acknowledge someone's looks at all, obviously there are beautiful and handsome people in the world, but there's a major difference between "holy shit she's hot as hell" and "yeah she's beautiful" the former of which I see as disgusting.
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: Convince me that life is worth living. +
+ Before anything else, let me say that I am not, nor have ever been depressed, suicidal or abused in any way shape or form. My life so far has been somewhat sheltered.
A while ago a stumbled upon the idea, that since entropy can only increase, there will be a time without humanity. A time where all you've done, and all you could have done will be gone, forgotten. The universe will be cold, homogenous and all that has ever been, will fall into oblivion.
Allied to that idea, I also do not believe in free will. You see, we came from stardust, and we will go back to being stardust. I also am not religious and I'm extremely skeptical.
I do not see meaning in any of it. Whatsoever. I wanna change that. I've actively trying to change that for about 2 months or so, but am yet to stumble upon an idea worth living for. So far I've: Read the book 'A man's search for meaning', I meditate and work out.
Can you guys give me some insight on why I should get out of bed?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Most men aren't bad at aiming their pisstols when going number one +
+ I just don't get it. It's a hose. You point it in the direction you want your urine to go, and it goes there. Is it really possible that other men can't be bothered to hold it still and keep it aimed into the center of the bowl or urinal? I am of the opinion that what is perceived as bad aim is actually splash back from the bowl or urinal. I recognize that it isn't always a perfect stream, but even then it's completely manageable given the size of toilets. I don't have first hand experience with anyone else's hose, though, so I could be completely wrong.
| 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 many women are frustrated with men not taking charge in everyday life, and I think men are like that because of feminism clawing its way into society at large. +
+ I think many women are frustrated with men not taking charge in everyday life, and I think men are like that because of feminism clawing its way into society at large.
I think it all started with women that took gender equality too far. Sure, equality in law/education/opportunities/etc. is all well and good, but why change the classic male-female relations?
I think men are more competitive and aggressive by nature, because we have more testosterone. I think women are more gentle and nourishing by nature, because they have more estrogen. Doesn't that go hand in hand with male-female relations that went on for thousands of years? I think it worked pretty well so far, so why change it?
By all means, let's all be equal before the law, let's have equal opportunities and all that. Just don't take my male role away and don't take women's female role away. They can work well together like nothing else can.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Google Is The Most Powerful Company In The Western World, And It Could Become Problematic +
+ While Google may not have the highest market cap, I'm strongly convinced that their owned services provide them an enormous amount of power-not necessarily just for economic gain, but also for political and social gain.
They control the most widely used search engine in the western world. While a search engine isn't the internet as a whole(iCANN essentially controls DNS, a number of organizations control IP distribution), controlling this search engine means that Google essentially controls the most widely used portal to the internet.(in other words, they control how you navigate the internet)
In modern society, when people want to look up something, they usually "Google" it. Google then displays what is considers the most widely relevant and significant results, in the way it is programmed to do. As a search engine, Google reserves the ability to tweak this engine in any way they see fit. Google essentially controls what results make the front page of a search.
In theory, Google controls the information that is provided to the user. If a user looks up a controversial issue, Google could in theory manipulate the results to provide information in favor of 1 side.
In recent years, Google has begun censoring it's search results. You can see /r/googlecensorship if you don't believe it.
**Examples of censored content include:**
- Removal of websites that illegally stream copyrighted material from search results(Google isn't legally required to block these as they aren't hosting the content).
- Potentially offensive, but legal anime content.
- Recent removal of confederate flag from shopping category
These are just a few examples of the content Google has censored. I'm not for or against the content they censor, there's reasons for doing so, and reasons not to, I'm simply demonstrating that Google has the potential to skew search results, and has actively done so in the past.
**Google essentially controls the #1 public information source in the world.** While some people may be smart enough to seek out credible sources instead of Googling, it still provides them the capability to sway the public majority in the way they see fit. In a democratic world, being able to sway the majority of people essentially makes you the most powerful entity in the world.
You may wonder, but where could this go wrong? As of now, Google is only censoring content that can be considered offensive or illegal, and trying to make the user feel guilty for pursuing it by skewing their search results to make the top results content that convinces the user to change their beliefs/habits.
But where could this take us? Imagine if the US Government got involved in a huge war. Google could, in theory, be forced by the US government to skew search results to improve public support of the war. Google could in theory kick anti-war webpages/blogs off of the search results, and skew news results to primarily contain propaganda.
If you don't believe me, look at Baidu. As a prominent web services company in China, they're partially responsible for the widespread censorship of their internet(likely pressured by the government).
Of course, surely something like this would never happen to the US, a glorious free country with freedom of speech, right? That would be true, if freedom of speech was maintained. The first amendment is merely an empty promise that exists to create a sense of nationalistic pride. It has been broken so many times in the past in order to maintain war support and for other reasons. It's essentially "freedom of speech, except when we don't want you to have it".
Whether its newspapers, the radio, or television, the government has censored the media countless times to maintain support for a war. It's not unreasonable to expect for the government to make that effort on the internet. History repeats itself, it would be foolish to think this wouldn't happen in the event of a huge war. The only difference would be that the internet is difficult to censor as a whole-but that won't matter, because the government only needs to censor what the majority can reach. China's censorship works just fine for them in swaying the public despite there being a million loopholes, so it would for the US too.
And besides governments and war, there's plenty of other ways Google could abuse their power. They essential have the power to manipulate their users by controlling what information is fed to them. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The public reaction to the Ashley Madison hacks are way out of line +
+ We don't know the situations of any of the people using this website. There is more than one configuration that can make for a stable marriage or LTR. What if you have a non-monogamous partner that consents to your extramarital activities, but you still felt the necessity to be discreet due to societal pressures? Or maybe your partner is unable to meet certain needs but still loves and wants you to find that satisfaction elsewhere? Or maybe, due to circumstance, you are temporarily stuck in an unhappy marriage but still have this crazy feeling that despite whatever mistakes you made to get into this situation, you are a human being and deserve to find happiness? There are really so many possibilities and to say that all of the people wronged met the end they deserved is to [deny rational thinking so that it aligns nicely with our view of how the world should be](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis).
I've never seen this website myself so I really can't say anything about the demographics of its userbase, but imagine being in a situation like this and having your private information stolen from you, seriously endangering your social and professional life (and that of your spouse's) while strangers on the internet as well as peers in real life jeer at you and call you scum and filth who deserved it in the first place.
There are plenty of assholes who cheat on their spouses. There are also plenty of assholes who don't. But to try to make any kind of sweeping moralistic judgment about some group of 37 million strangers is unjustly harmful and heavily biased in nature.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Gay people are gay because of their upbringing and socialization, not because of biological factors. +
+ I think gay people are gay because of their upbringing and socialization, not because of biological factors. I think it happens in families where the father doesn't fulfill the authoritarian male role, and/or the mother doesn't fulfill the nourishing female role.
I also think that gay people probably won't be fulfilling those two roles in future generations, thus increasing the chance of new gay people emerging from new families.
I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I think the average gay couple will have fewer children than straight couples, which is great considering there's like 7 billion of us already. Then again, I think gay children will have more trouble in their lives for a few more decades (even more in conservative societies).
My speculations are based on a bit of Freud, a bit of Wikipedia, and a bit of personal experience with gay people I know.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Due to the high rate of divorce & infidelity in our society, legal guardianship should automatically revert to parents, not spouses, should the need arise. +
+ Looking at the divorce rate, the Ashley Madison database of 37 million and the unhappy marriages implied therein, it seems that hundreds of thousands if not millions of people are putting themselves at risk of having legal guardianship automatically assigned to a person who does not have their best interest at heart.
Given that your parents are much more likely to have your best interests at heart, unlike a cheating spouse, legal guardianship should default to them first.
To clarify, I am speaking about making medical, financial & legal decisions on behalf of a person when they are unable to due to a major injury, such as after being in a car crash or suffering a stroke.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Parents should be allowed to have children with severe mental disability euthanized +
+ This CMV post is partly inspired by this r/relationships [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3e4h7z/i_m38_want_to_surrender_our_severely_autistic_son/) I came across earlier today. This is also a topic I feel somewhat strongly about and I have not had a chance to really share my view on because it's sort of a "taboo" view to have.
To sum up the r/relationships post: OP's 4 year old son is severely autistic and OP has been told by doctors that his son will never function above the level of a 1 year old and will require constant care. Son is ruining OP's life and marriage, and is negatively affecting OP's 2 young daughters as well.
I do not believe the OP of that post, and the many other parents who are in a similar scenario, deserve to have their lives ruined just because they were "dealt a bad hand" and ended up with a disabled child. I think that euthanasia is a humane, simple solution to a problem like this. After all, we euthanize our loved cats and dogs that are no longer able to have a good, independent life. I don't see a fundamental difference between the two cases.
As for government-owned care facilities: I don't believe it is a good use of our resources as a society to continue to take care of individuals who have no chance to ever become functional members of society. Euthanasia is a much more economically and environmentally more efficient option.
What won't change my view: slippery slope/"where do we draw the line" types of arguments. We are only discussing cases in which the child is beyond a shadow of a doubt unable to ever function independently. CMV.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |