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CMV: People who drive loud cars and motorcycles are inconsiderate assholes +
+ It's my view that people that drive motorcylces and cars with those loud mufflers are simply inconsiderate in that they don't care about other's peace and quiet.
I've always found them annoying, say you're reading or studying at a cafe and they roar by louder than an invading Mongolian horde. God forbid they stop at a light since now you're stuck listening to that ungodly chortle for a good minute or so.
I'm a single parent now and live by a fairly well travelled road. They wake my baby up consistently, and he has a hard time with his sleeping habits.
It's a choice to make your vehicle that loud, not a necessity. On top of that, the rider or driver does not have to hear his most of his own racket since most of the sound is projected backwards.
These people are assholes. I wish I could wake them up every 15 minutes with their own stupid vehicle.
I had no idea this post would get this big and, as much as I'd like to, I can't possibly hope to discuss this with all of you. Thank you to everyone, on both sides of the issue, for your reasoned and very interesting replies.
The argument that got me closest to changing my view was surely that of safety. Other people are saying being loud is not as important for safety as actually driving well on a motorcycle, and this seems to be coming from cyclists as well, so unless I see some sort of peer reviewed study over anecdotal evidence that line of thinking isn't doing it for me.
My favorite arguments were those along the lines of "It's a free country, you're the one that's being inconsiderate by expecting the riders to be silent." The image of some tatted up Hell's Angel roaring through town and impinging on the hearing of 500 people and then screaming "IM BEING OPPRESSED" when someone suggests he tones down the throttle is simply delicious. A special thank you to everyone who called me a pussy via PM. It's good to know you care so much.
I also learned that the sound that irritates so many of us so well is the sound of straight pipe exhausts. Cheers all!
/u/ToastitoTheBandito did manage to change my view on this. [Here is the link to his comment](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/3bfrve/cmv_people_who_drive_loud_cars_and_motorcycles/csmj6kc) Thank you Toastito, and thank you for being considerate to others.
Just a caveat here, there's a few comments in this thread that highlight the problem with some drivers very well. I'm not gonna call anyone out by name but the gist is that I'm annoyed over a minor inconvenience and I should get over it, people like driving loud cars and they're gonna keep doing it.
I don't think any new parent would call it a minor inconvenience after spending 30 minutes putting a baby to sleep only to be woken up 5 minutes into his nap by a purposely loud vehicle. **But this post isn't JUST about me, or my baby.** These drivers drive past countless people. People who are gravely ill. People who own dogs that will shit on the carpet because they're scared of the sound. Nursing homes. Someone with a migraine headache. People who work the night shift. And all these little acts, each one is a little fuck you from the driver. And all these little fuck yous add up to one huge mega fuck you to your community. **People with empathy get mad at this not just because it inconveniences them but because they know it inconveniences many others as well and the act is seen as grossly disrespectful because of that.**
One PM I got said:
He doesn't take the time to think, "How will my actions affect those around me? Is there any chance the thing I am about to do will harm someone, and, if that is the case, should I still do the thing?" No, this person doesn't give a shit. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the very essence of being inconsiderate. ^and^an^asshole
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I don't believe it's a good idea to allow any individual to own more than 1/54200th of the net worth of the country of their citizenship. +
+ Here's how I arrived at that number.
The measured net worth of the United States was $54.2 trillion in 2009.
The Koch Brothers, for a notorious example to start, have a net worth of $84.5 billion right now.
That means the Koch Brothers, by themselves, hold **~1/641th** of the United States' wealth.
Doesn't sound like much? Well guess what: the number of billionaires in the United States is 536. We are #1 in the world in number of billionaires.
Bill Gates, at the top, has $79.3 billion USD. There's 2/641.
Warren Buffet, $72.3 billion USD. There's 3/641.
Carlos Sim, $72.9 billion USD. There's 4/641.
Larry Ellison, $50.8 billion USD. There's 5/641.
Jeff Bezos, $39.5 billion. 5.5/641.
Mark Zuckerberg, $34.8 billion USD. There's 6/641.
You see where I'm going with this? Throw in a couple hundred more billionaires, the fraction starts filling out. Just what percentage are we, the people? About nothing, it seems.
The total sum of all billionaire holdings in 2008 was $4.4 trillion. Only seven years later, it's $7.05 trillion. It's approaching double in less than a decade. Number of US billionaires in 2008: 470 (est.). Number in 2015: 536. This isn't a rising tide - it's just the same handful of people siphoning up the world's wealth.
Now I'll repeat that he measured net worth of the United States was $54.2 trillion in 2009. 1/5200th, per my belief for a wealth cap, would leave all of these listed US Citizens still billionaires - with exactly one billion each to their names. That would shrink their personal holdings to something less than 300/5200, which is a far more reasonable percentage (minimal) than the insane amounts they have now. They'd also live like kings for the rest of their lives, still, and so would their descendants - basically indefinitely.
I don't really have any specific care how they enforce this wealth cap, just that they do. I do know that the US can basically enforce this on the rest of the world, given how they basically assaulted Kim Dotcom in another country and seized his wealth - the US has more military might than all of the other countries combined, and about 7 billion people would support such an action. So it's definitely possible.
The negative consequences of so much wealth in so few hands are obvious - we're all dealing with the fallout in a collapsing country based on greed and exploitation.
But I am open to the idea that a wealth cap might have negative repercussions. Please CMV.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Bill Nye is not a real scientist in any meaningful way to the public. +
+ I submit that Nye's public perception of 'being a scientist' is largely overblown by childhood memories. In his history, he had one 'scientific' accolade: he developed a device for Boeing years before he was every famous. Beyond that, he's just been a guy on TV reading from a script.
Even working at Boeing, his primary job was that of a TV persona: he made the training videos.
I feel that Obama's use of Nye regarding global warming is strictly an appeal to the populace who grew up watching a kid show, not the opinion of a professional with a background in anything remotely related to climate. This doesn't mean I disagree with what he said, but only disagree with the idea that he should be trusted 'as a scientist'. He's a PR tool in that regard. He only parrots others' research - in everything he's done -not anything he actually observed through his own research.
Further, simply having a degree in a scientific background makes you aware of that background (he has a bachelor's in *engineering* from Cornell), but that doesn't make you a scientist in the field. I know many people with degrees in one field who work in an entirely different field. A law degree doesn't make you a lawyer, for instance. My father has one and he's a retired contractor: never worked a legal case in his life. Nye's background hardly applies to the vast majority of his TV demonstrations and appearances.
And to the point of Carl Sagan, Neil Tyson, and others: these are actual scientists who have been published, who do(did) research in the field of their degree and beyond. Yes, these men are TV personas, but unlike Nye they're actually also scientists.
So? Change my view. He's one of my childhood heroes too, but I simply can't accept him as a scientist. I feel that cheapens real work by real scientists.
To many of the comments:
- Education is important and admirable, but that still doesn't make you a scientist in my view. If that's the standard of calling oneself a scientist while being displayed on news media as an expert to be listened to, then really, there's no measure for what an expert is in that regard.
- There are many qualified scientists who are also good on TV: I still assert Nye's appearances were heavily caused by his association as the funny lab-coat and bow-tie 'science guy' and childhood memories, which is a manipulative and deceptive thing to do when appearing in support of public policy (regardless of my agreement and my own support of the same policy). That deception was not unintentional, but calculated. Herein lies my problem and reasoning for this post. I should note that this still stands as my view, and the delta awarded was awarded basically because I worded the post in a particular way. If anyone would like to address this view, I'd award another delta if the mods are okay with it.
- I really, honestly think that comparing Nye and people like Neil Tyson and Carl Sagan is an insult to the latter two. That's like comparing your high school bio teacher to the same two men. That's utterly absurd in my mind: Tyson and Sagan contributed more to their fields than Nye ever could at this point.
- Nye's only contribution I can see, which is the reason for the single delta awarded thus far, has been in the development and design of a hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor used for 747s, to this day. I concede this is a meaningful, scientific advancement for the public made by Bill Nye. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Most governments are untrustworthy. +
+ I have a feeling that I am not the only one with this view, but I will elaborate more on what I mean by untrustworthy anyway.
Ok, so what I mean by untrustworthy is that world governments are constantly lying to us and they are therefore undeserving of our trust. A good example of this are the promises that politicians make and break all the time. I use politicians as an example is because, in my mind at least, they are the representation of the government, so their triumphs and mistakes are the triumphs and mistakes of the government.
I will use the famous example of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where the British and American people were told that the reason we were going to war was due to the possession of weapons of mass destruction by Sadam Hussein. However, it was later uncovered that there was no intelligence supporting these claims at the time nor were there any WMDs when we arrived. Yet to this day, even though it is universally agreed that it was a lie in order to disguise their true motive, no government figure has apologised to us or, to my knowledge, the Iraqi people. In fact, I do not think I have heard any of them admit it was a lie either.
Therefore, since I do not trust those who unapologetically and unremorsefully lie to me, I do not trust the government. I also have some Brazilian friends who share a similar distrust for their government, in light of the corruption allegations against Dilma Rousseff and other members of the government (I mention them to highlight the point that my distrust extends across most other governments of the world, not just the USA and the UK).
However, believe me when I say that I would love to live in a world where I could trust those in power, really I would. It just seems that there is no desire to be forgiven or to make amends for the harm they cause. Imagine how much more productive I could be if I was not constantly doubting every piece of information I get from the government.
Please convince me that the government deserves my trust and, if that is not possible, at least convince me there are more than just a handful of trustworthy governments out there. I will not be convinced if someone tells me of one government that is trustworthy, I need evidence that such trust could be extended to, for example, the government of the United Kingdom as well.
| 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 meaningless and we should all commit suicide +
+ I'm no professional when it comes to logic or argumentation but I have been pondering this thought lately. I am not a believer of any after life or supernatural. If after death we experience what we experienced before birth which is nothingness, then isnt life meaningless? Why should we continue to suffer when life is literally a constant suffering? I personally believe life is meaningless. When you are under the assumption that you experience nothingness when you are dead, what is the point of living?
The only reason I can personally see for living is to not inflict additional emotional suffering on those that you know and care about you. But if you do experience nothingness after life then why should it matter when you wont be able to conceive of this suffering.
Its been something I've been thinking a lot about lately... Change my view, please.
Also, this is not a cry for help and I will not be jumping off the golden gate bridge any time soon. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:The true purpose of EU project is to defend the neoliberal financial order at the expense of the rights of people. +
+ The case of Greece makes the true purpose of the EU extremely obvious. The troika (EU, ECB and IMF) have done everything they can to prove that their goal is to defend capital over people. They have continued to punish the Greek people, even in ways that hurt themselves, in defense of banking interests. Greek bonds were mostly held by French and German banks and that debt was transferred from the banks to the European governments in a deal that was very much in favor of the banks. this entire Grexit situation is a repeat of the American bailout, banks win, people lose.
The destructive austerity they are forcing on the Greeks is criminal. and they are doing it just to prove a point (Wolfgang Schaeuble has been practically cursing out the Greeks at every turn for months).
The venom with which they attack the Greek attempt to let the people decide their own future is a blunt expression for their contempt for democracy. This contempt for democracy was also the evident when the French rejected the EU in a referendum, and were forced to eat it anyway.
This article by Perry Anderson is the best I've ever seen describing the nature of the EU (yes, a bit old):
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n18/perry-anderson/depicting-europe
anyway, this is a dangerous topic because it is so big. So I'm obviously trying to focus on the Greek situation and the banking case. But I'm open to other issues. change my view by proving that the EU is more than an imperialist project to defend the neoliberal financial order.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Lack of motivation is the main reason why people remain fat. Losing weight is not just simple, it's easy and cheap too. +
+ I posted this a while ago but I was told by a mod to try again in a few weeks since it happened during but whole fattening thing. Here is an edited version of what I posted.
So far I've been careful to say "simple" instead of "easy" when it comes to losing weight implying that the steps are simple but the execution is hard. I used to do that because I never had to lose weight. I had to gain weight for a while but never had to lose it.
Now that I'm on a cut I realize that it's not just simple, it's actually easy. Forcing yourself to eat is hard. Just go over to /r/gainit and see for yourself. I've been making myself eat more for almost a year now, while eating more got easier, it was still a struggle and it was expensive (buying lots of food is expensive). There's only so much you can shove in your mouth before you call it quits. Eating less on the other hand? Easy and cheap as hell. See a cookie I want? "No, I need to eat fewer than X calories and eating this cookie means I have to eat less later which will make me hungry". That's all it takes. As for expense, it costs less because you have to eat less. One or two meals a day that are each half of what I used to eat. Instead of burger and fries get either burger or fries. Instead of chips as a snack? Pickles. Everything is cheaper. Most days my food costs don't exceed $10, tops. Often it's a lot less.
In conclusion, if you want to lose weight you can easily do it and it costs less than it costs to maintain your current weight. The only reason people give in to the temptation is because they lack the motivation to say no.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The solution to the human race's problems is to get rid of the human race. +
+ While I would never expect or follow through with the destruction of the human race, I believe it to be the simplest way of dealing with our problems.
I believe that we will never be satisfied with what we have, there will never be equality for all, we'll continue to destroy the environment and in the end, we will all die a much worse death trying to live happily than one that would come form purposefully erasing our existence. Looking at it from another perspective, it's like eradicating the parts of DNA needed to make tonsils so that humans never again deal with tonsillitis. In that analogy, the human body would be the Earth and tonsils would be the people. Tonsillitis would be the possibility of people doing bad things and removing the DNA would be what we do to get rid of humans. I just think that, not taking feelings into account and going with the quickest and simplest option, remove the problems from the root is ideal. Once again, this does not take into account feelings of people as obviously most of us don't want to die, regardless if it would be better for the planet.
Of course, erasing humans from the planet is much simpler than you'd expect. It also doesn't have to be prolonged or painful as would be our deaths from a polluted world and from wars. I am sure that within 50 years, a group could easily genetically engineer a strain of virus to get the job done. Mass production of asbestos and coordinated release all over the world could work too. What I'm saying is that it's pretty easy and could be done quickly. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now, this is all assuming a few things:
- That if humanity continues, we will eventually cease to exist against our will.
- That humanity will never have true equality.
- That war will always continue in some form.
- That we will continue polluting/degrading the Earth as long as we exist.
If each human somehow became the "God" of their own universe (though I have no idea how that would come about) then I believe there would be no problem with each individual existence, as controlling your own universe means that no matter what you do you are in the right. Of course, that is all BS/fiction and we live just like all the animals on the Earth, aside from being special in our own little ways. I don't think we as a whole can ever fully agree on anything, and that our disagreements will always cause us problems.
Once again, I believe the destruction of the entire human population to be our best solution.
As an aside, some other animal may eventually evolve to be intelligent in the manner we are, so the possibility of simply destroying all life to forever end suffering of any kind on this planet is considered.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I don’t see anything wrong with the legalisation of polygamous marriage +
+ In the argument against gay marriage, people often use the ‘slippery slope’ argument that it’s legalisation would lead on to polygamous marriages also becoming legal. I’m not interested in arguing whether or not this *will* happen, but why it would be a bad thing if it did. This would be within the context of people being allowed to have multiple marriages, you would not automatically be married to your spouse’s other spouse, although you could choose to do this.
While I personally am not interested in polygamy, what's wrong with it?
It's natural for humans to live in groups. 'Tribes' or 'family' whatever you would like to call it. I don't see anything wrong with families that have several adults to act as role models for children. I just can't see why it would be detrimental to children to be raised in that environment.
To be allowed to marry you need to be a consenting adult and in being one people can make their own relationship decisions. As long as there isn't a sex bias (e.g. men can have many wives but not the other way around), then I think that people can make their own decision about whether a polygamous relationship is something they want. They retain the right to get divorced if their spouse marries someone else when they want a monogamous marriage, just like people retain the right to get a divorce if their spouse cheats on them.
People sometimes argue against polygamous marriages saying that people are already legally allowed to have polygamous relationships, why get married? Because of the legal privileges associated with it? When I get married the legal benefits of being married are going to be way down on the list of reasons. Getting married is a way to show your love for someone.
A big argument going against it is that the legality of it would be very complex. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. If you died your possessions would be divided up amongst your spouses. Your children would either go to their other parent or be claimed by a next of kin who wants them, with fitness to look after them being determined by a court of law. As is the case currently with children whose parents die without leaving a will e.g. should they go to uncle A or uncle B? There are lots of examples of legal contracts which are binding to groups of people, why couldn’t this be applied to marriage? It could be encouraged, or even possibly mandatory, to have pre-nuptial agreements which define legal aspects of the marriage relating to property ownership, etc. prior to getting married if you’re married to more than one person. With current spouses also signing this document.
I’m not really that interested in ethical arguments. Why should one person’s ethics determine how other people live their lives? For example, I don’t think I would ever have an abortion for my own personal ethical reasons. That doesn’t mean that I’m against other people having the option.
I'm really interested to know if anyone has any good arguments against polygamous marriages. I think a lot of people are against them for their own personal ethical reasons, because they don’t want one themselves, rather than for an actually good, justifiable reason.
So please try to CMV! I’m going to try to reply to every direct response to me. I get really p***ed off when people cherry-pick arguments and ignore the ones that don't suit them. If there are a lot of responses it may take a while though so please be patient! But in saying that if you reply purely because I’ve committed to responding; if you put forth a low-effort comment you will get a low-effort answer.
"While I still think there is nothing wrong with polygamous relationships & the concept of some sort of legal commitment, this couldn't be marriage. You could have some kind of legally binding partnership with multiple partners which has some of the benefits of marriage, such as recognition of the partnership affecting things like visitation rights and a legal claim to be next of kin, but this wouldn't be the same as marriage as we have it now. It's not so much about when people in the marriage are living together, but if things later needed to be taken apart. There is just no way to predict every possibility for a pre-nuptial agreement, and the situation could get so complex that you couldn't have a standard that could be fallen back on every time."
| 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 no legal or moral argument against allowing incestuous marriage that hasn't been thrown away in pursuit of gay marriage. +
+ To start: **I am *not* saying that homosexuality and incest are the same thing.**
However, any arguments I would normally use against allowing incestuous marriage have been declared void. For example, you can't simply say it's disgusting, because a lot of people find homosexuality disgusting, and society has decided that people's rights shouldn't be inhibited by the disgust of others. Incestuous couples are more likely to have deformed children, but marriage is not about reproduction. Maybe there's some psychological affliction behind it, but homosexuality used to be classified as a disorder as well, but psychologists realized the error of their ways as it became socially acceptable. Of course, any religious objections are right out.
So with the last defenses against gay marriage dismantled, I'm left without any good reason why siblings should marry each other. CMV
Deltas awarded to:
/u/SquirrelPower for pointing out that there is a legal difference between types of classes. /u/the-friendzoner made a similar argument, that the sexual attraction of incest is different than an orientation.
I don't consider these sufficient reasons to continue the ban, but they are distinct from the reasons given for banning homosexuality, so they fulfill the terms of my post.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The social contract of marriage should not be limited to romantic/sexual relationships. +
+ If the government is going to be involved in issuing and recognizing unions between two people (which it really shouldn't but that's an entirely different CMV), then this social contract and the benefits it carries should be available to ANY two consenting adults.
Any two adults should be allowed to join together in a domestic partnership for mutual benefit, be they a romantic couple, friends, siblings, parent and child, etc.
The romantic and sexual aspect of a marriage should be irrelevant in the eyes of the state. It is simply two people who for whatever reason decide to face life together and form a partnership to help, support, and prosper one another.
Aside from the fact that government shouldn't be involved in marriage at all, I really don't think there is any argument that can hold up against the fundamental injustice of allowing this benefit for some and not for others. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Sanders and his supporters are the ones who don't understand socialism. +
+ I make this CMV in response to the claim I see on reddit by Sanders supporters which basically states: "Most Americans don't understand what socialism actually is." My argument is that Americans absolutely understand the meaning of the word and its Sanders and his supporters who either don't understand it, or are trying to change its meaning as it is currently accepted in the USA.
From the dictionary: Socialism is a social and economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system. This is socialism in the traditional sense and what I believe most Americans think of when they hear the word. Now I understand that socialism is a broad term and can encompass many different ideas, however the core idea of the term is the same: Government control of the means of production.
The argument now becomes that just like we don't have a fully capitalist economic model, Sanders does not want a fully socialist economic model. To me this means that instead of having a capitalist system where the goal is to have as little government intervention as possible (within reason), Sanders and his supporters want a socialist system where the goal is to have as much government intervention as possible (again within reason). This is how I, and many other Americans view socialism. So while Sanders may not at any time be pushing for some sort socialist revolution, he is still pushing for a massive increase in government regulation of industry.
The problem I have with Sanders and his supporters is that this isn't socialism to them. They see seemingly every government service we provide is a form of socialism and that being against socialism also means being against firemen and public school teachers. This is nonsense. As I've stated above we don't have a fully capitalist society today and there are social services that we expect the government to provide and pay for through taxation. However, these services are something we've come to expect from the government and most Americans have never considered their existence a form of "socialism" before the Sanders crowd came along and claimed that they are. It seems like they are trying to change the definition of the word as it has been accepted by Americans for decades, if not longer.
To summarize, I believe that simply being for more government provided services such as universal healthcare does not make you a socialist. I (and I'd argue most Americans) believe that being a socialist means that in your ideal state you would like to have the government in control most of if all means of production. I therefore state that Bernie Sanders is wrong when he claims that just because he wants higher taxes and more government spending that he is a socialist. I also state that the way most Americans view the word is closer to its actual meaning.
CMV
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: There can't be hatred without fear. +
+ To be precise, I meant hatred of group or people.
My argument is that hatred of a group is a direct result of fear of the group. An example would be with anti-Semitism. Nazis and modern anti-Semitic groups talked/talk about Jews controlling the world and money and the power, and how they are evil and make them suffer with their power. This is a clear cut example of fear. People felt threatened by the Jews. That fear lead to hatred.[ /* Cue in Yoda */](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFnFr-DOPf8)
I thought of any form of hatred and bigotry I could think of, and I couldn't find any where fear doesn't play an important role.
So CMV
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Gay people culturally appropriated the rainbow +
+ I'm not here to argue about gay people, I really don't care about most of the things they do.
The only problem I have is when people talk about cultural appropriation they miss one of the big things that has been appropriated in the last 20 years. The rainbow.
In a different time I would have liked to wear a rainbow tie dye shirt without being discriminated against for supporting the "gay agenda". Why did they chose the rainbow to even symbolize gay pride?
In my opinion a perfectly good neutral color selection has been forever ruined as supporting an agenda that not everyone agrees with.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:People who say that sex through deception is rape should say the same when people who have sex with prostitutes and leave without paying. +
+ I've been reading comments about hypothetical situations where someone's twin has had sex with his sibling's spouse without the spouse realizing it's the sibling instead, until it's too late. People will call that sibling a rapist. In other similar occasions, for example in kinky situations where the spouse is waiting in the bedroom blindfolded, and someone other than the intended lover takes their place in the act.
Those are false pretenses. The spouse wants to have sex with a specific person, and is fooled into having sex with someone else.
If that's rape, then so is leaving a prostitute without paying her after sex. She clearly exchanged sex for money, and if you didn't intend to pay her then it was false pretenses and you're a rapist. Not to mention a thief.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do. +
+ I want to start by I believe we made horrible mistakes once we entered Iraq. The biggest being the dissolution of the Iraq army and the laws that were passed to essentially keep them out, there were many many more but this is the biggest.
The invasion of Iraq was a good thing in these ways. Sadaam was a true representation of evil. All of his evils need not be explained one by one, but I think it's universally held he was evil and poison to the country he was ruling.
As far as WMD, bush had conflicting reports as to whether they were there or not. Even if the reports leaned in the favor he did not presently own, there was evidence he had been trying to obtain WMD. Should we wait till he had obtained such to invade where he would surely use his obtained WMD in war? He also has the history of using WMD in war. He also stated in his trial, he did give the illusion to having WMD because he was worried if he didn't and it was known Iran would invade. He also I believe in 1998, not sure this exact year, refused to cooperate with having people come into the country to examine if he had WMD or not something he agreed to do in the early 90's.
He was also giving diplomatic immunity to terrorist and war criminals. He might not have had direct ties to bin laden but was aiding other terrorist and war criminals in other ways. The war on terror was not just about bin laden but to all terrorist organizations.
To summarize, He wAs a terrible person to be in power, giving the illusion he had WMD by his own admission and history of being willing to use such, and aiding terrorist and war criminals. This was a good thing to strip him of his power. With that said we made many mistakes after the invasion. As far as setting up the governing body, dissolving the iraq army,etc. but as far as the decision to invade it was the right thing to do, and it lessened the places terror could operate in that part of the world. Also showing USA would not tolerate these many threats, not one or two, as other leaders have done, but the many violations sadaam has committed will not be tolerated. Change my views
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The preservation of Panda bears. +
+ I was having a heated discussion with a girl who really, really likes animals and I was trying to explain to her that Pandas are very expensive to keep alive. Yes I know that they're cute and they should be alive and all but no, I don't think that we should dedicate so much money on an animal that would have been extinct if natural selection would have followed its natural course.
I would like someone to make me change my opinion on the preservation of these animals.
Panda bears are being ripped away from their natural habitat due to humans not giving a fuck about the ecosystem, yes I know why that's sad and bad. Regardless of that, Panda bears are dumb and lazy. We have to resort to artificial insemination because they are so fat they can't have sex. The females are only fertile for like a month in a whole year.
I say let natural selection do its job. We can spend the money we've spent on Pandas on more worthwhile causes because the preservation of this beautiful 'bear' is a money sink.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Tax-breaks should not be granted simply for getting married. Instead, those tax breaks should go to people who support children. +
+ I see no reason why the tax-payers in the US at large should subsidize the lifestyles of people who are married through tax-breaks. If you support children so that the state doesn't have to, it makes sense to reward you with a tax break since you are saving the state money. However, just being married without supporting children doesn't actually offer any benefit to society that would justify taking money out of everyone's pocket to subsidize it.
The threshold for changing my view would be to provide some kind of legitimate evidence that a couple simply getting married provides a greater value to society than the amount that the tax-break subsidy costs.
| 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 no way I would blow a huge lottery win ($20 million+) in a short amount of time +
+ I've read a lot about the factors which lead to people blowing huge lottery wins, and I'm convinced that I would be able to handle all of them pretty easily.
- I am not a compulsive gambler. If I were to win a big jackpot, it wouldn't be as a result of continuously betting, since that's not very interesting to me. I'm pretty risk-averse. As a poker player, one of the hardest things for me to do is bluff because I would rather fold than potentially lose more trying to bluff someone off a pot. If I won, I wouldn't invest the money into more gambling.
- I would set well-defined, well-communicated levels of support for my friends and family. I would tell everyone ahead of time exactly what proportion I would be giving to them, and would stipulate that the bulk of it had to be spent on expenses which I cleared ahead of time (houses, cars, education, debt). Moreover, I would communicate to them that the reason for this is specifically because family and friends expecting money ruins relationships and ends up being a huge drain. And then after having that conversation, I would stick with that plan. I love my family, but I've always been very good about sticking to my guns when it comes to something I strongly believe.
- I would hire a financial advisor at a reputable firm who works based on flat rates. No shady advice, nobody trying to profit on my largesse.
- I would allocate some small percentage of the winnings to my own entertainment and benefit (perhaps 5-10% depending on the prize amount) and then invest the rest in a diversified portfolio and live off the interest.
- I don't have a lot of desire for luxury items. I don't want to live in a mansion, though I would be a nice house (or two!) in a cool location, paying cash and using the interest payments to pay the property taxes and upkeep. I don't really want or need nice cars (just not interested). I enjoy travel, but there's no reason to blow it all on five star accommodations - I'm fine with merely "nice" things and not extravagant. And I don't really care about the expectations of being nouveau riche either. I'm happy with my current life and know that I wouldn't suddenly be much happier if I bought a bunch more stuff.
Obviously nobody knows exactly how they would react to ANY situation, but I feel like being intentional and reasonable at the outset can save a lot of the headaches that come with sudden wealth.
So you may not know ME personally, but you know these ideas and plans. Without just saying "it would all change when you got money" (something nobody, including me knows), can you convince me the road is more perilous than it appears? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, the most logical extension of this policy is the eventual legalization of Polygamy and other non-standard marriage arrangements, which will have a negative effect on society as a whole due to the difficulty of defining "marriage" or a "family". +
+ To be clear, I support the Supreme Court in their decision to legalize same-sex marriage, and I'm happy that rights that have been granted to heterosexual couples are now going to apply to everyone in society. I am, however, mildly concerned or at least intrigued as to where this debate or issue ends.
The reason it's troubling for me is that the most common arguments used to support gay marriage are that "love is love" and "loving who you choose is your right". What these arguments implicitly say is that the necessary criteria to be allowed to marry is that you love that which you are marrying.
Now I won't delve into the typical response of "Next thing you know, it'll be legal to marry your pets!" because I find that particularly hyperbolic and non-productive to the discussion. But I do feel that this open mindset of the definition of marriage will definitely lead to a future debate about what "marriage" is.
I believe that the next group to demand legal marriage rights will be polygamists, and that the same arguments of "love is love" will still apply. My fear is that despite this good ruling today, we have opened up the door to extremely loose and liberal interpretations of the meaning of "marriage" to include anything we want it to under the law.
~~Further, I believe that polygamy is harmful to society and that raising children in a polygamous is harmful to their growth. I believe that polygamy is not a natural arrangement for humans, and that no matter what, it will be emotionally damaging to at least one person in this "relationship"~~.
But then as I type those words, I realize that the exact same things were said about gay marriage in recent history. So, Reddit, CMV that this supreme court ruling isn't going to evolve into a culture of people being able to marry whoever (or whatever) or however many people they want.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: All vehicles, including bicycles, should be subject to license and registration fees that pay for road construction and maintenance AND all vehicles should pay an amount corresponding to the impact they have on those roads. +
+
In this CMV, for the sake of time and simplicity, I'm pulling primarily from this report release on May 5th of this year, though numerous other sources exist and I'm happy to see any reports that may contradict it. http://www.uspirg.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/Who%20Pays%20for%20Roads%20vUS.pdf
My specific view that is subject to change is that
**all road vehicles should be subject to license and registration fees, the amounts of which are determined based on the impact the vehicle has on the road surface**
In other words, all road users should have to pay an amount corresponding to the amount of damage they cause roads. One general rule of thumb that could be used to calculate this (pulled from the above .pdf) is: "the damage a vehicle imposes on a road surface increases to the fourth power of axle weight—that is, a vehicle that weighs ten times as much per axle imposes ten thousand times as much roadway damage as a lighter vehicle." Building this formula into the cost of vehicle registration fees seems to me to be completely rational and should be implemented. In some cases iterations of it are already in place (toll roads, delivery trucks, etc.) It should be expanded to all road use.
This formula, however, only takes into account vehicle *weight*, and not vehicle *usage*, which is a more complicated fee structure, but one I believe should be taken into account as well. Additional fee structures should be explored which take into account miles driven, pollutant emissions, congestion fees, etc.
All this considered, I have no problem with requiring bicycles to be licensed and registered so long as the process is rational and efficient for the owner and the fee structure based on a fair consideration of impact across the board.
Feel free to CMV!
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: People who have sex with underage teenagers should not be prosecuted if both parties admit that the older didn't have knowledge that the younger was underage. +
+ I believe that people who have sex with underage teenagers should not be prosecuted if both parties admit that the older didn't have knowledge that the younger was underage.
This is what happens if you are charged with statutory rape:
* charged with a felony
* 1+ year of prison and/or fine
* possible required sex offender registration
A few downsides to becoming a registered sex offender in my state (Washington):
* Sex offenders often cannot own or control personal computers.
* If community corrections officers permit access to computers, they normally must have blocks that prevent access to specific sites.
* Offenders also cannot have contact with magazines, videos, telephone sites or anything else with pornographic content.
* Offenders cannot move without permission.
* You must inform your CCO of romantic relationships.
* Some offenders may be required by their CCO to disclose their criminal history to their families and friends.
* Community corrections officers must approve your residence and living arrangements.
* You often must remain within specified geographic boundaries.
* You cannot purchase, possess or consume any mind or mood altering substances, including alcohol or drugs that haven’t been prescribed by doctors.
* Offenders must allow their community corrections officers to inspect every part of their homes.
* Offenders must disclose information about their conviction(s) to potential adult sexual partners before beginning sexual relationships.
* Felony offenders may not own, use or possess firearms or ammunition.
* Offenders cannot patronize any establishment in the sex industry, including topless dancing clubs, sex toy outlets or houses of prostitution.
I just don't think it's fair for anyone to be prosecuted for a crime that they did not know they were committing, a crime that *someone else* tricked them into committing by intentionally misrepresenting his or her age. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: As long as users use the downvote button as a "disagree" button, users have no right to complain about censorship on reddit +
+ There have been complaints that reddit admins and/or mods of large subs have removed posts related to TPP or critical of Ellen Pao. This is often cited as "censorship." However, given that the userbase at large uses the downvote button to suppress views that they do not agree with, they cannot fairly protest any censorship by admins/mods.
Any such protest rests on the idea that the userbase should be allowed to hide content that they deem undesirable (as opposed to irrelevant, which is what the downvote is for) but that admins/mods should in fact have less power than the userbase.
I am certain (although without any proof) that there are users who only use the downvote button to mark irrelevant content. Those users can protest censorship, but to be logically consistent, must protest censorship by the userbase as well as the admins/mods.
This is an argument about logical coherence, not about whether users should have the legal or moral right to downvote as they see fit. In essence, I am saying that the pot is calling the kettle black. In order to refute this argument, you need to show that there is a significant difference between the actions of a user trying to keep pro-life content from the front page, for example, and an admin/mod removing a TPP article.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Obesity is caused by potassium deficient food. +
+ I proposed it here to show how implausble the high-carb theory is, but it actually seems to look less and less crazy the more I look into it and I would like to know if there are any obvious flaws that I've missed.
It fits the epidemiology much better than anything else. People start getting fat soon after they start eating food grown by modern agriculture, no matter what kind of food it is.
It's easy to save on potassium, since it only affects quality, not quantity of crops, unless the deficiency reaches extreme levels. Even when it does, the symptoms are easily mistaken for drought or pest damage. Large quantities of K are held in the soil, so it may take decades until the symptoms show and it's more profitable in the short term to not fertilize with K or at least add less than is being removed. K fertilizers were reportedly piling up during the recent economic recession, since nobody was buying them.
Potassium and sodium salts were only distingushed by modern chemistry, so presumably table salt often also contained potassium in premodern times. (this is further evidenced by some ancient sources recommending adding salt to fertilizer for better tasting fruit, but KCl is used for that purpose, while NaCl is harmful to plants)
In America, the depletion probably already started early during the industrial revolution, when the importance for soil fertility was not understood and the ash from cleared fields was collected for potash and exported to Europe.
Potassium rich foods were the first to be obviously affected. During the 20th century, vegetables became popularly known as something basically inedible, that you force yourself to eat because it's healthy, rather than something that is added to food for flavor, or even (carrots) as a sweetener.
Supermarkets and fastfood chains further made it worse by caring only about cost and not quality. While the taste of low potassium food is different, it looks the same. It explains why fast food is associated with obesity, despite the food often not being inherently unhealthy. A piece of ground meat, vegetables, mustard and a bun is nothing unhealthy, it actually looks like a balanced diet. Other things like HFCS could also be associated with obesity only because they are commonly used to make low quality food palatable.
It explains why rich people are usually spared and why obesity is associated with low quality food, rather than any specific kind of food.
It explains why animals are affected.
It explains why switching diets helps some people, but with no observable pattern, except that the food is "higher quality".
It explains why most people seem to remember that food used to taste better, why western grown food is associated with poor quality in many so far less affected countries and why it's trivially easy to grow your own food that is literally incomparable in taste with most store bought food.
The fact that people strongly prefer potassium rich food itself suggests it's in some way important for us, otherwise there would be no reason to evolve the ability to taste the difference.
Rats too have been shown to be able to taste and seek potassium when deprived of it.
The symptoms of potassium deficiency also closely resemble many obesity related diseases - feeling weak and tired, depression, muscle pain, dysregulated blood sugar levels and pressure, heart problems...
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Other countries should follow France and ban the use of burqas. +
+ Note: I don't fully believe they should be banned, but I'm conflicted on my view here.
I live in Colorado so my personal experience with women in burqas is 0, this is probably why I feel this way. Anyway, here are some of my justifications:
Wearing a burqa steals the wearers identity. Without the ability to read facial/body expressions, interaction with somebody wearing a burqa is mysterious.
The ability to commit crime and be unrecognizable.
So I've reached the end of the post. The little substance to support my argument has made me realize that I might just be xenophobic. I'm still going to post this in hopes somebody can offer some personal experience/belief. | 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 people who are jealous of unemployed people because they don't contribute, should either quit their job or ask for a raise. +
+ If you're employed, you are integrated into society, you wake up everyday with a goal and things to do with your life, you go and see people, you have purpose.
If you're unemployed, you'll be put aside, and people will constantly question your morals and life goals, and accuse you of being a leech on the system, which they seem to forget is exclusive, not inclusive.
It seems that people often don't realize capitalism was never meant to include everybody, that unemployed people do generate a lot of GDP since they consume, and that most of the time science and technology is to be thanked, instead of "hard work".
It's easy to be a cynic and argue that overpopulation is a problem, that "trimming the fat" should be made more regularly, but the truth is, nobody really understand what motivates individuals to work, get involved in society and it seems society is completely unable to tolerate marginal people. Social stratification and social Darwinism are plaguing society. Everybody wants to go up, and nobody dares looking down.
So instead of blaming the unemployed, use other means to solve this problem: start a business, hire unemployed people, ask for a raise, quit your job and join the unemployed to better understand what civilization is about: it's about living together. Capitalism is a mean, not an end. Stop living in your bubble and learn to know the struggles of others.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The Muppet Christmas Carol is the best Christmas movie ever made. +
+ A shocking claim, perhaps? Here is my evidence:
-Michael Caine in one of the most auspicious performances of his career
-A song from the theatrical version called "The Love is Gone", wherein Belle breaks young Scrooge's heart as old Scrooge watches in despair
-The Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens
-Consistently amazing songs and instrumentals
-Miss Piggy and Kermit give a tearjerking performance as the Cratchits
-Scrooge's bookkeepers complain that their assets are frozen.
Reasons it is better than other selected Christmas movies:
-Miracle on 34th street is super cheesy
-A Christmas Story lacks the emotional punch of MCC
-Bad Santa, while a good movie, can't be enjoyed by younger audiences, and isn't family an intregral part of Christmas?
-The Santa Claus is pretty good, but is depressing for most of the movie (custody battles, questions of sanity, child abuse)
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe that people who are suffering from chronic incurable mental illness should have a right to commit suicide. +
+ I understand that this view is going to be incredibly unpopular but I have witnessed firsthand people who have suffered for decades with incurable depression (failed drug treatment, failed electro-convulsive therapy and various neurosurgical procedures). They have moments of i suppose what you might call reduced-depression where they gather the energy to try and commit suicide only to be stopped by well-meaning health professionals who then ply them with sedatives and get them 'back on their feet' again which usually means get them into some barely-functioning more acceptable role before everything just turns to custard again. I can't help but feel that we are doing a huge disservice to them by arrogantly refusing to consider their viewpoint - that they really have got nothing else left to live for. A few I have seen have experienced tremendous trauma in life and are unable to see much hope in the future other than living a vegetable-type life as a half-person in assisted accommodation. Some others have permanent brain damage from the various mind altering drugs they have been forced to take under the mental health act as they have been deemed a risk to themselves. Seriously, I really think we are being extremely bigoted by assuming that our worldview, although the majority worldview, is what they see. Live and let live. Live and let die. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Currency is an incredibly useful tool for any society where division of labor exists and the idea that a utopian society would abolish it is puerile. +
+ Whether you have a free-market or centrally planned economy, whether your culture emphasizes altruism or self-interest, money helps you achieve it. There is no better way of measuring the relative demand for different resources than by price, and there is no better way to set prices than to have a universal medium of exchange.
I believe that those who view the existence of money as the cause of poverty have a seriously flawed understanding of the economy. It is akin to blaming a thermometer for the weather being hot.
I feel that the majority of people share this view, but I would be interested to hear from someone from, say, one of the various branches of anarchism that seeks to eliminate money.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:The things science cannot explain is not a reasonable place to put God. +
+ I am a former catholic and no longer believe in God. The argument I hear for proof of god is mainly in the things science can't explain. Something couldn't have come from nothing, dark matter, intelligent design, etc. This is nonsensical.
You are essentially issuing in the same behavior ancient civilizations did. They could not understand at the time the weather, the sun, the cosmos, etc so it had to be God. All of the scriptures are written by people who had no such knowledge of the things They claimed to be God, and their lack of knowledge bleeds through as science unlocks more and more.
Now this is not to say God exists or does not exist. This is not my debate but my debate is where people are putting God. I think it quite possible to believe in God and also believe that science will shed light on the places it is the dark. Hence this post. To me is not reasonable in a world where people don't believe in God,or who believe in a different God, that putting on a label on the unexplainable is God. It is logical to put your faith, so to speak, in that science will explain these things in time, and that your belief in God belongs else where.
Now I also want to clarify to do the the things my debate touches on is not wrong, or immoral, it is simply unreasonable, not logical. I know there are many things that can give credence to your personal experiences and the deep thing inside most people there is more to this world than us. And that the proof of God is not a thing that can be measured in scientific terms. But I disagree that the universe, or multiverse, and all it's contents cannot be explained by science, and it's not logical to put god here. Change my views
| 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 good frozen pizza. +
+ Where a restaurant's pizza quality can range from amazing to average, frozen pizza ranges from average to inedible. There is no overlap; even the very best frozen pizza isn't as good as the worst pizza you can find in a restaurant.
I have searched for years trying to find frozen pizza that's half as good as even Little Caesar's, but to no avail. I've come to terms with the fact that every variety has low-quality sauce and not enough cheese. What I can't stand, however, and definitely the most common flaw, is the terrible, *terrible* crust, which ends up either undercooked or bone dry, without fail.
I understand that pizza can only be properly cooked using a pizza stone, but it completely baffles me that this is the best we can do without one in 2015. | 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 that citizens that are not natural-born should be able to run for U.S presidency +
+ The main argument I have heard for not letting foreign-born naturalized citizens from running for U.S presidency is the fact that that person may still harbor sentimental ties with that foreign country. As such, in matters concerning that country, that person may not put the U.S's best interest first. However, let me try to dispute that argument by using myself as an example.
I was born in India and raised by Indian parents. When I was 3 my parents moved permanently to America but under current U.S law, no matter what I do, I can never run for U.S presidency. However, my brother can since he was born in the U.S 3 years after we moved here. Now both my brother and I have been raised by the exact same parents in the same household with the only difference being that he is 6 years younger than me and he was born in the U.S. For both of us, our first language was our native language (not english), we still live by Indian culture and tradition in our house, we have made equal visits to India to visit relatives, and we have equal ties to India. So why does it make sense that my brother has the potential to become the President of the United States and I have no chance at all when we both have an equal bias towards India.
Here's another example why I think it is ridiculous that foreign-born citizens cannot become president. Let's take the opposite of my situation. Suppose a person was born in America to Chinese parents but soon afterwards moved to China. He lives there for 30 years and then moves back to America. After 14 years of living in the U.S, he is capable of running for presidency if he so wishes. In this case, this person has lived the vast majority of his life in China, almost as if he was simply born there, and he is capable of being the President of United States. Despite the fact that I'm probably more suited to be president than him (from the fact that I was raised here, lived most of my life here, went to school here from kindergarten to college, etc) it is still impossible for me to run.
In short, I'm saying that place of birth doesn't say much about your affiliations or familiarity of American culture. Instead of how it is currently, I believe that anyone who lives in the U.S, whether natural-born or not, should be able to run for presidency and the public gets to determine through voting if they actually become the President.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Transsexuals suffer from a form of body dysmorphia, or a similar affliction, and should be treated with counseling rather than be allowed to go through with gender reassignment surgery. +
+ I don't really have a biological understanding of the modern interpretation of gender and have developed this view purely out deductive reasoning. It seems to me that we have developed an understanding of afflictions, such as [alien hand syndrome](http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=12655), where those who are affected believe that part of themselves are actually alien to their body. We are also developing an idea of how people who are anorexic or bulimic almost certainly view their bodies in such a way that is not representative of reality and often harm themselves in attempts to lose weight. We, as a society, have decided that these are sick individuals who need medical and psychiatric attention. Certainly, an individual with alien hand syndrome could have a procedure to remove their hand in a safe and controlled environment and continue living a suitable life. We don't allow that, though. How is having gender identity issues different from afflictions I have described above? Also, why are these individuals allowed to make unnecessary changes to their body when we don't provide the same liberties to others?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: People who say sportsman should be payed less, know nothing about markets. +
+ So, I've recently came across a lot of people with the opinion of "How can C. Ronaldo be payed millions to run after a ball and teachers be payed little money? Teachers should make even more money than Ronaldo." I agree with the, teachers should be payed more than they make now, part (Brazillian here, so teachers tend to be somewhat poor. Probably also applies to US and part of Europe), but I just have to disagree with Ronaldo should be payed less.
First of, the market sets soccer players salary, secondly, soccer makes trillions of dollars a year worldwide, it is only fair that players get a cut. Third, they are adding value to people lives. When you pay 50$ for a ticket, you are expecting to get 50$ or more worth of value off of that, or even more. Sportsman hence, generate a lot of fucking value.
To give you a different example, music. Taylor Swift sold god knows how many millions of copies of her new album. That means that millions of people willingly traded their 10 bucks, or whatever that album cost, for copies. Nobody was forced to buy it, judging by her fans reactions all parties are satisfied with the deal. She (and her team) created millions worth of value to her fans, only fair they make millions.
And last, to those who say "it's fucking easy, no one should make that much money by running after a ball / creating generic tracks", it fucking isn't easy.
| 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 agnosticism is the only religion (or lack thereof) that really makes sense +
+ I was raised Catholic but now firmly believe that agnosticism is the only religious view that makes sense given our limited knowledge of the universe.
I generally dislike organized religion for creating an either-or-view of divinity. Either you accept my god or yours, my rules or your own. People are often raised to be a certain religion from a young age, so their religion is almost wholly contingent on their upbringing, location, etc. I think it is foolish to say "my god is the correct god" or "my god is the only god" when others just as vehemently believe their own god story. If anything, I can accept the more Unitarian philosophy that each religion's god story is pointing towards the same divine force. I am against the idea of a personified god, but I can understand the notion that there is some binding, transcendent force in the universe. I think one must abandon what John Rawls calls the arbitrariness of fortune (i.e. the societal and environmental preconditions that have shaped you) and try to consider religion more objectively. In doing so, I find it hard to choose one religion over another. As I said, I believe if there is a god, it is more of a force than a "he" or "she", and it exists at the intersection of religious thought rather than firmly in the confines of any one school.
I also think it is foolish to be completely convinced that there is no god at all. The burden of proof may be on the people who believe there is a god, but it is equally impossible to deny the existence of one. If you view god more as a unifying force than a gray-bearded old man doling out punishments from on high, I think it is perfectly feasible that such a force may exist.
Some view agnosticism as an admission of defeat. I think such a level of resignation is necessary. We simply cannot know if there is a god or godlike force at play in the universe. Though I generally reject organized religion, I think it is impossible to entirely rule out the possibility of a god figure, and I do not think this remains a possibility in my mind solely because I fear death or want there to be something more (i.e. my desire for survival). I just look at the universe and our limited knowledge of it and think maybe. Maybe there is something else. Maybe there is a transcendent reason why so much of our existence is so cyclical, why nature is so beautiful to us, etc. But maybe there isn't. We simply cannot know. CMV.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Asking questions of a rape accuser to determine whether or not a "rape victim" actually exists is not the same as "victim blaming". +
+ In most cases of rape accusations, there is no witness to the alleged crime. Accordingly, if the two parties to the alleged crime have opposing stories as to what events occurred, there is no on to corroborate either person's perception. So the *only* way to determine which person's story is most likely to be accurate is to gather information from periods of time during which there *were* witnesses and compare those eye-witness accounts to the stories told by the parties to the alleged crime.
So if a girl says she was raped, and a guy says they had consensual sex, what types of information would be helpful from eyewitnesses? Well, the actions and behaviors of the parties both before, and after, the alleged rape would be relevant, wouldn't they?
While you can never know for certain whether the woman consented in the moment, any of her actions or behaviors that happened *before* the alleged rape that indicate "interest" in the guy or "interest" in sex would provide some indication as to whether or not the sex was consensual:
* Was she hanging on the guy at a bar, or trying to avoid him?
* Were they in a relationship that consisted of frequently going out to a bar and then having sex at his place? Did they go out to a bar and then go back to his place in this instance? Or was this a stranger that she met at the bar that night?
* Was she making sexually suggestive comments to him earlier in the night, or was she rolling her eyes and his sexually suggestive comments?
By the same token, her actions and behaviors after the alleged rape can be indicative of whether or not the sex was consensual:
* Did she leave his place in the middle of the night, or did she stay over, make breakfast for him and go out on a date with him again the next week?
* Did she go to birthday party the next and a smile and laugh, or did she lock herself in her room for 2 days?
* Did she call a rape crisis line the next day, or did she go out and buy a new car?
Now let me be clear, just because you were hanging on a guy at a bar doesn't mean you consented to sex. Just because you had sex with a guy previously, doesn't mean that you consented to sex this time. Just because you make sexually suggestive comments to a guy, doesn't mean you consented to sex. Just because you make a guy breakfast and go on more dates with him doesn't mean you consented to sex. Just because you appear happy the next day doesn't mean you consented to sex. And just because you fail to call a rape crisis center, it doesn't mean you consented to sex.
But there is no way, in most cases, to determine whether or not you actually did consent to sex or not. And the answers to the types of questions enumerated above can provide support to indicate whether or not it was likely you consented. And determine consent is the only way to determine whether or not a rape actually occurred. And if there is no rape, then there can be no "victim blaming" by these questions because there is no "victim" to blame. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Although there are some differences between being transgender and transethnic, tansethnic people still deserve to have their identities respected. +
+ At first, I laughed at Rachel Dolezal when I heard about the whole thing. But given some more time, I realized that it was hypocritical for me to expect others to respect my identity while just dismissing others off-hand.
I made a post on /r/ainbow asking people to be more respectful of other identities, but I just got a lot of downvotes and "lol, ur retarded" type comments, which is unfortunate, because I always thought of that as a place that was generally respectful of people. Hopefully, we can have a more respectful and nuanced conversation here.
There are some differences between identifying as a gender and as an ethnicity (which I'll talk about later), but I think more important than that is the similarity. Gender and ethnicity are both identities and roles that are assigned to us based on the circumstances of our birth. They're thrusted upon us without our choice in the matter. Society expects us to just live in the identity that was given to us at birth and punishes people who decide to adopt a different one. This is wrong, because people should have the right to choose which role they want to live in. People's lot in life shouldn't be given out by the circumstances of our birth, but rather how we wish to live. And each person should have the freedom to identify as they wish and have that identity respected and not seen as a lie.
There are a couple of differences, that people bring up, but I think both of them are not substantive:
* **Being transethnic is "not a thing."** By which, I guess people mean that they don't really hear of many people who are transethnic, or society does not really accept transethnicity. Both of these are poor reasons to dismiss someone's identity. A persons identity is made valid, by them identifying with it, not by society accepting it. And that's true no matter how small of a minority they are.
* **There's no proof that transethnic people have the same brain structure as the ethnicity they identify as.** First of all, there's no proof, because proof hasn't been found yet. It's not that there's been proof that transethnic people have different brains than the ethnicity they live as. Second, even if there was proof, it wouldn't prove that transethnic identities are invalid. It's not the structure of your brain, but how you feel that defines your identity, and the role you want to live life as. And having desires doesn't go away just because there's no physical reason for them.
Change my view.
Here's what will change my view:
* Showing me that there is a difference between transgender and transethnic people that is meaningful enough to deny rights to one that you give to the other.
Here's what will not change my view:
* Copy-pasting anti-trans rhetoric, but replacing gendered words with racial words.
* Downvotes (seriously, act like an adult)
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Apple banning the confederate flag is bad for business and for humanity. +
+ This issue is very distinct from the removal of the confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol Building. I would also argue that it way more harmful than Walmart/Ebay/Amazon banning the flags themselves.
Apple can ban whatever they want as a private entity. However, I believe they have made a huge mistake in banning apps that contained confederate imagery. The confederate flag was not the essence of the apps as far as I have seen. They actually **were** historical. While I believe the confederate flag to be rotten, I do not think it should be censored. I believe that when one considers whether or not to ban something, a symbol advocating an idea should be considered distinct from expression or documentation of that idea.
I believe that this banning is a bad business decision. Not only are they losing the money for the apps themselves but they are alienating a demographic that supports the flag, and a demographic that do not support the flag but support free speech.
I believe this is bad for humanity because the backlash against this banning will turn the confederate flag into a symbol for free-speech, which will muddy up the issue of racial tension even more. More importantly, I fear that it will set a precedent for large companies that provide information and access to culture to ban essential historical information.
-TL;DR : **Context Matters!!** and Apple's execution of the censorship was harmful on many levels.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Even if climate change is indeed "a hoax," we still benefit greatly from addressing the problem by moving to renewable energy and sustainable resources +
+ A lot of the Climate Change 'debate' focuses on whether or not it's real or human-caused or not. I believe this is the wrong thing to focus on, as with or without climate change we still encounter oil spills, exploding oil/coal trains, pollution in the atmosphere, the expense of purchasing fuel for our vehicles and homes, the danger and war caused by procuring resources from overseas, the waste accumulation from non-biodegradable plastics and styrofoam materials, etc.
So even if we do not want to believe, or even find out, that climate change is real, we should still switch to renewable energy and sustainable resources and localized sources of energy and resources. Focusing on whether or not it's real is the wrong argument and a lost cause.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: There's no need to buy expensive Vodka because it all tastes the same. +
+ Ever since I started drinking about 3 years ago, I've had a wide selection of different liquors and beers, most of which had characteristics that made them unique and different from one another.
With vodka though, I just don't see why people buy 30$ bottles if it's basically 40% ethanol and 60% water. Any impurities that might be in it are so small they might as well not be there.
So far, I've had Absolut, Stolichnaya, Russian Standard and some cheap local brands, and even drinking the stuff straight, I wouldn't be able to tell one apart from the other. I'm just generally not a big fan of vodka.
Reddit, please change my view, as I'd like to be able to appreciate my friends bringing expensive bottles to parties. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The actions taken on gay marriage and the ACA are ultimately more helpful to the GOP than the dems. +
+ By the time gay marriage ruling comes in, the GOP will have been helped a lot to win the presidential election. Why? Because these become settled issues.
In my heart, I truly believe there are a lot of republicans who are not racist and homophobic. But they get branded that way by virtue of being part of the GOP. These republicans are now freer to say, let's move on. They can now pivot to other issues. Issues that a broader segment of the population might be favorable to. The Dems have now lost an important rallying issue with gay marriage.
I worked in politics for years and if theres one thing politicians love, it's an issue they can complain about and do nothing to fix. For the dems, it's campaign finance. For the the GOP, it's the ACA. For 18 months, the GOP can talk all about how bad the ACA is and how their plan is better. Or just complain. But they can also throw up their hands and say their hands are partitially tied by the SCOTUS ruling.
By not having to help reach a conclusion to the gay marriage debate and being told by the SCOTUS to give it a rest, GOP presidential candidates are better positioned to win the presidency. CMV
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Children who do not get 1st-3rd place DO NOT deserve a trophy for simply participating +
+ Hello CMV,
I am not a parent but curious as to get your opinions to CMV. I grew playing competitive soccer (worked my way up to the competitive teams from your basic youth teams) and never once received a trophy for simply participating or losing. You either got 1st, 2nd, 3rd or you got nothing it was simple as that. By losing and not being rewarded we understood we had to try harder as an individual and try harder as a team to win. This led me to become much more competitive because I wanted to earn that trophy and be on that competitive team. I really dont understand the idea of rewarding everyone for not winning, it's almost like saying "hey, even if you dont try you still win". I hear stories about teams that go 0-13 in a season and the kids walk away with a trophy, why? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a cold hearted person and love to see all children happy but I dont understand the concept of rewarding someone for losing or not trying hard enough will result in a prize. To me that just teaches a kid that NOT giving your best will still result in a prize. What lesson does that teach you when you grow up? That your failure or lack of effort will be rewarded regardless of how you performed? Doesn't that give the child a bad mentality growing up? Personally if I had a kid and he/she played a sport I wouldn't allow the coach or a parent to give them a trophy for simply participating, I would make them understand that a reward/trophy is earned by hard work and dedication. I know not all kids are athletic but I still dont understand the concept or idea.
We all know reality is a bitch and life is going to hit you with some hard lessons so why not teach your kid that hard work pays off? Again, I am not trying to sound cold but I just dont understand the concept of rewarding
failure/losing, CMV......
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Republicans needs to stop fighting Obamacare. +
+ This is not about whether Obamacare is good or bad.
Fighting against Obamacare in 2015 is like people who commemorate and re enact that Civil War: **The fight is over and YOU LOST**
[The high court has just upheld Obamacare AGAIN.](http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/25/politics/supreme-court-ruling-obamacare/index.html)
The Supreme Court has now upheld the ACA in its entirety TWICE.
Republicans love to use old polls that say most people are against Obamacare, but that's false because those polls include people who don't think Obamacare went far enough.
Republicans who are still "fighting the fight against Obamacare" are just like Republicans who didn't want to pass common sense gun control reform laws that over 90% of Americans agree with after the Sandy Hook massacre. They don't care what's good for America.
They are opposing *anything and everything with Obama's name on it* because they are bitter that he is president. Their obvious voter suppression tactics didn't work; he won by both popular vote and electoral vote in both '08 and '12.
This is like a 5 year old child who is jealous because their sibling got a better toy. They just act out in anyway they can because they are mad. Just like sending the country off a fiscal cliff until they get their way - it's another form of a temper tantrum.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Disparate Impact makes no sense: a business practice that isn't discriminatory shouldn't be disallowed because is happens to impact persons in a protected class. +
+ The [theory of disparate impact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact) "holds that practices in employment, housing, or other areas may be considered discriminatory and illegal if they have a disproportionate "adverse impact" on persons in a protected class." This holds true even if the business practice is "facially neutral", which means that the practice doesn't appear discriminatory on its face, only in the application or effect of the practice.
It seems to me that if a business has an objectively non-discriminatory policy in place that happens to effect certain races, genders, etc. more, then it shouldn't be problem.
I can see there being issues with business putting policies in place that are de facto discriminatory without being overtly so, but I don't want to focus on those. I'm talking about business practices that are not, and have to goal to be, discriminatory.
Change my view!
Note: the is especially relevant today because the SCOTUS rejected an effort to ban the use of "disparate impact" in the Fair Housing Act.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Trying to turn left in a busy two-way street should be illegal +
+ Where I live, there are quite a few two-lane streets (one lane going either way) that tend to get quite busy during the morning and afternoon rush hours. A trend I've noticed is that, on occasion, cars will stop in the middle of one of the lanes and put on their blinkers, indicating their desire to turn left onto a road that branches off the two-way street.
What those cars don't seem to get is that the road is BUSY. These cars often spend many minutes sitting in the road, left blinker on, while watching a flood of cars zoom by in the other direction. In the meantime, they back up traffic behind them for MILES and piss off every single driver behind them. Only after multiple minutes, one car in the flood of traffic going the other direction will take pity on the hundred or so poor saps stuck behind this makeshift roadblock, slow to a halt, and allow the turning driver to pass through.
Never once in my life have I seen the driver trying to turn left actually realize just how badly he's holding traffic up behind him and abandon his attempted left turn. It's always someone in the opposite lane who manages to find the shred of empathy to let him pass and release the flood of cars.
But enough about the rant - I'm of the opinion that this should be illegal, and deserves ticketing if caught (though, obviously, by forcing the car to drive forward and pull over in an area that won't block traffic further). An action like this disrupts the flow of traffic and ruins everyone's commute.
So, 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: Removing the "Confederate Flag" Means You Should Remove All Confederate Memorials and Statues +
+
[Note:] Sometimes I will refer to the "Confederate flag" by its proper name, the battle flag of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia (it was never actually adopted by the C.S.A.)
When I first heard of the "Confederate Flag" flying on the grounds of the S. Carolina Capitol, I was surprised how many people thought it was actually flying from the Capitol *building*, [when in fact it is flying from a 20 foot pole next to a 30 foot memorial to Confederate dead.](http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/22/416548613/the-complicated-political-history-of-the-confederate-flag)
I later heard of [Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA removing the "Confederate Flag" from Lee Chapel in 2014.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/washington-and-lee-university-to-remove-confederate-flags-following-protests/2014/07/08/e219e580-06bb-11e4-8a6a-19355c7e870a_story.html) Lee Chapel is a chapel, museum, auditorium, and crypt where Robert E Lee's body is actually buried. I thought it odd that people would be offended enough to push for the battle flag of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to be removed from the building that houses Lee's body and bears Lee's name, on the campus of a private university that also bears Lee's name but that they weren't offended enough to push for his body to be removed, or for the chapel or the school to be renamed.
This made me think that **if the argument for removing the "Confederate flag" from public view is that it has been so thoroughly tainted by slavery, the KKK, and the Dixiecrats that it cannot even be used in memoriam of Confederate dead, or even for the one general by whom the flag was actually flown, then we might as well just remove all government funding for Confederate memorials, physically move them off public and government ground, and even go so far as to purge places like Washington and Lee University of all "Confederate taint."**
That to me seems like the logical conclusion and most honest position to take. I'm open to being convinced that Confederate memorials and statues should be permitted to remain on public ground, even government ground, and maintained with taxpayer funding and that private universities don't have to completely remove all evidence of Confederate influence. **I'm also willing for someone to CMV that people who push to remove the "Confederate flag" (but not the monuments, etc) do so because the flag is an easy target and they lack the conviction to push for a full purge....*not* because they actually have thoughtfully concluded that there is a substantive difference between the battle flag of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate memorial it flys by.**
As a sidebar: I'd also be interested to see if anyone who thinks the "Confederate Flag" should come down believes that it is possible to design a memorial in such a way that treats the dead with respect without glorifying the cause. Something like a Vietnam War Memorial for the South? Or, **is it simply impossible to have a memorial for Confederate dead without being as insulting and divisive as flying the "Confederate Flag"?** I think that's an interesting discussion no one is having.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Free will cannot possibly exist in a universe in which there exists a god that is both omniscient and omnipotent. +
+ First off this assumes a Compatiblist view of free will. I believe that there is no "natural" free will. We are all chemical systems, and, as such, all decisions we make are really the inevitable result of the laws of physics. Even assuming quantum mechanics adds some amount of randomness, our actions are still the result of their nature, and not the other way around. Although this is the nature of the universe, I don't use it to inform my morality. It is just an observation of: What must happen will happen. To try and derive a morality from this would be fatalistic and essentially nihilistic in its practice. Since I don't think we know what will happen, in a lot of cases, that we can pursue what ought to happen and that that will make what must happen and what ought to happen become one in the same. And it is this ability to pursue that, with a mind that FEELS independent of nature that is the important thing. As long as we FEEL we can think independently of nature, we effectively can to it. And that's all that matters
-
The other definition of free will, our ability to take actions independent of the intent of others, and independent of impulse, is alive, although not absolute. We are all hugely the product of the manipulations of other individuals. Our parents, our friends. We can deviate from them, but often we won't through pressure, apathy, or just our brain socially indoctrinating itself to fit in with its surroundings. But, to varying degrees, we each have free will, that is a will independent of the will of others. And some wills are more free than others, but all wills are at least a LITTLE free.
-
But, if there did exist a god with omnipotence and omniscience, then I believe that it is logically impossible for free will of that second kind to exist in a universe in which that God exists. That second kind of free will can exist because of two things: 1: No will belongs to a conscious being with enough power, in either itself or the resources it controls, to completely control the will of others. 2: No will belongs to a conscious being with enough knowledge, in either itself of the resources it controls, to know how to completely control the will of others, or how its actions will effect the will of others. If either one of these conditions are met, then free will is severely compromised. And if both of these conditions are met then it is completely compromised. A God with omniscience will know EXACTLY how each of his actions is going to effect the universe upon which it acts. And if that God is also omnipotent, then he can cause anything he wishes to occur to occur exactly as he wants it. He would be able to and know exactly how to tailor the nature of any universe he creates or comes into contact with in such a way that the events he wants to unfold, must unfold exactly as he wants them to in that universe. He would not be oblivious to the consequences of any action he took, thus there could be no unintended consequences. Everything must therefore be intended by his will. But free will, as I said in the beginning of the second paragraph, is our ability to make actions that are independent of the intent of others. Therefore, free will cannot exist in a universe in which there exists a conscious will that is omniscient and omnipotent. OTHER than that of the god itself. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:If any country intervenes in a state with civil unrest, it should support the better established government. +
+ In the case of civil unrest, e.g. Syria, Ukraine, Lybia (2011), Afghanistan (1978), any responsible government should be expected to support the national government that shows the greatest ability to secure the territory. The reasoning is that anarchy, more often than autocracy, leads to terrorism, crime, and interstate war. Furthermore, governments may use economic punishments and incentives to mold the behavior of one another, but can do little to affect the behavior of a revolutionary group. The atrocities committed by governments may be frightening, but they are still preferable to the alternative.
| 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 Senate should be a ceremonial rubber stamp in practice, rather than a body that regularly blocks legislation from the House. +
+ The US Constitution was written at a time when states believed they needed a check on federal power. Requiring a body that represented all states equally to pass any legislation seemed to preserve those rights.
However, this attitude is mostly archaic today. Representing every state equally allows small states disproportionate power in matters pertaining to the whole country. Why should they be able to block the rest of the country's people from deciding on federal matters? It's essentially saying that voters in North Dakota, Vermont and Alaska are more important than elsewhere.
If you can find me a purpose for the US Senate as an actual decision-making body in today's day and age, and not just as a vastly unrepresentative body that has the power to completely kill legislation that most Americans support, 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: The US president is right to refer to the White House as "my house" +
+ So [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tma1CM0f4dM) happened today. And on Facebook and on youtube the majority of comments calls out his semantics that its not his house. Because it is a "property" of "we the people" and thus he cannot refer to it as "his house" ( Im aware that he still can say what he wants because the first Amendment)
I think that you it is justified to call a place where you life " your house" as you call the City you are a citizen of "your" city even though you dont own the City.
So for me he can justifiably call the White House his house while being the president. Even though he does not own it.
CMV
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The Shining(movie) does a poor representation of the hotels true power, as opposed to the books intent. Spoiler +
+ First I will say I love both and like alternate versions of the same story. On the other hand I donnot understand the argument that the hotel is represented just as evil as it is in the book(not to be confused with the hotel is not evil in the movie).
Kubrick makes intended changes to the books plot seemingly to down play the true evil of the hotel. Take for instance the different endings. In the book the hotel is destroyed, and the movie it's left standing. If the hotel is as evil in the book as it is in the movie, the hotel should have been destroyed.
Take the maze scene. Kubrick places this maze scene in where Danny is chased by the insane gone over the edge jack. Where as the book jack is possessed by the hotel and chases Danny through the halls, his voice and demeanor is extremely unfamiliar to Danny. Jack seemingly goes over the edge as opposed to being possessed by a the hotel.
Last example is the hedges. The hotel can control the hedges and bring them to life. As Danny's shine gets stronger and fuels the hotels power the hedges go from just moving their positions, to being able to attack the occupants. This is left out seemingly to downplay the hotels capabilities. That's as good place to start as any so Change my views.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The South cannot succeed if it secedes +
+ Disclaimer: this talk of secession may not be present everywhere in the United States, but it is more than prevalent where I live, so I'm going off that.
To me, secession is crazy talk. Not only are Southern states often some of the most poor (the poorest being Mississippi), but the United States would have control of the entire military of the United States of America. That's, well, a lot.
I talked to someone who believed the South should secede and that "we" (the South) would win because "now [the South] has all the guns and more than half of the major military bases". To address this, first of all, it's not as if the military suffers from a chronic lack of arms. The United States, I'm sure, has ways of attaining weapons that it doesn't already have. Second of all, it doesn't matter if you have half the major military bases. First of all, define "major". Second of all, the other side would still have half of them, AND a higher population, AND more money, AND probably the support of many foreign nations (because who would want to side with the South, who would seem like backwoods racists). The South would crumble, just as it did in the 1860's. CMV. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Sexting is morally wrong no matter the age of both *legal* parties. +
+ Huge emphasis on the **legal** aspect of this, as we were both old enough where it wasn't illegal. So I [20M] was talking with this girl [24] from a dating site when we decided to exchange phone numbers. Half of the country is between us (TX and NY), so any chances of a meet up were pretty much slim to none. We're talking and talking when she suggests that we exchange phone numbers. I say yes, give her my digits and we continue chatting. All of a sudden she wants to exchange naked pictures of each other. Sure we were talking each other up and everything, but I immediately got cold feet when I read that text. To me there has always been a fine line between just saying what you're doing and actually showing it off, you know? I guess my family brainwashed me into the don't post **any** pictures of you online mentality because of pedophiles, and my entire life I've followed that order. I've just always held onto the belief that sexting is wrong - period. I mean, yeah there's countless pictures of weiners and boobs all over the internet, but I'm absolutely frightened that my package makes its way to a billboard or something. Obviously that's a near impossible worst case scenario, but I hear horror stories of girls showing off their stash of pictures they've received, and that's enough for me to chicken out.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: In a fantasy world where the dead can rise, burial wouldn't be common +
+ That occurred to me when I played witcher 3. In that game, the dead not only can rise in the form of drowners and wraiths but can also be food for other types of dangerous monsters like ghouls. In fact, most cemeteries are very dangerous places for that reason and yet, still, every village has one.
In other fantasy worlds where zombies are also commonplace people still bury bodies just to have them rise a few days/months latter.
In any society that experienced supernatural phenomena related to the dead, I believe the dead would almost certainly be burned. Maybe a very few selection of people (kings and the elite) could have the "burial" privileges but that would be very few. The vast majority of the common folk would not do that.
As a matter of fact, even in our world when there is danger due to corpses (like in a big plague) mass burnings start. If the corpse would rise for brains I can't possibly see how anyone would just bury someone.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Churches should lose tax exempt status and monies gained should be put towards social programs. +
+ I firmly believe if we put tax dollars we receive from churches toward social programs be it after school programs for children, education or even possibly low cost clinics for people we would be able to raise the standard of life for the working class citizens. This would help at least the religion I am familiar with (Christianity) meet some of their tenets of giving to those in need and sacrificing personal wealth for the good of those less fortunate. In the event churches would be operating at a loss instead of a profit or are just breaking even they could receive a break by having either the congregation doing volunteer work or donating to the local community therefor almost achieving the same effect as if it were to pay taxes by still actively helping in the community. | 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 no difference between someone choosing their gender vs someone choosing their race +
+
A person is born of either the male or female sex just as they are born into a certain race. These things are determined by your genes. However, the concepts of gender(as apposed to sex) and race are pretty much social constructs; and if it's socially acceptable for a person who strongly feels that they identify as the opposite gender to claim they are that gender, then it should also be socially acceptable for someone to claim they are of a different race if they strongly feel that they identify as such. It is logically the same thing.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Giving other cultures sh*t about eating dog meat is hypocritical +
+ Hi all,
So someone just posted a video on my FB feed about [the Yulin dog meat festival](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=yulin+dog+meat+festival). It is horrifying...
For the purpose of this CMV, let's forget about how it's done (the way they get the dogs, they treat them... etc.) and concentrate **only** on the dog meat eating part.
I love dogs, and yes, I find it horrifying that other cultures eat them. However, I also understand that for other cultures, it is horrifying to see us eat beef or pork.
In my opinion, the only situation where you are allowed to complain is if you are talking about eating animal meat in general. But if you enjoy eating a good steak, then it is hypocritical to criticize others for eating what they consider is "just meat".
Again, I am stressing the fact that this is not about the *animal cruelty* part. It's just about the meat eating. For the sake of this CMV, let's suppose that the animals are bred and slaughtered in the most humane possible way.
So... CMV
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The US military budget should be diverted into projects that aim to fix the world. +
+ "Each javelin round costs about $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year, at a guy who doesn't make that in his lifetime is somehow so outrageous that it almost makes this war seem winnable"
-Sebastian Junger
The [US military budget](http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending) for both 2011 and 2012 was around $690 billion ($690,000,000,000). This money is wasted on overpriced training, equipment and massacres for a war that is helping no-one. The "earth's 6th big extinction event" scare is doing the rounds and regardless of its scientific legitimacy, there is little doubt that the world is on a course for annihilation. However, I would argue that the world is not doomed and could be brought back to a state of balance (more or less) with the right funding in areas such as sustainable energy, global education and environmental rehabilitation. Unfortunately that funding is going towards America's collosal erection for blowing brown people up.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: variable tax is immoral, or at least bad. +
+ Variable tax, or at least they way the US does it, is poorly done, inasmuch as it often discourages extra labour from people who may very well need the extra cash in the form of extra taxation. I know that personally, my paychecks are taxed between 25 and 30%, depending on overtime and the like, and it makes it feel so much more that instead of extra cash in my pocket, for going above the 40 hour work week standard, it's cash in the government's pocket.
Of course, this might also be influenced by my somewhat libertarian leanings, in that I consider taxation in general an... unnecessary evil. It's a fact of life I'll admit, but I don't think that it should be. Ultimately though, this post is concerned with the justification of a variable tax rate, inasmuch as how there is a justification for the government to take a larger percentage of your money because you earn more. | malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Our concept of love is simply a construct used to justify survival behaviors and nothing more. +
+ I do not date, nor do I have any intention of pursuing any romantic relationship or marriage. I am mentally unable to do these things because I view the concept of love as something akin to a fable you might tell a child to teach a concept or lesson. I believe what we call love was invented to give justification or more noble purpose to survival behaviors. Namely reproduction (sex) and herd mentality. Reproduction of course ensures propagation of the species, but couples or families sticking together mirrors herds found in the wild where crowding together increases chances for survival. [This is also supported by research where married couples have lower premature mortality](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.00968.x/abstract;jsessionid=8B4E487903DEF2AC92EC6D774B4D8566.f02t03?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false). All well and good. I like surviving! I'm sure Darwin was a fan of love. All I can see is the survival benefits of love and not much else. I feel like I've deconstructed love in my mind and now I can't put it back together. Kinda like how if you ever saw how hot dogs are made, you'd never want to eat them. I don't know if any of this makes sense, but I'm open to other points of view.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Subreddit moderators should be unable to ban a user who has sufficient positive comment karma in that subreddit. +
+ First, let me state that this is no kind of a legal view. I understand that Reddit is a private business that can do what it wants and subreddit moderators are agents of Reddit and can do whatever Reddit grants them the authority to do. This view is more of a "that's the way things ought to be". Also, I'm not going to worry about setting a specific limit for what constitutes "sufficient" positive karma; at this point, I'm simply arguing that there should be some reasonable level.
Subreddits are dedicated to specific topics and users can choose whether or not they want to participate in those topic discussions. Positive comment karma is obtained by contributing to the conversation (theoretically) or contributing discussion points that people agree with (reality). Subreddits *should* "belong" (not literally) to their users. If the users of a subreddit appreciation the contributions that a particular user makes (which would be demonstrated with positive comment karma), a moderator shouldn't be able to trump or veto the opinions of thousands of other users simply because they personally don't appreciate the user's contributions.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe some God or extra-dimensional entity caused the Big Bang and subsequently our existence. +
+ I attribute my agnosticism to this very theory. Looking at the Big Bang from a purely scientific perspective, we know, or think we know, that there was absolutely nothing in our universe before the Big Bang.
Now of course this nothingness is incomprehensible and even typing this it boggles my mind, but science's explanation is that nothingness caused the Big Bang. Now there are several theories to this, such as somehow two universes rubbing or colliding together which sparked the event. I'm no scientist and I'm sure people will correct me (please do), but the point is we really don't know how the Big Bang formed from what we consider to be nothing.
I tend to think, though, that some conscious entity had to be the catalyst that caused the event. It would seem that if there was nothing in our universe, some extra-dimensional being from another universe would have had to insert itself into ours, which sparked the event known as the Big Bang. I believe the being to be conscious because of the intentional way in which our universe seemed to form, and life sprung up. This begins to err on the side of intelligent design, but I do believe human beings, our consciousness, feelings, empathy, etc, have to be attributed to something higher.
I believe that entity to be God. Not necessarily in the Christian sense, or even that this being is benevolent, but that's my theory. 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: Reddit and our societies standards on religious/philosophical tolerance is inconsistant and hypocritical +
+ Im probably going to ramble on and such so i will make my point clear from the way i see it. Also my rhetoric is not going to be nice because its sort of half a rant too. I guess this is directed at a sort of liberal/progressive crowd, but can apply to right wing people too.
Ever since atheism and anti-theism movement sprung up on reddit we have been bashing it. Some of those reasons was correct. I believe atheists used too much rhetoric such as "free thinker", "skeptic", "reason" and "logic" to push their agenda. And we used to (USED TO) have neckbeards spewing some obnoxious shit. And i agree they come off as cringy. But in general, mockery of religion is fun, really fun and FAIR! We laugh at bullshit ideas all the time.
"im an atheist but please be tolerant, let them believe" or "People believe different things" or something similar.
-We have such an agenda of tolerating christians because in the west because the majority is still christian, this also influences "tolerant atheists" subconsciously
-We tolerate Islam because "that is the religion those people in them middle east believe in" so it would make us racist to criticize it. Like i get it Fox news is racist, but i dont have to be racist because i critizice Islam. Its like the people who try to tolerate Islam somehow think its racist to criticize it, failing to see that there is a diverse spectrum of people who believe in Islam and not just middle eastern people. Calling people racist for critizicing Islam is such a high level of mental gymnastics that i cant even.
-We cant critizice Jews because that would make us literally Hitler. (I actually understand this one though)
-Mormons are made fun of, but mostly they get the same treatment as christians "let people believe what they believe".
-We dont respect the views of other-kin, astrologists, parapsychologists, flat earthers etc.
Because?
They are not a majority, nor taught to us before we could write. That is what i think most people choose to ignore. We dont have people spewing tolerance of religion because we have some genuine need to spare someones feelings. Its because christianity is popular, based on faslehood and people feel like their beliefs are under attack.
When was the last time you saw someone going out of their way to defend a person who claimed to be a wolf? Oh, wait they get laughed at and mocked universally. Guy claims to believe hes literally drinking the blood of christ? Someone mocks him and gets labeled a fedora neckbeard.
Like seriously if someone tells you they believe in unicorns you can probably laugh in their face like "HAHAHA, you believe that?" and no one would bat an eye. However, have long debates where you try to go into detail of the problems surrounding religion and trying to debunk it? Richard Dawkins and speakers like him get called intolerant. As if a desire to uphold truth is somehow wrong because people get their little feelings hurt.
The way i see it religion is as fake as astrology or unicorns. But there is no one defending the latter. Religion is bullshit with good PR. I would prefer to keep laughing at people who think they are wolfs, but with a world where no one is trying to pretend like religion needs some sort of handicap from society to not "hurt precious feelings". I should be able to find religion absurd without being labeled "Euphoric" or "fedora wearing neckbeard".
I wish we could call out bad ideas no matter how many people believed in it. I want eqaulity when it comes to mocking things. The way i see it now religion has some sort of taboo of criticism that is protecting it. The way i want our society to change its view is for people to watch all three videos below and laugh. Just for the sake of equality. Sincerely, i live in Norway so i recieve minimal damage from religion. I just wish religion did not have to have some protective shield and having it be taboo to criticize it because they will cry the loudest when mocked.
People mocking stupid beliefs:
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtH7l-dhHZQ [1]
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlMiKrwCRQ0 [2]
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6w3zp-dYY [3]
Penn Jillette: Why Tolerance Is Condescending
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpNRw7snmGM [4]
What would change my mind is either:
-A huge amount of people going out of their way to prevent people from critizicing bullshit ideas such as Astrology, para-psychology etc. (people can believe what they want, tolerance, does not hurt you)
-A huge appeal to mock christianity from its own communities.
-Some source proving society not having a total hypocritical view of what bullshit ideas we are aloud to mock and not
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Our current generation will be the last drivers. My 6 month old nephew will never need to learn how to operate a car. +
+ With the advent of self-driving vehicles, the unavoidable will become clear: people are terrible drivers, and operating your own car is unacceptably reckless if a better alternative exists. I see the coming timeline like this: (copied from a reply to another post)
4-6 years: The first round of legal cases involving driverless cars is settled, producing a precedent that makes driving your own car very risky. A collision between two vehicles, one self driving the other not, almost always results in fault to the driver. Causing an accident while operating a car with unused self-driving capability makes drivers extremely vulnerable to being sued.
5-10 years: Safety studies, overwhelmingly favorable to self-driving cars, lead to the option becoming mandatory on all new vehicles. insurance companies, burned by litigation, offer premium rates to those who never switch off the driverless option, while increasing rates on drivers who elect to operate their cars manually. Soon the difference between these rates becomes enormous.
10-15 years: Commercial driving is entirely automated. Cabs, buses, trucks, trains, "driver" becomes an obsolete profession. The savings in both wages and liability is simply too tremendous to allow any non-automated fleet to remain competitive.
15-20 years: Studies conclusively show that the only traffic casualties that still occur are exclusively due to human operator error. It becomes evident that driving your own car is unthinkably dangerous, like drunk driving at night with no headlights or seatbelts. Safety laws are passed that effectively outlaw operating your own vehicle.
By the time my nephew is 15-16, controlling a car will be something that only hobbyists do, and never on public roads. Very few cars will be privately owned, rather they will be operated by private or municipal transportation services.
The age of the personal automobile is ending. CMV.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Automating low-skill jobs is just part of natural selection +
+ I've been hearing a lot recently of people and unions trying to stop progress in automation technology, such as driverless vehicles replacing truck drivers and others in the transportation industry. The economic benefits of these technologies are incredible as robots do not need salary and benefits, nor do they get tired or slack off. I don’t want to sound heartless, I understand that a lot of people are employed in low-skill positions and may lose their jobs, but to me it seems like natural selection favoring the more intelligent; i.e. those whose jobs cannot be done by robots.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Airplane boarding is backwards +
+ It makes way more sense to board an airplane with the back rows first. That way no one waiting to go to the back of the plane has to wait for people stashing their luggage. Boarding priority besides first class is pointless is it not? Who wants to board first just to wait even longer in a small seat. We all leave at the same time.
I’ve come to understand that in countries like Canada and Norway they’ve already adopted this type of boarding procedure. I’ve also heard (but not seen) that the Myth Busters did a segment on this and found that the current way is the least efficient. Whenever I see a group of people anxious and conjugating around the boarding area, everyone is suspicious and bitter about the people trying to “get their spot”. Southwest airlines doesn’t have reserved seating, so it ends up being that those that board first want the first few rows of the plane (make sense), which means that everyone will likely follow suit. In a Boeing 737, the very last passengers to board are likely going to get row 30, barring someone’s preference to be in the back of the plane.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: the grade point average system is better than the British honours degree classification system. +
+ My basic reasoning behind thinking that GPA is better than the [British honours degree classification system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_undergraduate_degree_classification)(the 1st, 2:1, 2:2, 3rd degrees you get in the UK) is that GPA is simply a more accurate representation of academic achievement. GPA allows for a more refined estimate of a student's achievement, since there are more possible combinations you can get with GPA(3.9, 3.91, 3.99, etc.). Whereas with the British honours degree classification, you can only get the 4 that I've previously mentioned(or a fail). That seems unfair if for example you're on the edge of getting 2:1 but just miss the mark and get a 2:2. Lastly, I'll mention that British universities [seem to recognise](https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/workstreams-research/themes/assessment-and-feedback/grade-point-average-gpa/gpa-faqs) this and there are a few that are experimenting with using GPA.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:Social Security is welfare for the elderly and should be viewed as such. +
+ "But they paid into it." Okay, but what welfare program do you not pay into? You pay into welfare as a safety for yourself if your parents die and a bunch of debt ridden events happen.
"It's not that big of a problem." It's 24%ish of your taxes. Currently #1 contributor to our deficit.
"They deserve it." Maybe, but do poor people deserve welfare in the same way?
"They need it." Only because they were an entire generation that didn't save and spent on credit. I can do more with my money now with stocks and 401ks than i could with the same money when i'm old.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Volunteer Fire departments should not exist, all fire fighting officials should be paid and trained employees of the state +
+ So I've always kind of thought that it was ridiculous that my hometowns line of defense against fires was a bunch of volunteers. I know that they do receive training but knowing some of them personally they really take it all as some joke- not saying that all volunteers do -but I think that if your going to be in charge of saving someones life and are going to risk your own life you should be a paid professional.
Other than the argument that paying firefighters is too expensive for the state why the heck else do all these small towns rely on locals to just figure it out themselves.
**Please see thndrchld and Mine's conversation below**
**celeritas365 made a good point**
I think maybe thats what i mean more- There should be professionals at all depts, no ALL volunteer depts should exist.- that also solves the money issue with for example 1 pro for every 5 volunteers.
**Ada1629 Also had a good point on my thoughts**
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Insisting your SO does not have sex outside of your relationship is a controlling behavior and should not be considered a normal, healthy behavior. +
+ In our society, we have decided that forcing another to have sex is a major violation of that person's body autonomy. In fact, forcing one to have sex when they don't want to is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things that are unacceptable to do to a person without his or her permission. Telling someone that they can't get a medical procedure done (or, likewise, telling that they HAVE to get a medical procedure done) is just as awful as is dictating how they were their hair or how they dress. In that same vein, what makes it okay in our society for your significant other to dictate who you sleep with?
Sex in our society is a recreational activity enjoyed by most adults in at least some capacity. People dictating what their SOs do for fun in their free time seems rather controlling. Adults should feel free to do what their bodies what they wish as long as they aren't physically forcing another person to do something. Forcing another person to only have sex with you seems to me like an awfully controlling behavior and takes away the body autonomy that they should have.
I can understand if a couple decides between the two of them that would like to sleep exclusively with each other. It's just surprising to me at times that it is the norm to be mad enough at your SO to break up with them if they have sex with someone outside of the relationship. I understand that people cheat all the time, but open relationships just seem to be the exception rather than the norm.
If you want a monogamous relationship and your SO sleeps with someone else, then you shouldn't be mad at your SO. You should simply realize that you guys want different things out of a relationship and part ways. Getting angry would be controlling your SO and taking away his or her own control over his or her own body.
And just for clarification: I am not saying that everyone should go out and cheat on their SOs. I am more stating that it *should* be normal and acceptable for people to have sex with people outside of a two person relationship for no other reason than that it is oddly controlling to insist that your SO sleep with no one besides you.
Also, I wanted to point out that I am purposefully not using particular genders. It is just as bad to for a woman to tell a man he can't have sex outside the relationship as it would be if a man told a woman the same thing.
So, please. Change my view! Why should it be the norm to have monogamous relationships?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The Prestige, the machine does not work. Spoiler alert. +
+ I will start by I have struggled with this concept since it has been brought to my attention. I know this movie extremely well, better than I should, and have previously debated just about every scene. Not to say the this conclusion is right but to say I do know the film and the characters well.
My basic theory stems from, The movie constantly allures to what and how magic is done, which has nothing to do with 'real magic' but with deceit. That's what the machine is deceit. Will give a summary of my theory now, leaving out the beginning and end, and details as my post will be too long for any interest. I will elaborate on the beginning and end , and details once the discussion begins.
So Borden does have a twin, tesla is real, angiers visits are fabricated from the diary and his ending speech being as such. Upon Angier capturing Fallon and receiving the key to Borden's diary(tesla) is where I will start. Angier visits Tesla finding out there is no answer to Borden's secret( Angiers original motive), and tesla has no "magic". So he begins to come up with away to frame Borden, not just kill him, but ruin his reputation and acquire custody of his daughter. He uses the fact Borden has sent him to tesla, to begin his frame up. He uses a useless tesla machine to add flair to an old trick, and spark interest in Borden. Angier also needs "real magic" to obtain a theater, no simple trick will do, as Borden hs already ruined his reputation. He uses a double to pull off his trick, with the illusion of being transported. He doesn't drown his double every night just the night of the murder. To ensure Borden will be confused he uses the element of mysterious tanks being transported from the theater every night, otherwise Borden will easily see he is using a double but with the mysterious tanks he sparks enough interest from Borden to want to see backstage, as this is vital for the frame up to work.
Angier is the pledge and turn and root(or other double if you prefer) is the prestige, ie on the balcony. Angiers motive at this point is no longer magic or the applause it's simply to frame borden. Borden makes multiple appearances at the show wearing a disguise. Angier needs to spot and identify this disguise in order to carry on with the frame up, which is why he doesn't do the frame up the first night he enters the theater, and eventually Angier does discover Borden. Knowing his routine and the fact he will come again because he hasn't been picked to view the machine or backstage, he sets the frame up. Seeing Borden enter the theater he tells his assistant to pick Borden out of the crowd that night, also telling root he will be the pledge and turn for the transported man ( not the other tricks) on this night. As Borden is being picked from the crowd, Angier and root switch, the frame up plays out Angier flees the theater. This is the jist will elaborate further on the end scene and the like upon the discussion beginning.
I will add a few of the questions about the machine working theory that I have, which can be answered by my theory. These questions could be preluded with "if the machine works"
What is the tank Caine and Angier are pushing during the ending scene? If if the last clone is in the morgue, and the tank had been broken to extract the clone what tank are they pushing?
Why store the clones? What not rid of them every night?
What is the air bubble at the end in the only visible tank.
How did Angier gain full control of both his legs while drowning? The movie goes through some length to show how damaged it is, why do this if it's not meant to be.a clue
If Borden sends angiers to tesla, it's his plan, why wait till he has captured Fallon to give him Teslas name, why not give it to him when he gives Angier the diary?
I have more of my theory to share, and more question to ask those who disagree it this is already too long. Looking for reasonable, logical, light hearted debate, so bring it on reddit change my views
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe that Islam is an inherently violent religion that is incompatible with Western society and for moral and ethical reasons must be non-violently eradicated. +
+ Hello /r/changemyview, I'm here today because I believe Islam is an inherently intolerant religion that not only condones violence against non believers but actually commands it. To this end I believe that Islam will never be able to fully reconcile with the West and that humans in general have a moral and ethical responsibility to eradicate it. Of course I do not condone violent means. Quite frankly I believe that if the US and other 1st world secular countries (such as in Europe) began to fund universities all over the Middle East that Islam would fall apart naturally, as its persistence throughout the world is predicated upon ignorance and the valuing of the Ummah above all else. That being out of the way, Id like to breakdown my indictment of Islam into three main points:
1. The first is the Islamic theology of abrogation, which is the idea that God can contradict Himself and change reality from the rules He previously set; this is dangerous for many reasons - one can argue that the surah saying to respect other people is chronologically prior to God's commandment to destroy the infidels.
2. I would say is the ummah (=nation), which is actually a departing from the Semitic thought of what a community was until that point (Syriac and Christian Arabs use the word for "people" instead). The very idea of the Ummah creates an unreconcilable "us v. them" mentality, inherently incompatible with multiculturalism or even coexistence. It also perpetuates ideas of petty tribalism and poverty (by denouncing the importance of education and societal advancement in benefit of reproduction and growing the Ummah). Which yields the last -
3. Jihad is much more dangerous than people think, despite it being a buzz word. Jihad as-saif, or "struggle of the sword", is the idea that anyone in the common body of Islam is obliged to join in physical resistance against infidels anywhere they threaten Islam. This is basically the theological justification of the aggression of Al Qaeda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, ISIS, etc. It's very dangerous because the Western mind compartmentalizes groups into nations - this transcends national boundaries because many Islamic fundamentalists deny states even legitimately exist. So for instance when Afghanistan was fighting against the USSR, there were muslims from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, etc. fighting for Islam in Afghanistan. Likewise, these same countries (even muslims from the US and Britain) have joined in fighting those they view as evil secular leaders, such as Bashar al-Assad.
I know what most of you will respond, that I am a bigot who cannot see over the shortcomings of other Abrahamic faiths like Christianity and Judaism, and that just as many atrocities have been committed under those faiths. I would say to you that these acts were committed by representatives of the faith but not sanctioned by the faith. Christianity itself dos not sanction violence, but Islam does. Jesus taught to love your enemies, and Mohammed sought to destroy them. This leaves no room for interpretation and very specifically calls all Muslims to fight against enemies of the faith (read: Non-Muslims) wherever they may be.
With regard to my three points, people would argue that the first point is not an issue because Islam knows the proper order of the Surat, and that the only reason why God commanded Mohammed to kill everyone is because they were threatened and it is analogous to the Israelites being commanded to fight surrounding tribes. To this I would emphatically say "Yea, right."
To my second point, they would say that nothing about the idea of the Ummah excludes non-Muslims, they're just not equal, but that's every religious society. They might even go so far as to say that the Ummah isn't even necessary for Islam, just Muslim dominant countries. I passionately disagree with this, and Islam CANNOT exist as a minority religion anywhere by its own nature. Wherever it exists it seeks to establish Sharia, and must be the ruling religion at least by its own mechanics. I don't have the source here but a recent survey stated for instance that 4 out of 10 Muslims in the UK seek to institute Sharia law. And there are already muslim arbitrated courthouses in the country. This desire to force sharia is not a product of extremism but rather an actual tennet of the faith, and that difference is crucial.
Lastly they would say that jihad as saif is only one type of jihad (the one normally portrayed in the media) and that only extremists would commit this act. To them I would say that they are bad Muslims because technically their prophet and hadith commands this form. M Surah 9:5, also known as the Verse of the Sword, proves this.
Well that isn't a very strong argument just because Christianity doesn't inherently sanction use of violence, more so examples like the crusades were a specific historical incident (not to mention they killed other Christians, sacking Constantinople and killing many Greeks, Copts and Syriacs whereas at least Copts and Syriacs have lived centuries under the yoke of Islam with no theology of violent reaction).
Islam is very much a material reality of political philosophy. No one is an Islamic theologian; the biggest names in Islam are Sharia interpreters. Islam's entire existence supervenes on the ruling of the Ummah, whereas Christianity can exist in Christian countries or in pagan countries.
Many moderate and so called "modern Muslims" would no doubt be offended by what I'm saying, and assert that I am touching on only the extreme points of the faith and that most Muslims don't practice these things. To them I would say unapologetically, you are bad Muslims. Let me unpack that statement. I do not mean to say they are bad people, and in fact I find their modernism and willingness to compromise refreshing. However, they are "bad" Muslims in the sense that they are not following a path that their faith is explicitly calling them down. Most modern Muslims are humanists, and their faith is more of an inherited cultural identity than anything else.
Back to extremism. There are many modern nations where Islam exists in the minority, such as the USA and Europe, and it is relatively tolerated. I do not know an example of a Islamic majority country where minority religions exist without a noticeable and tangible degree of persecution.
So reddit, CMV. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Birth tourism should be outlawed. +
+ To clarify, I am not against easier routes to citizenship--in fact, I'm all for it. I think if a person has toiled in this country long enough, paid their taxes, haven't committed any heinous crimes, etc etc, they are entitled to be able to apply for citizenship and not have it take 10-20 years to achieve.
I am, however, against the idea that literally anyone who can buy a plane ticket or boat ride to the states can pop out a baby, have it be a US citizen, and promptly return to their home country a week or two after the fact. How does a baby who spent all of what, a week?, on US soil have a higher right to citizenship than anyone else--especially when the process takes so long for honest working people who likely contributed much more to this country?
News sites claim that up to 60,000 Chinese nationals alone give birth in the US and promptly return back--there are even specialized birth hotels specifically for birth tourism.
I feel that a person should be entitled to US citizenship only if they have actually contributed to the well-being of this country. Some foreign offspring who spent the blink of an eye here, whose parents have never ever paid US taxes or contributed in any way to this country, should not have automatic citizenship.
If an illegal immigrant gave birth and stayed in this country (which many do), that would be a whole separate issue entirely. But to separate birth tourism from cases like that, one could enforce laws regarding duration of days in the US to ensure citizenship.
My views are NOT against illegal immigrants, or people who have actually worked on this land and paid taxes and done something for this country. I am against people who squeeze out a baby and promptly return, doing NOTHING for the states except to take advantage of their child's citizenship later on. I bring this up because I'm teaching abroad in Asia, and a local friend mentioned how his friends are popping out offspring in the states. I find this incredibly immoral, and think it does nothing but hinder the citizenship process for people who have actually lived, worked, toiled, in the country and are American in every other way except citizenship. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Taylor Swift is the wrong person to be criticizing Apple, and her stance on streaming services in general is wrong. +
+ *(The following is a blog post I posted earlier today, but I wanted to get this forum's opinion as well.)*
Yesterday, Taylor Swift made headlines by releasing an open letter to Apple about its new streaming service, Apple Music, and the company’s decision to give users a free three month trial period without compensating its artists. In an eternal testament to Swift’s influence in the industry, Apple has already reversed its decision.
This isn’t the first time Swift has taken an issue with a streaming service. Back in November, she pulled her music from Spotify, insisting that the service wasn’t compensating its artists well enough. At first glance, this seems a fairly worthy cause for Swift to take up arms about. I highly doubt many people would disagree with the notion that artists deserve to be compensated for their work.
However, I don’t think Swift is being entirely honest in her intentions. To be clear, I’m not defending Apple here. Even though it has the legal ability not to compensate its artists for those first three months, it’s also more than capable of footing the bill. I have a strong suspicion that the quick reversal had more to do with the potential PR backlash than it did anything else. I think it was good that someone called Apple out on it; I just wonder if Swift was the right person to do it. Her crusade against Spotify (who was/is compensating its artists, just not enough for Swift) already makes it look less like a righteous protest against this specific policy from Apple Music, and more like she just hates streaming services cutting into her bottom line. This is especially true when she’s pretty much the only major artist complaining.
Not to mention the fact that despite the apparent comfort Swift has in speaking for all the struggling artists out there, she’s probably less qualified than almost any other musician alive today. She moved to Nashville when she was 14 and spent two years working with some of the prolific and experienced songwriters in the world before releasing her debut album at the age of 16. That’s a debut album which sold 40,000 copies in its first week, by the way. For someone speaking out in defense of new artists, the absurd advantages she’s been given in the music world make her just about the least struggling artist imaginable. Swift quite simply doesn’t understand what it’s like to play a local music scene and hope she catches the eye of someone, or to sign on an indie label and hope a song sees some radio play. Swift, for all intents and purposes, was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. For her to act like she’s the spokesperson for a group she’s never been a part of and whose struggles she’s never experienced… Well, it would be like a white woman becoming the head of an NAACP chapter.
That lack of experience as a struggling artist might help explain why she seems so ignorant to the idea of the need for exposure, as well. While the paycheck is certainly important, it’s nothing without enough people hearing about you that they want to buy your music. Spotify and other services allow artists to get their name out there in a way that wasn’t even possible 10 years ago. That doesn’t give these services license to rip off artists, but many artists are simply happy to have the platform at all, regardless of the royalties being paid out. Given that she had the full PR hype machine of a major label behind her from day one, I’d wager that exposure isn’t really something she’s ever had to worry about.
There’s a whole argument about the nature of art and putting a price on it here, but that’s an entire article on its own. More than anything else, what really bothers me about Swift’s attitude is that she’s completely ignoring the pretty large portion of the music-listening population who simply can’t afford to go out and buy albums. Swift’s fanbase is pretty heavily weighted towards adolescents, who are far less likely to be able to drop $9.99 on an album than say, the 23 year old college student with a job. For some, streaming from Spotify or Youtube is literally the only way they’ll get to hear Swift’s music (sans radio singles). In all of her protests against Spotify, she has completely and totally refused to acknowledge the kid with no job and no allowance who can’t afford a copy of 1989.
And really, it’s all probably for naught anyway. Swift may have removed her music from Spotify, but piracy means there will always be a way to get her music for free, and with The Pirate Bay, she’s not getting any royalties. I just hope she can afford some tissues to wipe her righteous tears with. $200 million isn’t what it used to be.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The gay rights movement only further serves to alienate gays and keeps them 'unequal' +
+ I believe that all the gay pride and gay culture (e.g. taking the rainbow as a symbol of homosexuality like a nation's flag) only serves to further separate gays who, in my understanding, only want the equal rights they deserve. I don't attend straight pride events, or talk about how excited I am about being a heterosexual all the time.
I fully understand the dynamic of being out helping the individual accept who they are and invite those who are afraid and in the closet to come out and embrace their true selves which have historically been shunned, thus leading to the obvious fear one has about coming out. I believe gays should be treated completely equally and allowed to marry, raise children, and work in society just like any other human being. Homosexuality is naturally occurring and gay bashing is inherently wrong and incredibly destructive towards gay individuals.
However, the 'gay culture', which is objectively manufactured and not natural (e.g. the gay lisp some gays, including two I personally know, force themselves to have in order to fit the model set by gay culture) doesn't necessarily force, but definitely pushes these already disoriented people who, because of society's structure, do not know how to express themselves or act relative to their sexual identity. I think embracing who you are is what they should be doing, but embracing an artificial culture of flamboyancy in order to 'fit in', which I think is what they were trying to do before coming out in most cases, can't be much better objectively.
I could be wrong, and a good enough argument against this view I hold has yet to be presented to me. So go for it, Reddit. CMV
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Ok, so I got a lot of replies that I'm grateful to get. If there's any confusion, let me attempt to clarify.
I think that the gay rights movement is fantastic, and I probably worded my question wrong. What I was referring to is the individually accepted cultural of 'butch' lesbianism, or hyper flamboyance as behaviors. When I say these are not natural behaviors I mean in regards to the INDIVIDUAL displaying them. I feel like many are just filling a role they think they're supposed to fill because they're homosexual. I'm sure they aren't consciously aware of it, but gay culture is inherently different from, say, Hispanic culture or Chinese culture. This is not an ethnicity and not a set of behaviors gained from birth. In my observation it is a learned set of behaviors that many (not all) gays believe they need to conform to as part of their sexual identity.
I am not referring to being openly gay and having pride parades, which are objectively good for closeted individuals afraid to come out for fear of social rejection or worse. I am referring to loud, incredibly in-your-face individuals who seem to either be seeking attention or, as in the argument, behaving as they believe they should because they have observed it in other individuals. They are almost like religious zealots, who as a population tend to be alienated by most.
My argument is that through enacting this persona of extreme flamboyance and borderline annoying overstatement of making their sexual identity continuously known these specific gays are doing more harm than good in terms of advancing equality and social acceptance of homosexuals and are creating a bad public image for the LGBT movement.
A comparable example would be blacks & African-Americans who fill stereotypes of committing crimes and being civilly disobedient, rude and racist against whites solely because they fall into peer pressure or societal pressure to do so, feeling it is what they should do in their cultural sphere.
I think these things are ridiculous and working against civil rights and undeniable social equality not only in legal terms but in the views of individual members of society as well as society 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: I'm not Transphobic +
+ Recently I have seen a lot of posts regarding the topic of transgender and transphobia. This post is based upon a statement that I have read over and over again. "If you were attracted to someone, learned they were trans, and then lost sexual interest in them, then you're transphobic."
[Example](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/395o5x/cmv_transgender_people_who_have_had_sex/cs0lp9c)
(If pointing to someone else's comment isn't okay with the mods then let me know and I'll edit this out)
My argument revolves around the definition of Homophobia and comparing that to Transphobia.
A quick google will result in having them both defined as... Homophobia / Transphobia is the irrational fear of, aversion to, intense dislike of ,or prejudice against gay or transsexual or transgender people
I do not go out of my way to avoid gay people, I am perfectly fine with having a gay friend, and I don't look down on someone for being gay. By the above definition I am not homophobic. Assuming I follow all of the same rules, but for transgender or transsexual people, then I'm not transphobic.
The counter argument seems to be that if I am no longer attracted to someone after I learn that they are trans, then I am somehow discriminating or I have an aversion to them. But I would say that going by that definition I would also be homophobic.
As a straight male, I'm not attracted to other men. If we assume that I would enjoy anal with a woman, but not a man, then it could be said that I am discriminating against gay men or that I have an aversion to them. That's simply not true though. My body is programmed to want to be with a woman, so my sexual preference clearly isn't what determines if I'm homophobic. It's how I act around gay people that determines if I am homophobic.
Just because I would avoid having sex with someone who is currently a man, and was previously a man turns me off, doesn't mean I have shaky morals. It simply means I have been programmed to be that way. Just because I don't like the taste of avocados doesn't mean I'm avophobic.
In the same sense, if I were to be turned off by learning that someone I would have had sex with a is currently a female, but formerly a man, it isn't due to me discriminating against them, its due to a biological mechanism trying to get me to have offspring. Again in this situation, my sexual preference is not a question of morals.
In conclusion since I am not homophobic and I act the same around gays and trans, then I am not Transphobic.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: GMOs are a relatively new development, and should be labeled and treated with caution +
+ While I am not at all for the scare mongering and paranoia, I simply think that there isn't enough evidence to show that GMOs are completely safe to completely accept them with no questions asked. It seems very suspicious to me that large companies are lobbying so hard to avoid having to label GMOs, as I don't see why they would put so much time or money into fighting it unless there was something they were trying to hide. I have always tended to be wary of large corporations and their practices, but I feel like my current view is riddled with ignorance and misinformation. 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: Nickelback is a really great rock band +
+ I know they are universally hated, I know I SHOULD hate them and to all of my friends I have to say that I ironically like them but the truth is, I fucking love them. Great mixes with hard driving drums and base, good vocals, easy to sing along with... I think part of it is that while I am not a dude-bro myself, I fucking love that culture, it makes me laugh, I have fun when I am with them and every single dude-bro I have met fucking LOVES Nickelback. Maybe I am just a dude-bro but am denying it to myself.
I dunno. I thought about submitting this question to no stupid questions but felt it would be pushing their limits so I figured I would just ask for help. I don't know if it is possible to stop me enjoying their music but I am willing to talk out reasons I should.
| malleable | 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 should be federally banned from any state or municipal building as well as any company drawing federal benefits +
+ Note: This is going to be kinda long because I'm kinda angry and I think this is a good idea, but I'd like to understand the counter arguments.
Background: In the wake of the Charleston shooting many people on Reddit, and in the real world, have pointed out that we're poised to go through the same four step routine we've all become way too used to after events like this.
1. Fight about gun control
2. Discuss the amorphous "mental health" problem without any specifics
3. Bicker about something other than the actual problem. For instance, religious persecution instead of racial prejudice.
4. Get bored and forget about it.
Many people have been outraged over the fact that despite such comically obvious evidence that this was a racially motivated act, we're not going to do anything about the growing race problem in the U.S...again. Even going so far as not lowering the Confederate Flag outside the South Carolina Capitol building because that flag inexplicably requires a 2/3rds vote to lower. That has in turn raised, or re-raised the issue of stubborn insistence on using antebellum symbols and homages all throughout the South, which many people have pointed out as indicative of the pervasive racial biases throughout the country.
The Idea: A federal law banning flying the Flag of the Confederation outside any public or municipal building, as well as a phasing out of all names associated with the Confederation from public roadways, buildings, etc.
The Rationale: There are so many reasons, but I'll try to keep it succinct and duck most of the moral policing. First, It is tremendously offensive to black citizens, which, is fairly self-explanatory, and frankly should be to white citizens as well. Setting aside the racial implications, which we shouldn't, the Confederate Flag is a symbol of treason. Not only that, we are the only developed nation that not only displays, but does so with pride, symbols of our darker past. South African government buildings do not fly the Rhodesian flag, nor do the Japanese fly the Imperial flag. Germans have damn near made the Nazi flag a punishable offense. How can the U.S. maintain any sort of moral high ground when we're rubbing slavery in the faces of ~15% of Americans?
On the more implicit side, this is a very late, but very necessary, line in the sand against the more insidiously underground racial biases we still have. We're not going to tolerate this any more. The atmosphere that allowed Dylann Roof to foster and nurture his beliefs. No, not all beliefs are acceptable anymore, and you're going to have to stand out in the open if you hold these destructive beliefs. The government cannot continue a tacit tolerance of such a simple and easily solved FIRST step to mending race relations. It starts here, at the Flag, and we're actually going to stat working on our race issues.
So that's my stance. CMV
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Those who buy from telemarketers are responsible for the existence of telemarketers. +
+
My major gripe was in people behaving against their (and by extension all of our) best interests. I also *assumed* that we all had the same best interests. By and large I still think that, but it's not as clear cut. Thank you all
(1) /u/rustyrook - While it *sounds like* a sales pitch, it is easy to see that some offers may not be readily available at all times. If the buyer feels that they have a rare opportunity, it is in their best interest to seize the opportunity. Even if they were aware of the social impact, it would still be a worthwhile trade off.
(2) /u/DaFranker - While we might think that we are logical and think/act in our best interests, we often do not (akrasia). This is common in every field and impossible to completely eliminate.
(3) /u/CurryThighs - Telemarketers have predatory practices. Just because they call me to find that I'm not worth the effort does not mean that they are not more persuasive with others.
(4) /u/nllpntr - Non profit organizations have different thressholds for what constitutes a successful campaign. They are not subject to the national dnc list.
I think most of us will agree that telemarketing is an intrusive practice. It interrupts our day with unsolicited, unimportant offers. It is generally a social burden.
However, I can't blame the telemarketing companies. They provide a service, follow the law and get a result for their client. I can't blame the person working as a telemarketer. Each person has to earn a living the best way that they can. So long as it's a viable & legal model, it's fair. I also don't blame the legal system. We have national do not call lists, but there is only so much that big government can do. It is a general, public good to allow strangers to contact one another. Without breaking that down, the loopholes abound for companies.
But I do despise anyone who is willing to pay any amount of money for a product or service sold by a telemarketer. This single handedly propagates the cycle and causes everyone else the annoyance of having to deal with a telemarketer. Even if the person were interested in the product, I think it would be better to hang up the phone and purchase it elsewhere.
(A) I am in the United States
(B) I am already registered in the national do not call registry.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Bernie Sanders, an independent, shouldn't be allowed to run as leader of the Democratic Party +
+ I like Bernie, love his politics in fact. I doubt there is a politician I agree more with. I like the fact that, unlike most politicians, his rhetoric matches his actions. Whether it's filibustering Bush's tax cut extensions, standing up against Citizens United or proposing amendments to the Patriotic Act, this is a guy who's politics match mine.
That being said, I find it problematic for a guy who's never sat as a Democrat and doesn't caucus as a Democrat to be running to be their leader.
CMV Reddit, you can do it.
| 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 the Confederate flag being flown near the South Carolinian state capitol. +
+
ALSO.... looking at it from this perspective in no way condones slavery. I am simply giving a historical context for both situations. Just because it existed for 100 years prior to the civil war doesn't make it alright, it does however give you a frame of mind for some of these soldiers. Mix that with the fact they thought they were not being represented in the Federal Government, and yea they were a little ticked off. So please do not stoop so low as to call me a person who condones that...
Original Post:
I find it very annoying that in light of recent events this subject has gained traction. At the South Carolina capitol, a confederate flag flies and now that the shooting has happened, people are calling for it to be taken down. Not sure why people believe this is the cause of the shootings, the guy was a racist and a nut case. This flag flying had little to nothing to do with creating a culture of southern racism.
To set a few things straight:
1. The flag cannot be taken down to half mast as it is a fixed flag (there is no string to pull it down, it simply sits on top of the poll.)
2. The flag is attached to a Civil War Memorial, fitting in my opinion. It is not attached to the capitol, it is on the grounds of the capitol.
Beyond this my argument is that the flag is a part of US history and specifically, Southern US history (and since South Carolina was the first to secede... it has a highly unique history there). Yes, the flag does hold some racist connotations because it was essentially hijacked by the KKK and Neo-Nazis. This does not change the fact that it was a battle flag that Americans fought over in one of the most devastating wars in US history.
I understand there were confederate national flags and the one we see flown today is a battle flag. I still find it acceptable for those in the south to fly the flag as a reminder of Southern culture/pride and a memorial to those lost during the war.
If those who argue the flag represents those who wanted keep slavery I have two counter points. 1. The American flag represented those people for a much longer duration of time than the confederate flag, it is a dark part of our history and should never be forgotten. 2. It is estimated that 25%-33% of soldiers owned slaves, others fought because of vicious actions taken by the North and others to defend their homes (look up Sherman and Georgia).
Furthermore lets not forget this war wasn't slave holders v.s. abolitionists. The war was certainly about slavery but it wasn't as black and white as some people suggest. The South was fighting to keep slavery as a state right separate from federal law, the North was fighting because they didn't want their country being split in half.
Lastly, flags are symbols that can be interpreted in multiple ways. There are those that see the American flag as a imperialistic, evil symbol. There are those that see the confederate flag as a stark reminder of our nation's dark history and cultural heritage. Just because a few people have championed it as their symbol for their hatred does not mean everyone who flies it agrees with this point of view. Furthermore, just because people find the flag offensive does not mean the flying of the flag was there to offend.
TL;DR The flag flying in South Carolina has historic meaning and is attached to a memorial. It is not intended to offend or to represent racism. It is justified historically and by the first amendment to fly at the capitol.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Access to restrooms is a basic human right, and it is wrong for tax-funded spaces to charge money for them, if not all businesses. +
+ I recently was in Europe, and all of their public transportation stations (bus and all of EU rail) made you pay 50c - 1€ to access their restroom. I believe that access to a restroom is a basic human right because of its universality. All people use and need a restroom, regardless of gender, race, or income. They provide a healthy and private space compared to say, a bush or alley. I am not joking - for many people this is a choice they have to make. Public urination is a big problem in urban areas. Being forced to defecate in public is not just unsightly and unhealthy to others, but it also adds personal insult to the injury of homelessness. I saw several people loitering near these payable restrooms asking for 50c to use them, which I don't believe is something one should have to do. To restrict restrooms to those able to pay is morally wrong, and cannot be allowed, especially in places funded by taxpayers.
There are several benefits to opening up public restrooms. People use restrooms to clean themselves as well, so opening them up would increase overall cleanliness. Arrests for public urination would decrease, reducing police and jail costs as well as street cleaning costs. I don't know if respect for the homeless would *increase*, but I think disrespect would decrease as people stop sneering at those asking for money to use the restroom.
Some may say that opening the restrooms to all would make them dirty. About half of these payable restrooms I saw had a person standing there to collect money, who could in the free case just be another janitor (they already have to clean them, no matter how exclusive their restrooms are). I have no sources or math for this, but I don't believe that the minor influx of people into these restrooms would dirty them at a rate faster than the added janitor person could clean with the rest of the janitors.
A lot of touristy places had payable restrooms as well. I can see how one could make the case for a business reserving the restrooms to their customers, but many of these places were just a privatized version of what I described above, selling just water and restroom access.
To summarize, I believe that the small cost in maintaining a free restroom is outweighed solely in possible financial gains, and completely blown away when considering human rights in addition. Still, I imagine that I cannot be the first person to think of this, so there must be some reason why public spaces were allowed to begin this practice in the first place, so I would like to hear what you think on the matter. CMV please.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe that universities should have an affirmative action program dedicated to increasing the number of students and faculty who hold conservative political views +
+ One of the major policy appeals behind affirmative action is the creation of a diverse environment. A completely homogeneous environment is unlikely to be as intellectually fulfilling as a diverse one. Universities have done an excellent job in creating an environment that has tons of racial, sexual, ethnic and religious diversity. However, it still lacks intellectual and political diversity. People with conservative or right-wing views are [woefully unrepresented](http://www.criticalreview.com/crf/pdfs/klein_stern.pdf) in academia, particularly in the social sciences. Not only does this make people with conservative political views feel unwelcome and unappreciated in the university environment, it threatens the perceived validity of the research done. [This is even recognized by some leftists themselves](https://inequalitiesblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/right-wing-study-of-inequality/). How are you supposed to have valid research, let alone critical thinking, when there is an absolute hegemony of leftist views, which no one dares challenge due to their overwhelmingly disproportionate power and influence on campus? Therefore, to make university a more diverse environment and encourage critical thinking, we should prioritize student and faculty applicants who are affiliated with right wing organizations, and ensure that peer review panels have at least one right wing professor on 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: Political Correctness has not only gotten way out of hand, but it is, ultimately, detrimental to a healthy society. +
+ First, let me clarify by saying I don't support actual, intentional bashing of any kind, however:
We see jokes about it (especially on Reddit) all the time: political correctness is reaching a ludicrous level in our everyday society. It is getting to the point where you can't even make jokes or off-hand remarks without being considered rude, distasteful, ignorant, what ever. I think this is not only not really helpful to a person or group of persons who are facing adversity, it is detrimental. It causes issues that could be making actual progress to falter and nit-pick all of the tiniest little problems they can find rather than strive for real change. It is inadvertently focussing on the negativity in society rather than trying to find a positive solution.
It is my opinion that the only way to get past adversity in life is to toughen up and become immune to it and push your way through it. Real change comes about because of real actions.
This post was inspired by the earlier discussion on the use of the word "cisgendered" and wether it is "normal" or wether we should then be differentiating the difference between diabetics and nondiabetics and so forth. I don't think this is a helpful debate overall. sure, if you are asking what gender someone is, it is okay, even good, to distinguish, but all I keep seeing around here, and in real life, and at an increasing rate, is how we all need to check our privilege and be more and more sympathetic; how white people can't relate to minority problems, men can't relate to women's suffrage, cisgendered people can't really understand what transgendered people go through.. it just keeps getting more and more specific, and in my opinion, its just focussing everyone's attention on what is wrong with the world, and doesn't actually help us make it better.
Adversity is everywhere, it hits everyone. I may be a man, but maybe my dad sexually abused me and locked me in the basement my whole childhood. That girl may be white, but maybe she was raised in a seedy part of town with a drug addicted prostitute mother. Maybe that guy is a straight white male from a nice neighborhood, but he was somehow infected with HIV and now he has AIDS. My point is, none of those people are going to get through their hardships by focussing on those things they can't change, doing so would only hinder their own growth. I can't help but think the same thing when I hear about someone getting upset about someone else using language they find to be offensive. Again, I'm not saying bullying is okay, but the line between what is considered okay to joke about, and what is borderline a hate crime seems to be getting thinner and thinner. In my eyes, trying to further political correctness is only babying everyone and hindering actual growth.
TL;DR There is no relative degree of suffering, everyone has a hard life, and trying to force everyone to walk on eggshells all the time doesn't help anyone make their life better.
I hope you don't think i'm terrible for thinking this way, and I would love to hear everyone's input.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Ready to leave my family +
+ I'm done. Whatever I say it is presumed "wrong" just because I said it. Spouse. Kids. Always "wrong". Tried family therapy. Spouse refused to go. Therapist only told me what I wanted to hear at best; most times never wanted to talk about what I thought was relevant. ("Do what makes you happy." Pretty sure everyone in the family doing that has contributed to the problem.) They even insist I am wrong when it comes to topics related to my job, a job I have held for 15 years. At the grocery store now. Spouse thinks so little of me to the point of saying, "I was gonna ask you to get a table cloth but that's in a different part of the store." Excuse me? I'm so pathetic I can't walk to another part of the store? WTF?!? I'm done with them. I try and get ignored and/or treated like shit. I'm leaving. CMV | 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 don't control their barking dogs are entitled and a nuisance to everyone around them +
+ I have a neighbor, an elderly woman with money and an insanely annoying dog. The dog barks at everything that moves, from the front window, for long hours. I have gone to the house and told the woman how irritating it is to have to listen to her dog bark, and her reply was "Oh, I've had that dog for eight years, I'm just used to it. You can't teach an old dog new tricks!"
This is not the only nuisance. There are dogs that bark whenever I come to the door, tied-up dogs that bark as I try to enter the supermarket, dogs that bark incessantly at cats on their morning walk... and these owners do nothing about it. They just tug a bit on the leash or say "no", but it doesn't do anything except relieve blame. Maybe I'm wrong, but aren't dogs easy to train? My cat scratched on furniture when I got her from the pound, so I started spraying her with water when she did. Then I bought cat scratchers. Now I don't have a cat that scratches furniture. It can't be that hard.
My theory is that people just get lazy, give up, and shoulder their dog's annoying habits on the good graces of everyone else. They try disciplining their dogs for a couple days and when it doesn't work, they just think, "Meh, if I can get used to it, strangers can get used to it too." Dogs that cannot be taught how to be quiet should have muzzles, and if you can't afford to control your pet's behavior, you should not be owning a pet.
| 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 that the current strategy of guilting and disparaging white people as a general collective whole is constructive towards correcting race relations, and I believe it is doing far more harm than good by turning away potential allies. +
+ Every time I read the news or social media, and especially the comments tied to said news or social media, I end up with this cognitive dissonance.
On one hand: I understand and accept the privileges set forth to me, as a US American white male, that many members of minority groups do not have available to them. Even things as simple as watching movies and realized I'm seeing an exponentially larger number of white males than any other group, can remind me that there are things in my life that I take for granted which do not exist, or at least are there to a much smaller degree, in the lives of others. I find this unacceptable; I despise the idea that people are born into set roles or classes due to things outside of their control. No one asks to be born into poverty, or born to be viewed as suspicious just because they take part in activities others can do without question or second looks.
On the other hand: Every day that I open the news, I find a new article that implies that I am some kind of horrible, racist, monster based only on my gender or the color of my skin. Sites like Salon, Motherjones, and Huffington Post drop hundreds of articles each month about white people AS A GENERALIZED GROUP, as if we're all some sort of problem people, individually. Even college professors like Saida Grundy seem to have no problem saying this... and their Universities have no problem allowing it. Which is part of what bothers me the most... it's not that clickbait articles exist, but rather that NO ONE CARES.
Example: Take this selection of posts: http://www.salon.com/topic/whats_the_matter_with_white_people/ On this list, replace the word "White" with "Black" in your head. Look at how horrendously racist that list now comes out to be. And yet, because it says "White", it's cool. All is well in the world. Articles that start with "Kanye West vs. white mediocrity: " are currently in style.
Well, the problem is that it takes people like me, who WANT to be an ally and WANT to stand up and add another voice to the fray, shouting that things should be better for people who are not white... and it makes me want to remain silent. What could compel me to self loathe to the point of standing beside racists who despise me for the color of my skin, who disparage me for nothing that I did but rather the actions of people unrelated to me that I have never met and only share the single point of connection in the melonin content of our skin?
What's the point of trying, if I'm a monster because of how I look and the only way I can "correct" that is to disparage myself because of the actions of others? Even just making a post like this, pointing out how digustingly bigotted and racist these views are, will make ME out to be the racist for bringing it up.
I truly do not understand the current path we are taking in race relations. I do not understand how this is supposed to help. I see so many people saying that we need to tackle racism head on, and that we need to talk about the problems... this is me doing that. Even if I get called a racist or a bigot for it, that's ok. I'm talking about the problem, and it IS a problem.
Why good does alienating allies really accomplish?
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: The case of Dylann Roof is not an adequate starter for a dialogue on race relations. It is an isolated case of a disturbed young man, with a completely misguided view on race. In fact, it may be arguable that making it about race gives dignity to the acts that it doesn't deserve +
+ On the 18th of June, Dylann Roof walked into a church consisting of mostly black members alone and shot nine members alone. His motivations were to ignite an war that he likely believes is already starting. Before he walked into that church he posted a juvenile series of rants and pictures that gave glimpses into his obviously sick head to tell the world of his idiotic, racist views and manifest what he intended. He did all of this as to my knowledge, alone.
After he committed his crime he was arrested, and everyone hated him. Although, no one of note is praising of him, obviously, there are people who claim that this is a symptom of a larger issue about race and oppression. The person I find most notable in this discussion is Jon Stewart: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/kb2h42/charleston-church-shooting
The argument that he is making has merit, Jon Stewart is a highly intelligent and empathetic human being who knows what he is talking about. But the demographic that Dylann Roof crawled away from to represent is an old and dying minority, that I truly believe. Yes, there are race problems and there are people of extreme disturbances that are willing to go to murderous lengths to make a statement about race, but no one with a sensible head on their shoulders believes such things. We should keep the discussion of race alive, and there are lengths that we as a society need to cover to reach the mountain top of racial equality, but why must we blame Charleston and the media as a whole for this one poor young man who had a clear mental health issue, and easy access to firearms? Is it hard for us to turn our minds to the more obvious debate that needs to be made about gun control and mental health treatment?
It is an argument that has been made and beaten to death before, and feels a little more ignored this time around. If Dylann Roof had more red tape and more red flags put in his way, maybe this tragedy could have been deterred or at least mitigated. At least, that's one thing in this situation we could have controlled. We could not make race relations better in a few months, nor could we prevent Dylann Roof from changing his mind as easily as one Saturday morning cartoon, but we could have made his actions much harder to go about.
There are race relations to address in this country, and that will be healed with more time, but we aren't helping ourselves by making this act more than a symptom of the case. Race relations didn't make Dylann Roof a murderer, his own rage and fractured mental health did, and the glock was far too easy for him to reach.
I am not trying to disparage the obvious issues between white people, black people, and any other race, but I am not understanding why it is paramount we make this about race, rather than the argument that we have based most other mass-shootings on. So please, CMV.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV:English should not be the international language +
+ I think English should not be the international language for these reasons:
It's proven that is really hard to understand how to pronounce some words here /u/BrotherChe makes a really good point in another thread I saw. http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/3aj3vc/udefstones123_realizes_what_grower_not_a_shower/csdbnl5. Other languages such as Spanish the pronunciation of a word is pretty straight forward. I understand that the conjugation is the only tough part and the whole gender thing might be confusing at first (not that crazy if it ends on an a it's female, except agua which can be both, the only tough part is if it end on an e). Also English is not even the most spoken language in the world where Mandarin is first followed by Spanish. English is rising only because it's commonly being taught as a second language, if you change the language it will also rise.
Also the whole small scale system that English has does not even make sense like why a billion is a thousand of a million where in long scale it's a million of a million.
I know this seems biased like I am arguing that Spanish should be the international language and it's my native language, but it makes more sense if it were. I didn't defend Mandarin because I've always had the impression of it being one of the hardest language to master. If it's otherwise I apologize and anyone who speaks other languages are welcome to support why your language should be the international language.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I do not believe in a progressive tax system. Change my view. +
+ I believe in a flat tax system, where everyone pays the same percentage of their earnings in income tax. I do not believe in a progressive tax system where richer people pay a higher percentage than poor people. I am a working class democrat, but I do not see a progressive system stimulating economic growth. It seems to me that it is punishing somebody for making more money, making it more desirable to stay in the middle class instead of encouraging people to work their way up into a higher class.. On the other hand, I believe a flat tax based would be fairer. Rich people would pay more (because 15% of a million is higher than 15% of 35'000) but would still be encouraged to leave their capital in the US economy instead of finding ways around the tax code... Can someone make a solid case for a progressive tax system directed at a working class guy like me?
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: People of Color can be racist +
+ Background: I've often be told that people of color can't be racist because they don't have the power of systematic oppression.
Challenge: So my immediate reaction to the question, "Can People of Color be racist?" is yes they can be. Here's why: I believe in the western world they can't be racist against white people, I agree with the background on that. I disagree that in general they can't be racist though. I believe they can definitely be racist towards other minority ground i.e. Black vs Latino racism. In this context one group could quite easily have systematic power over another simply by controlling trade in an area. As a concept this would essentially be, think about a neighborhood predominately black, with Black-run stores, if a Latino or Asian comes in to set up shop, I'm going to bet he's going to feel racism.
The next reason I believe people of color can be racist is foreign countries. I'm really unsure how someone can say in a country where white is not the majority the majority race cannot have systematic oppression against white people or any other minority race for that matter. I am aware that anecdotes are not good evidence, but I've definitely heard my fair share of them, either co-workers and bosses holding you to a much higher standard or simply not believing you can do as good of a job as someone of the majority race to being denied access to public spaces due to your race, it's quite common in foreign countries, even if you were born there and lived there your whole life.
Conclusion: Rather than saying people of color can't be racist I think it would be far more helpful to say the majority race can be racist.
I'd love for someone to change my view on this.
| malleable | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Manual gearboxes are archaic and unnecessary +
+ Not too much I can add to this as I think it's fairly self explanatory. I would like to mention that I'm from the UK, where there is very strong pressure from society NOT to drive automatic cars due to various sexist, ageist and ableist views. (automatics are for women(implied women can't drive), old people (more implications) and the disabled (implied things implified)).
In my opinion, automatic gearboxes (or even semi-automatic) have come along so much in the last decade that the previous benefits of reliable uphill performance and fuel economy that manual cars used to have has fallen into the realms of diminishing returns.
Other arguments I've seen include;
Engine braking is useful - so is a brake pedal
It gives more control - for what? none of us are racing here
it's no more difficult - Yes it is, there's 50% extra pedals, 3 pedals shared among 2 feet, a stick that has 5+ positions that are non consecutively placed that you need to manoeuvre both your feet and hands at the same time as either accelerating or decelerating in order to operate.
It's fun/it's faster/it feels good - irrelevant, all subjective and for the purpose of this argument I see the utility of a car as little more than the ability to go from A to B.
FWIW; I can drive both automatic and manual vehicles, I just feel so much less inclined by the latter and recently around reddit I've seen people downvoted for admitting to only wanting to learn automatic and others upvoted for churlish bullying of those not fussed by a manual gearbox.
So reddit CMV; cos' currently I feel like I'm missing out on a big secret.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: "If everyone is super, no one will be," is not a chilling prediction; it would be a good thing, and "The Incredibles" was wrong to give this viewpoint to a villain. +
+ It's been awhile since I've seen the movie, but one line has stuck with me for years: "If everyone's super, no one will be." This basically sums up the ideology of the villain of the film: Syndrome is trying to build inventions that would give any user superpower-level abilities, so that "natural" superheroes wouldn't be special anymore.
Now, Syndrome is a villain, regardless of his beliefs. He kidnaps the Incredibles and tries to kill at least some of them. He also built a death robot to destroy an entire city (for reasons that I still do not understand). The movie correctly portrays these behaviors as villainous. However, for no apparent reason, Syndrome is acting on a surprisingly positive, egalitarian motive. If they wanted to make a compelling villain, he could have had a simple world domination goal, or just wanted to make himself a superhero. But no: Syndrome's goals are to make "natural" superheroes no better than anyone else...by making everyone a superhero. And this is bad, because....?
The theme gets even weirder at the end, where Dash pretends to be less than stellar at track and gets second place, despite his powers. Apparently, the Incredibles are fine with the appearance of equality, as long as they know they're really superior. In fact, it's nice to let other people PRETEND to be the best, and you don't have to feel threatened by that, because you'll always be the real best. I can't help but view the film as a struggle between two profoundly incorrect viewpoints. I walk away knowing that Syndrome did more evil things, but hating the Incredibles more because they're just so unlikeable.
Syndrome is correctly cast as the villain of the piece because of his bullying of the Incredibles and city destructobot, but his plan to provide cool gadgets for everyone is not evil, and it would not be a bad thing if "everyone was super." On the contrary, it would be the best outcome of the movie. We only get a brief glimpse of Syndrome's inventions, but even the few we see appear to have some potential livesaving applications (flying shoes for firefighters to get people out of burning buildings; laser glasses to rescue people trapped in car accidents). If everyone was super, it wouldn't just be a lucky few tasked with saving people whether they wanted to or not. Instead, those who truly wanted to could do it, and as many people as necessary could have each "power." If we had the technology to do so, we ought to make everyone super. Syndrome's alleged motive for evil falls totally flat, and the Incredibles' reaction is weirdly elitist. CMV.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: America should ban guns for civilians. +
+ I'll start this off by saying I'm English.
Over here, after a school shooting in 1996 in Dunblane, gun control was majorly tightened, with all handguns, assault rifles etc banned outright. Only a select few have guns (I.E. Farmers can have shotguns to keep wild animals at bay, but only under strict license with regular checks). Members of shooting clubs etc can have guns, but again, only certain types, and the regulations on these are far stricter than in the U.S.
Fast forward 19 years and massacres on the scale and regularity in which America is seeing them are unheard of here, and in most other developed countries with bans on guns.
For context - a single teacher was stabbed to death not too long back by a pupil and the nation was horrified, it was major news for weeks. In the U.S. I don't believe this would raise an eyebrow.
Our police officers can patrol pretty much unarmed, and because there's little to no threat of a thug pulling a gun, officers are a lot less jumpy and combatative toward the general population. This means far fewer people dying in police custody.
As an outsider looking in, I can't wrap my head around how many lives need to be lost in mass shootings and police killings before Americans realise that guns have no place in the hands of the general population. Quite a few Americans would need a new hobby, but this would be a small price to pay to minimise these kind of events. It's fact that when guns are ridiculously hard to obtain that these types of crimes occur less than in places where most people can freely buy them. America should ban guns.
CMV. | 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 rely on crowd-funding to reach their desired goal are lazy & have no work ethic. +
+ It used to be that a person would work hard and put in their own time, money, effort and elbow grease to reach or achieve their desired goal. For example, when I was growing up I was taught that if I wanted something, I would have to work until I had enough money to get it.
Nowadays, all a person has to do is start a kickstarter or gofundme or indiegogo fundraiser, and then kick back with their feet up & watch the money flow in. This to me shows they have somewhat of a lack of passion because instead of being patient and working hard and saving up to get what they want, they are relying on others to donate money to fund their cause. CMV. | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: I believe the term "cisgender" doesn't need to be adopted by said "cisgendered" people. I liken it to diabetics creating a word for non-diabetics other than "healthy" or "normal." +
+ I love transgendered people, and I find this new (to me) topic interesting.
But I don't think that normally gendered people need to use the term cisgender, or even know what it is. I also don't think it's wrong to refer to a cisgendered person as "normal," (edit: regarding their gender identity and not them as a whole person) rather than cisgendered.
If the trans community want to have terms like this, which I obviously see the utility of, then great, call me that all you want.
I just don't understand why suddenly I am not a normal male, and why it's offensive to refer to myself as a normal <gender>. I don't see why certain transsexual individuals have attacked me for simply refering to cisgender as normal, instead of this "designated male at birth" terminology I had never heard of before venturing over to /r/trans.
I would compare this to anyone with an uncommon trait getting vocally offended by not being refered to by a specific terminology they feel more comfortable with. If autistic children, diabetics, people with parkinson's and paraplegics all wanted to be called something new, it would get incredibly confusing to talk to people without offending anyone.
I completely understand that transsexuals have a hard life, huge suicide rate, etc., but I don't think that babying them by tiptoeing around words like "normal" when they simply are not normally gendered humans is the right approach. I don't believe masking or avoiding reality is ever a good thing, and we can easily push for equal rights and respect for all transsexuals, even if people reserve the word normal when it comes to gender for someone who is cisgendered.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Hate crime legislation is a legal contradiction and should be done away with. +
+ I am making this post with the recent Charleston shooting in mind, so in my example, I will use murder. However, the principle of enhanced punishment based on motive applies to any other crime.
While many people consider it morally abhorrent, racism is not illegal. As long as it is not acted on (in the form of violent crime, discrimination in hiring etc.) it will not get anyone in any trouble with the law. Simply saying “I hate all black people” for example, will not get you any punishment. Murder on the other hand, is illegal in all cases.
Since the added punishment for hate crimes is based on the motive alone, it would seem that the government is using hate crime legislation to legally prohibit racist thought, endangering our 1st amendment rights. Again, while most consider racial thought morally wrong, we as Americans still have the right to think what we want and dislike any other person for whatever reason we choose.
Giving a harsher punishment to a murder because of the murderer’s legal thoughts at the time of the crime is contradictory. It is the legal equivalent of adding 0 and 1 and getting 2.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: TV shows which promote social awareness at the cost of quality shouldn't be praised. +
+ I'm going to use Orange is the New Black as an example. I know that I'm not fully qualified to argue it because I haven't seen very much of the show. That's because, after 5 episodes, I found it incredibly boring.
Now, maybe the show picks up, maybe I missed some stuff, I don't know. The point is, I found it to be a show with crappy dialogue and no interesting plot. However, the show is constantly praised by many people I know for being so good.
As far as I can tell, this is because it contains representations of many minority groups, people from the LGBT community, an almost fully female cast etc.
Carmilla (the youtube series) is another example of this to me.
I think having diversity and exploring social issues is something that good quality shows should have, but the presence of them doesn't automatically make it good.
CMV.
| resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |
CMV: Tobacco Companies face undue discrimination +
+ I think that there should be warnings and disclosures on cigarette packs in order to inform the consumer. Comparable practices are used on pharmaceuticals, alcohol, foods, cars and tons of other products. Yet on cigarettes people insist on putting graphic images of death and severe damage to scare people out of using them. I think showing dead people and people with holes in their throats is fear mongering and discrimination against tobacco, a product that is harmful but other comparably dangerous items are not treated similarly. When you buy a new Ford you aren't shown bodies blown apart in car accidents, when you drink a beer you aren't shown a dissolving liver and the effects of alcoholism. The list goes on and on. Is it reasonable to treat tobacco products this way? | resistant | You're a semantic analyst. Judging from the opinion statement, do you think he/she is resistant or malleable to persuasion? |