Jonathanese

Yeah the statement is rather vague.

Saying the "level" of intelligence is "inherently" gendered would be outright wrong.

But what would be more accurate would be to say that intelligence can often come in a gendered "flavor" or "color". Which often either causes or is caused by our preferred methods of problem-solving.

For instance, they have tested children in hedge mazes after being given an initial look at the complete maze. Boys did somewhat better, but that was just a side effect of the particular test and not part of the finding.

The real finding was that boys would basically carry a map in their head, and look for fixed points to reference it to, such as a tower in the center and a sign at the entrance. Then they would rotate the map in their head accordingly.

Girls preferred more local references, and where to turn at each one. "Turn left at the hedge with the flower on it. Then right at the one with the bench." In a hedge maze, the visuals are relatively uniform, which put this sort of thinking at a disadvantage. But it's often advantageous around town or when given directions.

So I would imagine if you asked a man for directions you hear somewhat more "head NORTH for a few miles, then head EAST on 41". Whereas if you ask a woman, you might hear more "When you see KFC, turn LEFT and continue straight until you get to the church on your RIGHT."

It might be related to preferring memory or spatial reasoning. But it isn't super cut-and-dry.

The fact that these are mostly-overlapping bell curves should also be implied.

The only reason hybrids and EVs never took off was because manufacturers insisted on making them unappealing to produce a "false flag lesson" or sorts. "See. we tried making your hippiemobiles and nobody bought them." And when they did become appealing, they were immediately shut down, like the electric Rav-4 in the 90's.

However, this did leave a bit of a vacuum of EV manufacturers that Tesla was able to fill, and they insisted their cars be designed to be supercars from the start. It didn't take long before Tesla became associated with crazy acceleration, and then EVs as a whole to follow.

Now, most developed nations have some sort of EV-only mandate due within the next couple decades, and all of the major auto manufacturers are switching over. If you make your environmental car cool, then you can get a lot of people who otherwise aren't environmentalists making the environmentally-friendly decision. Your reach extends beyond your activism.

Capitalism is simply a particular social force, like splitting the atom. When consciously directed, it's a sustainable force for good. When unregulated and unchecked, it is an unmatched destructive force.

But if we want any of our climate initiatives to succeed, they must be socially-sustainable. Big government action is only good to get the ball rolling, but can be voted away at any time, so we can NOT afford to rely on them. But once the markets are trained, the market members will stop at nothing until market saturation is reached.

Well keep in mind there is current responsibility and historical responsibility. The west bares most of the historical responsibility, but we were developing, and didn't really know what was going to happen. So I don't "blame" our history. But we do bare responsibility same as them.

So it becomes a question about other developing countries. We blew everything we could into the air to develop ourselves, is it fair to hold back their progress just because they do the same? Regardless of fairness, it needs to be done either way.

BUT we have the advantage of hindsight that could also become a good business opportunity. Sell alternative energy sources to these developing countries. Bring more jobs HERE to develop products to sell THERE. Help India reduce their emissions while developing, while we get a nice economic boost at the same time.

We didn't do enough of this IMO, and now China is producing most of the solar panels for India.

I think most people can agree this just doesn't work. Regardless of whether you think it is "justified" is irrelevant. Violence on your behalf fuels your opposition.

I think the better call would be to make it a business opportunity. The profit motive may be flawed in several cases, but it's self-sustaining and seeks its own expansion. Don't make fuel efficient cars "hippie cars" that you don't try to sell. Make performance hybrids that use electric motors to compensate for turbo lag. Make EVs the fastest cars on the planet. Then you don't have to "convince" people to do it "for the planet" Those who care will buy them because they're efficient. Those who don't care will buy them because they are fast.

Or right now, most solar cells are produced in China. Solar was discovered and invented here in the US, yet much of our reluctance and willingness to offshore our labor has led to China dominating this market. Whether or not solar is viable to replace a whole grid is irrelevant. The demand is there, take advantage of it.

But if climate change is relegated to a few people, and those people try to get their way with violence, they'll be dismissed as kooks. Use innovation instead.

And for god's sake stop demonizing Nuclear. Carbon reduction is a more urgent need, and Nuclear is a great option. We need the research dollars to find better ways to deal with nuclear waste, pretty much the main disadvantage of nuclear.

Being honest in journalism isn't necessarily about being neutral or giving each side "equal time". In fact, if you are watching news and they actively claim to be totally unbiased, it's a pretty safe bet that they are especially biased and want you to think that their bias is the "neutral" position.

Instead, it is more often better to be open and honest about where you stand on issues, and then simply have diversity in which people you have. Breaking Points with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti is a great example. Krystal is openly on the left, Saagar is openly on the right, they talk about what they agree on and what they disagree on. They are open about their anti-establishment stance. This is far better than trying to claim neutrality.

Similarly, in issues of science, neutrality only makes sense when results are inconclusive. Once there are conclusions, there are facts and falsehoods.
If you are debating the existence of gravity, there isn't "two sides" which must have "equal representation". People trying to declare neutrality or being fair and balanced by saying things like "We'll never know" or "They presented alternative facts" is exactly how we get a news media that exists outside reality, and a congress that doesn't represent anyone or help anyone. You have to acknowledge reality before you know how to fix it.

English is the largest hub language in the world.

What does this mean? If someone who speaks native Hawaiian meets with someone who speaks Icelandic, they do not choose to speak Hawaiian nor Icelandic to talk to each other. They choose English, because it is very likely English is a second or third language to them. Icelandic and Hawaiian are endpoint languages in this case. English is the hub language.

While languages like Mandarin may be spoken by more people, it is restricted mostly to east Asia. Most east Asian countries also teach English, so English is often used as an intermediate language.

Generally, if you learn a second language, it is to learn a language that acts as a better hub to speak with a greater variety of people. That is, you generally learn a second language to learn a hub language of similar size or larger.

If you speak English, there is little actual need to learn another language for simple communication purposes, as it is the largest hub language, and thus can be spoken to the widest variety of people. This is why native English-speakers are comparatively unlikely to be fluent in other languages.

And in the case of North America, nearly the entire continent speaks English, and is isolated by oceans. In Europe, you could take a 6 hour drive and go from Polish to German to Dutch to French. In the United States, you could drive for a week and only ever hear English.

Learning a second language is an absolute must for the sake of things like linguistic development and understanding of other cultures. But the Anglosphere's lack of language fluency doesn't come from laziness, it comes more from lack of necessity.

Especially with regards to politics, I argue to find things like common ground or hear a new perspective. I generally like hearing alternatives to my own ideas, or being able to further solidify my own views or try to convince others.

The most frustrating part is that arguments are made so much about "winning" that it doesn't become a discussion about finding the truth, both sides fail to concede anything to the other, and instead compete to see who has better endurance to sticking with their own point of view even when it doesn't necessarily make sense.

While personal responsibility does indeed play a role, and Pay As You Throw could help reduce waste, I would argue the issue is less in the hands of the consumers and more in the hands of producers themselves.

For instance, everyone buys kitchen supplies. In the richest countries or the poorest countries. The difference is that the richest countries have individually-plastic-wrapped utensils inside a box inside another box inside packing peanuts inside another box that is twice as large as it needs to be. In the poor country, there's the spoon, unpackaged. Grab it, buy it, and wash it before you use it.

This is similar to water usage. Often blamed on individuals while a single company can use more water in production than their entire respective society combined.

Similarly, if the goal is to incentivize recycling, the recycling pipeline needs to be improved. Currently, the vast majority of recycled materials are ultimately mixed in with the rest of the waste and thrown into the same landfill.

I generally like my chocolate at about 85% cacao if it is plain.

I generally drink coffee light and flavored. But when I drink black, I like it really dark and really strong.

I simply cannot drink sweet tea anymore. I generally prefer it hot, dark, and strong.

While stouts will always be my favorite, I've recently taken a liking to hoppy bitter flavors like IPAs.

I'm generally in favor of the main point, though I'm very much not a fan of the general tone of these sorts of discussions, and they are often tie-ins to ethno-nationalistic ideologies.

But do notice: Where are all the criticisms of China for not having enough people of African or Hispanic lineage? Why is nobody concerned by Japan, who has some of the strictest citizenship policies in which you could have several generations live there but never be considered Japanese because of your background? Are people protesting them for systemic xenophobia?

The narrative seems to be that every ethnic group in the world should be allowed their own unique culture and ethnic identity, but when you get to Europe, suddenly it's the "most racist continent", despite high ratings in accepting diversity. Europe sharing the same ethnic homogeneity as the far east is considered problematic, when they are the natives of their land all the same.

Such a criticism should either be rejected, or distributed evenly. But this targeted selectivism doesn't make much sense to me.

This argument does, however, work very much in the US, where many different ethnic groups have taken root in different places at different times, none of whom are the original inhabitants, who are barely acknowledged. Beyond native Americans, there is no specific or unified "American" ethnicity to claim. The country simply hasn't been around nearly long enough.

In either case, we need a system in which the interpretation of the constitution is not predicated on the whims of whoever happened to be in office at the moment of a retirement or death, or whoever is willing to sit and arbitrarily block all options presented.

The courts interpreting the constitution should be as far removed from US party politics wherever possible.

I do agree, but with caveats. Largely to do with its public image and how it handles issues outside its scope.

For one, not all gender issues can be reduced to patriarchy, and no social issues should be judged as "real" or not based on how they can be retconned into patriarchy theory. This is very much the case with how men's issues are viewed or discussed. Or more often, how they are not.

A common attitude might go like "homelessness is mostly male. That is why men need feminism. So come join this group that does absolutely nothing to acknowledge homelessness as a male issue, nor do much to reduce homelessness as a whole."

Similarly, they need to acknowledge women's agency and power where it exists. This isn't just acknowledging women in power, but acknowledging that not all social pressures originate from men. Women are major sources of social pressures and influence, and I very often see this ignored when such pressures are negative.

In my own experience, I have never been told to "man up" by a man. Similarly, "he is just insecure" is a common talking point to degrade men who disagree, despite the insistence that "man up" originates solely from patriarchy. It is generally seen that men should be restricting what they do or say because of the social pressures it creates, but it would be unthinkable that women be subject to these same restrictions, as though they do not create similar pressures.

This, to me, is one of several cases of what I call "retreating to hypoagency", a tactic I consider to be especially anti-feminist. Essentially, the moment people say you are capable of harm, you jump to taking a stance of "I am just . I incapable of such things". Another such example is the "---ism requires prejudice plus power", which is a blunt refusal to reflect on your own prejudice on the basis of race/sex/age etc.

For another, pop-feminist and feminist journalism need to do a lot of work on things like interpreting statistics. For instance, the ratio of military deaths may be 99% men and 1% women. If ~1% fewer men died in combat, that might go to ~98% and ~2%. This is exactly NOT the time to release a report saying "Women's military death rates double! Why is the military sending women to die?!" This sort of reporting is exactly where feminism gets its stereotypes and creates its biggest critics.

But do note that you are often most critical of what you love. Feminism has done wonders especially for women but also a great deal for men. This is why I am more interested in critiquing the methods and especially the PR, and less interested in creating some new movement per se.

There are a lot of cases where people think "well I want to be an artist. Why am I taking math?" Or "I wasn't taught how to do taxes, but I'm glad I know the Pythagoraean theorem". (You probably were taught to do taxes but it was in a "boring" class.

People who are not literate in Science and Math classes are remarkably easy to fool and manipulate. And that's not a hypothetical. Advertising agencies and especially politicians bank on exactly this.

Want something to sound healthy? Say it is rich in B-12.
Want it to sound dangerous? Say it had 10 times the daily exposure to cyanocobalamin.

Want to make something sound clean? Say it contains naturally-sourced soaps.
Want it to sound toxic? Say it contains synthetic detergent.

It sounds dangerous if you call it a "reproductively sourced emulsifier".
It sounds safe when you reveal it is egg yolk.

Want to make bacon sound deadly? Say it multiplies your risk of fingernail cancer by 500%.

Want it to sound like a non-issue? Mention that the risk went from 0.000001% to 0.000005%.

Want people to believe women are dying in battle uncontrollably? Mention that the percentage of women as military casualties doubled. This was actually done earlier in the Iraq war when female casualties as a fraction went from like 1% to 2%, because male casualty rates went down.

People ignoring these subjects tend to
-"shop organic" without knowing what it means.
-go "gluten-free" because of "inflammation" without actually being gluten-intolerant.
-take "detox shakes" which essentially inflame the digestive tract causing diarrhea.
-avoid vaccines because of "autism" or "government tracking"
-Avoid vaccines because they prefer "natural immunity" or to "rely on the immune system". Like this is literally what vaccines are FOR.
-Think that there are 10 million illegal votes made.
-Think that solar panels and wind turbines are taking coal jobs away when it's really natural gas.
-Think the earth is flat.
-Think that scientists are remotely capable of some global conspiracy to make up climate change (for what purpose?)
-Think Bill Gates wants to eradicate humanity because they do t know the difference between "reducing population growth" and "reducing population".

I can go on and on. It's easy to make illiterate people believe anything if you know which numbers to show and which to withold, or simply how you present information. It makes it remarkably easy to just simply tell a lie and have people follow it because they have no standard for assessing objective truths.

I would argue that many forms of "communism" have been tried at many different scales.

Thus far, it only can retain stability in small, intimate groups where everyone knows everyone else. Marx himself was partially inspired by hunter-gatherers, who have basically no personal property and insist on little-to-no hierarchy and sharing of resources. Truly "To each according to need. From each according to ability." This was stable for 95%+ of our time on the planet.

Once the groups get too big, you start to fracture. People in your "group" are who you are socially accountable to. All the others are essentially "statistics". People will always prioritize their group over other groups. So hierarchy and power-mongering are essentially inevitable. Especially since they usually come into power as a single-party government.

I would argue it HAS been "really" tried. Many or even most early societies had strongly authoritarian rule, elimination of political or religious opposition, and extreme nationalism. Even the eugenics of the Nazis were tried by many cultures who would check their babies and toss or burn the ones who weren't perfect.

Most later governing structures were essentially creating ways to avoid this.

The social sciences are about fundamentally questioning even the basest of human instincts and (ideally) being prepared for any outcome. It is about observing how people behave in any aspect, and looking at extremely relative forms of morality.

Conservatism is more about maintaining some sort of consistency, loyalty especially to the past and to one's own morality, and is fundamentally built around moral absolutism.

So by their very nature, the two of these ideas will be in conflict with one another, and they should be. There aren't going to be equal conservatives and liberals in every profession.

A quick note on the 50:50 statistic:
This infographic quotes about 71% Democrat for engineering professions. However, Democrat is not synonymous with liberal, so this could still be true. Regardless, I find this visual very interesting and telling about political leanings by profession.

http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/

Not even 6 months ago, a huge majority on the left and right were BEGGING us to leave the Middle East by any means necessary.

While I certainly agree things haven't been optimal, here's the thing: If things were done optimally, that would have been the very definition of the war being "over". Any time it isn't over and we leave, it is less-than-optimal. It is going to look ugly.

Normally, this is where I would argue that Trump made the Taliban deals, and the Trump administration planned to be out by May when we would be FAR less prepared. However, it has already been revealed by staffers that the Trump administration actually had zero plans to leave at all. They planned to continue things indefinitely and simply use" leaving" as a quick talking point to get elected.

Why? Because let me reiterate: The overwhelming majority wanted us to leave the Middle East by any means necessary.

The absolutely rapid 180 degree turn in narrative has been jarring to the point of whiplash. NOW we SUDDENLY care what happens. NOW we SUDDENLY are talking about the horrors going on over there are though this hasn't been happening for the last 20 years and the news and public discourse weren't just ignoring it. News media just decided to start caring, out of nowhere, the moment it because clear that their military sponsors were going to have a harder time getting their blank checks.

If we want to talk about creating a check on Russian or Chinese influence, then the nations we need to focus on building on are OUR OWN. Nothing pushes people away from western democracy and capitalism like corrupt, unchecked corporate entities, healthcare systems that are funded by price-gouging and extorting inflexible demand, or allying with terrorist organizations to stabilize profit margins.

We win against other superpower influences by out-competing them. Not by out-bombing them.

There isn't really a "case" to be made either way here. It is simply conjecture that cannot be tested by existing means. The mechanic on which it would lie isn't exactly well understood, either: Consciousness is still a very fuzzy subject.

So given any "afterlife" ideas, however, reincarnation seems by far the most plausible. If we were to describe consciousness as a cluster of information, then with reincarnation, this information isn't created or destroyed. It clusters together, dissolves, and then other parts of it cluster again.

As I personally see it, it wouldn't occur only when you die or are born. Any time you go unconscious, you simply start experiencing another conscious being's mind, likely in the middle of their life somewhere. All it takes is for one system to become unconscious for "you" to just "snap" into some other point in space/time where something is conscious. This happens ad-infinitum until "you" have experienced every conscious experience that has ever or will ever happen.

Andy Wier's "The Egg" did an excellent job of illustrating this.
The Egg

The main differences in my head being: We wouldn't be talking to some "God", we wouldn't be an egg for some "God" (Both of these were simply literary devices used by Wier), and finally it wouldn't wait until death/birth to take effect.

Note that you wouldn't carry "personality traits" with you. Your entire personality is just a neural configuration and hormones. You wouldn't carry "memories of a past life", because memory is just a neural configuration.

But again, this is all conjecture. Nothing to prove. No argument really to be made except for personal reasoning. In my case, I just feel pretty certain that the only likely things to happen are either this mechanic, or nihilistic abyss.

Every other form of "afterlife" is several of orders of magnitude more hokey, implausible, too "human", and too fixated around some specific culture.

"Eternal bliss or damnation" is simply a means of social control. Feelings of "bliss" and "damnation" only make sense with regards to a brain and neurons.

What's more telling is things like "never hunger or thirst" and "72 virgins". It is simply an authoritarian regime offering the things their constituents lack. Nothing more.

The ideas that "consciousness simply stops" or "consciousness simply moves" are much more broad, robust, and asks more of a physical problem than a subjective or cultural one.

I'm very much not a fan of "incel" culture. However, I would say this is more an extrapolation. For instance, we have had a decent number of eco-terrorists, but we don't extrapolate eco-terrorism to the extent that we call "environmentalists" terrorists. Just their extreme counterparts.

The same goes for a great many other groups.

"Incel" stuff tends to be a sink for a lot of guys with unresolved psychiatric issues. If the issues are severe enough, then they would probably shoot up a school. They would probably also be in an "incel" group.

Incel isn't the disease. It's the symptom.

First of all, let's separate "involuntary celibacy" as a concept from "incel" as a group. Most people who have not been sexually-active later in life are not "incels".

Basically, what "incels" are now started with "Pick-Up Artist" books that were basically written to exploit the insecurities of teenage boys. This is what I would consider the virus.

In fact, I was one such kid. I had major struggles in this area I now realize probably needed therapy. But therapy wasn't a suggestion. The idea thrown at me was that I only had myself to blame for these issues and that I simply needed to stop being a loser. Never that I had reasonable insecurities and that things get better with time. "PUA" books were the only things acknowledging these issues, taking them seriously, and trying to offer solutions.

Unfortunately, those solutions involved narratives about aggressive "alpha male" hierarchies. It also offered solutions that I found outright predatory. The concept made me bitter and agitated very quickly. I felt like I was only respected if I was villainous. I have existing depression, so at its worst, I did have suicidal thoughts. And yes, the thought of "taking down others with me" came to mind.

I was lucky in that I recognized this bitterness and agitation right away and tried to work myself out of it.

Since then, I sought out therapy of my own volition to discuss the toxicity, and also the underlying issues. In my case, it was....less than savory actions directed towards me, and later being assaulted and nearly losing my college career due to rumors girls spread about me.

The modern-day "incel" groups tend to be a sink that draws in psychologically-compromised men, because many/most men why are psychologically-compromised have relationship troubles.

I'm less interested in labeling every insecure teenage boy a terrorist because they were drawn to this style of group. It's easy to just point a finger, label a "villain", and then say they don't deserve further analysis or act like they were "born that way". That takes zero effort and is essentially the laziest way out you could take.

I'm much more interested in guiding them away from it, which I actively try to do when I see signs of it. The narrative itself is what needs to be tackled, because it feeds on dark feelings and then expands them.

I agree, but with a few additional considerations. Specifically, selfishness and selflessness are not opposites

It is essentially impossible to be appropriately selfless without it ultimately having a selfish sensation/motivation tied to it. This isn't a flaw in selflessness, it is how the mechanism works.

For instance, a lot of how we do selfless acts comes from wanting to be a good person (arguably selfish) and doing so based on what will give us positive feedback from others (also arguably selfish).

The only way to be motivated to do good is to ultimately have some mechanism that lets you know what you did was actually good. Otherwise, there is no mechanism to actually work with.

I suppose the original point of the question is whether humans are more exclusively selfish, or if they are more often selfless. A difficult thing to cleanly measure, since our day-to-day lives are based around "selfish" things like eating, drinking, etc.

I could expand to include "getting dressed for work", but is that a selfish need to be desired, or a selfless need to appeal to others? Is going to work selfish because you do it for a paycheck, or selfless because you do it to contribute to something bigger than yourself? I suppose that depends very much on what your job is. But even if you work underpaid for a dog shelter, is that because you want to help dogs, or because you want to be a person who helps dogs?

The question here is: Why does that distinction matter?

If you didn't get some reward, good feelings, or even feelings of "self-righteousness", then being selfless would be unsustainable. It would drain you, because you wouldn't be recharged by the results. And again, you would have a hard time verifying that what you actually did was good.

To make a final point, however, I'll see if I can find the studies on reflexive selfish/selfless behavior. I don't have the sources now, but it's generally been shown that humans are actually selfless as a reflex. Most of our (exclusive) selfishness comes when we have time to ruminate and analyze the situation.

Bias on the base of sex/age/appearance/ethnicity/etc is what exists everywhere. Everyone has bias. It is literally how our brain works. Bias is simply a thought. It isn't inherently bad and people shouldn't be ashamed of them.

However, if you outwardly apply these biases to pre-judge someone, that is prejudice. If you insist on or justify this prejudice, that is the racism, sexism, ageism, etc. The only way to reduce this is to be aware of the biases you have. Not to deny them, nor feel ashamed of them. You can only correct for something you can see.

You are far more likely to be prejudiced or one of these "ism's" if you refuse to acknowledge your biases. If you think you "aren't biased", "can't be biased", or "my bias is justified because of X", then you are much more likely to practice discrimination.

The most common ones I see are "I can't be racist because I have a black friend" and "I can't be sexist because I'm a woman in a patriarchy". Anyone who refuses to self-reflect in this way will quickly see their biases turn into discrimination and prejudice.

This was written by a man during a period of long, toil-filled working lives.

He described what he believed primitive life would be on the assumption that it would be worse in nearly every way. Describing it as solitary, nasty, brutish, and short. Let's tackle those one by one as they pertain to people like hunter-gatherers.

Solitary: It is basically impossible for an individual human to just live completely on their own in nature. We aren't built like bears or rhinos. We are much too physically weak. Cooperation is our most important evolutionary advantage.

Nasty: This is a little more vague. But yes, you would very likely die from more extreme means. However, they say the more medical technology advances, the more we die in horrible drawn-out ways. Would you rather spend 30 seconds being eaten by a Hyena, or spend a couple decades as alzheimer's eats your very soul, or spend your last decade in a constant state of nausea, vomiting, and immobility as cancer slowly eats away. There isn't a correct answer to that question.

But if we are compare ourselves to other animals, the average human life is pretty chill.

Brutish: Maybe compared to a posh part of 1600's England where he grew up. But animals that must compete through brutishness have no good mechanism to become weak and more efficient like we are. Gorillas get their size because raw intimidation is an advantage. Where brute force and intimidation are not an advantage, the animal is free to explore other means of evolution. In our case, running and endurance, which is easier on a more gracile body. Something you can't get if the stronger guy always wins.

Hunter-gatherers practice fierce egalitarianism. They have little tolerance for individuals putting themselves above others. Rooting for the underdog and knocking people of their high horse are in our nature.

And while many might point to scale warfare as an example of our brutish nature, moving the combat to specific combatants reduces the amount of violence experienced within the group.

Short: They like to say "most people didn't live to turn 30." However, 30-40 would be the average life expectancy, not the median life span. It would be more accurate to say "Most people didn't live to turn 5 or 10. But those who did could probably hit 50". Most of the low number comes from infant mortality. While older people didn't make up the majority like in modern developed countries, 70+ year olds were not super uncommon.

I would make a slightly different argument.

Prior to what we call civilization and the agricultural revolution, there wasn't much of any hierarchy within groups. "Work weeks" were something like 12 to 20 hours, though many hunter-gatherers don't have separate words for "work" and "play", as the concept of "doing work you don't otherwise want to do" is relatively foreign. Hunting is play. Setting up shelter is play. Taking care of children is play. Cooking is play.

The first couple thousand years of agriculture and especially stagnant civilization were defined primarily by extreme scarcity, inequality, and disease. Scarcity meant not everyone could have enough, leading to inequality. Resources were controlled and competed for by men as competition between women would collapse the society. So men either controlled the resources or were left to die, and women were under the control of the men who remained.

If you look at spiritual beliefs of pre-agricultural people, they are usually beliefs of a generous god, gods, "spirits" etc. After agriculture, the spiritual beliefs turn to genocide, control, hatred, and vengeance. Agriculture certainly advanced and was able to take care of many more people. (In fact, people had much more leisure time prior to the industrial revolution), but many of the social structures remained, and we have been chipping away at them ever since.

I wouldn't make some crazy claim that life is WORSE now or anything. Mostly point is that it is a myth to say agriculture and civilization were a positive thing right away.

Look at where most civilizations started. Wet oases surrounded by ever-expanding desert. Many didn't turn to agriculture because it was a superior method of resource gathering, but rather because they were stuck in place. As many hunter-gatherer groups knew how to plant and harvest plants. They just didn't stick around to wait for it to grow. Usually they would head off and then come back later in the year. This is actually the main reason they believe we are attracted to flowers.

TL;DR -- Having an illusion shattered teaches you to be skeptical of other illusions.

I hadn't questioned much of what I had been told until I was told Santa was fake, was described how the illusion was maintained, and then got to participate myself.

That kicked off a series of events that led to questioning things we take for granted, questioning power structures, and questioning religion. It taught me not to be afraid of skepticism.

Corporations are not people. Money is not speech.

Corporate leaders complained about inadequate representation in government. But can the CEO vote? Yes. Can the employees vote? Yes. Therefore they are not prevented from representation. Coca-Cola is not a "person" and has no right to government representation beyond simply what its members possess.

If money were speech and were to be protected by freedom of speech, then essentially any bribery anywhere should be legal. Bribing police would be "freedom of speech". Funding terrorist organizations or enemies of the state would be "freedom of speech".

So not only are corporations not people and therefore not entitled to any rights beyond the rights of its individual constituents, but bribery of the government doesn't even qualify as "freedom of speech" and thus wouldn't be able to be defended, anyway.

It was purely a power grab by corporate entities, and its statement infringes directly on the stability of the government, the stability of the economy, and the value placed on American lives. It exists solely to state that America is not a country of people, but purely a corporate hub with a few citizens here and there that it has to put up with.

In the 2020 election, getting out of the middle-east was a litmus test to even being a candidate. Trump's plan was to get us out by May. Biden's plan was to give more time for preparation.

Even prior to this, every candidate ran on "getting us out of the middle-east". All of them wanted to wait "until the timing was right", which was why we had never actually left. There was no good time or good way to leave. But we have to leave at some point. 20 years to accomplish little more than to further entrench our image as self-righteous world-police or as occupying countries for oil and opium.

Honestly I can't think of much of a medium on which something like this would happen. We all have the same brains. They are the size they are because of how many times neurons reproduce fetally. That's a discrete number as far as I understand. A difference up or down would be absolutely enormous.

Otherwise, the vast majority of genetic differences that we associate with "race" are purely aesthetic. And even for the non-aesthetic ones, it is often some side effect of an aesthetic one.

For instance, darker-skinned people have more bone fractures. That's purely because Vitamin D is harder to produce behind darker skin. Perhaps that could affect cognitive ability, but that would just be from a Vitamin D deficiency, not a racial identity.

And if all this were the case, history wouldn't back it up much either. Since basically every group we consider different "races" have at one time been intellectual world centers.

We have objective, factual answers about how accurate or fair different voting systems are. We already know the answer to this question.

Systems like First-Past-The-Post were invented to be as simple as possible with as few people as possible. Back in the day, everything was written down, sent by courier on horseback, and hand-counted. Only under those conditions would such a system be justified, and only because it is better than no representation whatsoever.

Now we have the computers, cars, and the internet. The questionnaire on "isidewith" is far more advanced than any election system. You could have people answer questions on there, have it create agree/disagree weights, have those weights apply as credit/discredit towards a candidate, and overall credits could be added up. The calculation across all the data would take seconds. The slowest part would be the ping time.

At the very least, some sort of ranked-choice system would be phenomenally better at representing the people. In fact, I would argue that the only reason to avoid such systems is if you deliberately want the people to not be accurately represented, such as Gerrymandering or the Electoral College in the US.

In countries that include newer methods, they are often able to make representation more direct. For instance, Switzerland has quarterly referendums in which voters can vote directly on specific bills and policies. The US insists on keeping theirs compatible with horseback. I don't know as much about the UK system, but I'd imagine it isn't too far off.

Just because both do it, it doesn't mean they both do it equally.

On the left, you will certainly see forms of science denialism, often with regards to social statistics that aren't sufficiently woke. In most cases, it is just thinking CBD will cure alzheimer's, or taking a Tarot card reading a bit too seriously.

On the right, there is still a ton of resistance against the idea of evolution by natural selection, and an immense amount of denial of climate change to the point of hurting the economy simply to cling to oil and coal. And you can almost always tell exactly who someone voted for by the tone of their voice if you ask them to wear a mask in the hospital, or the tone of their voice when you mention vaccines.

Science itself is fundamentally liberal. It needs to be able to accept unconventional answers formed only by the evidence, regardless of how much or little sense it makes. If you are clinging to your country or your bible, that ability is fundamentally hindered.

I certainly agree. However there's a tendency for arguments like this to be used as "men did it to themselves", and less about the fundamental thing it SHOULD be about, which is "we need to change how we view men".

The former is trying to dodge what may be one's own responsibility or contribution to the issue. The latter is actually trying to see what progress looks like.

For instance, a lot of women who bring up toxic masculinity bring up things like "men tell each other to man up" without thinking of all the ways they themselves have told men to "man up", which often carry more weight. "Male fragility" and "insecure in his masculinity" are common phrases to look out for, here. They pop up in men's issues discussions, but absolutely flood articles regarding "man flu" and that male contraceptive that was canceled in its early stages.

Unless I am hearing it from a doctor, the vast majority of the time the argument is brought up, it is by men or women trying to defend the old way of doing things. For guys, it's usually in business and career. For girls, it's usually in dating. Because it has to do with who had advantage/disadvantage in each situation.

I have used the argument myself. Generally in defending the idea that, given total agency, equality, and freedom, people will still make different career choices that have different pay and life balances, and trying to eliminate those differences is tantamount to erasure. That is still, in essence, defending an "old way" of sorts.

I wouldn't say they are caused PRIMARILY by discrimination. I would say many/most socio-economic discrepancies are. But otherwise, there are entirely distinct cultures with distinct priorities, ways of speaking, and ways of living. I would argue your own cultural influences are notably stronger.

Someone from a chill islander culture might struggle to keep up in a bustling corporate culture. Someone from the bustling culture might find the chill culture unstimulating. If they both live their own cultures, the chill one would probably earn less. But what benefit would they get from moving to a world of constant stress?

People need to be given equal opportunities, and we need to be able to analyze discrepancies to find answers about them. We need to be able to reduce barriers, but also accept that people, given their own agency, will prefer different things that will create different outcomes. Would you rather be poor on a tropical island, or wealthy in a rainy city with bad traffic? That answer isn't the same for everyone.

It's true. In a similar way, racially monolithic communities often have lower crime. When people of different backgrounds are together, there is a >0% increase in potential conflicts. I would imagine that number is pretty low, though.

Regardless, that would simply be descriptive, not prescriptive. Is the world better segregated? Is your life better if you only interact with a bunch of clones of yourself? Productivity might be higher if everyone looks, acts, and thinks the same, but what of creativity?

If diversity harms raw productivity, then the way I see it, that hit to productivity is just the cost of making the world a better place.

Democracies simply (ideally) represent their constituents. If their constituents come to conclusions about war for land, resources, or severe cultural discrepancies, those motivations would show up in their leadership and they could still vote on behalf of war.

I would argue that, perhaps, there is no "necessary" reason why democracies should be at war with each other, as they should be able to get along much better, and civilians have more in common between countries than they do with their own leadership.

I'm not entirely sure where "all past fascist parties have been left-wing" comes from.

"Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy,"

The most famous examples in Germany and Italy were obsessively patriotic, nationalistic, ethnocentric, were about removing or eliminating outsiders to conserve national and ethnic identity.

While the Nazi party was originally a right/left mix of ethno-nationalism combined with socialism and workers' rights, the ultra-right-wing Sturmabteilung branch of the party took over. Unionists and workers' rights advocates were eliminated from the party. Many leftists fled for groups like or similar to the Iron Front and its militant branch, Antifa.

I would argue that authoritarian-communism is Fascism's left-wing counterpart. In both cases, the foundational principles of left-wing or right-wing are often compromised for the sake of radicalism and authoritarianism. Their less authoritarian counterparts would be right-libertarianism and democratic socialism.

"Freedom" isn't a concept owned by the American right or left. Both have views as to what freedom looks like, and believe the other side represent a threat to those freedoms.

Humans are a pretty good story of success through cooperation and intelligence rather than through brute force and physical power.

However, I don't believe much of any being is "inherently good". Especially at this point, we are having to choose between feeding everyone or not deforesting the planet for farmland. There's no good choice there. We're in uncharted territory as far as any species on Earth is concerned.

Capitalism is simply a sociological force.

It is much like splitting the atom. Regulated and controlled, it can be steered to become a nearly limitless power source. Left to its own devices, it is the most destructive force mankind has unleashed. But the splitting of the atom itself has no moral stance. Splitting more atoms does not make one country more unethical than another.

Left to its own devices, capitalism is a rampaging force of destruction. War profiteers starting wars and arming both sides. Hiring armies to attack towns then demanding the citizens pay for protection. Deforesting and polluting the environment because pollution and destruction don't have a documented dollar cost figure. Letting workers die because hauling off bodies costs less than reducing productive hours.

But regulated, it has pretty much single-handedly invented the middle class. It provides technological advancement that is usually only found in war, but without the war. Tons of taxed trade is essentially the motor that drives the public socialized policies I am also a fan of. Most of the major advances in quality of life come down to capitalism.

That being said, I for one hope we can find a better force in the near future. One in which quality of life, equality, and environmental conservation are not so mutually exclusive.

While I do lean against this, I do think private jets should have to be held to much stricter environmental standards than public airplanes. Public airplanes are remarkably efficient in terms of emissions-per-person. Only passenger trains beat them, and they are largely impractical in the US for the distances covered by planes. Their efficiency comes almost entirely from the number of people they can carry.

A small handful of people in an airplane is extremely inefficient, and thus should have to be held to much more stringent standards. However, I don't think this is enough to necessitate the elimination of private planes altogether.

I wouldn't be overly opposed to such a bill, but I certainly wouldn't propose it myself.

I would say "Psychology isn't scientific enough*".

Like many "soft" sciences, there are a few limitations to how truly scientific they can be.

1. Natural Factors: Sociology and Psychology are attempting to describe some of, if not THE, most complex systems on the planet. It is all extremely fuzzy logic, and it is impossible to hold enough of the variables in-hand to be able to make more than vague predictions.

2. Synthetic Factors: Having come from a math and physics background, it often shocks me how quickly conclusions are derived. Psychology isn't as guilty of this as Sociology. But social sciences will often make a hypothesis, do the experiment to see if it fits the data, and then if it fits, the conclusion is announced like it's some open-and-shut case. Little effort to refute the point.

However, I imagine the scientific method behind the scenes is much more rigorous than it appears. Media and popular coverage of social sciences is, needless to say, completely without standard to the point of being more often garbage than useful.

Here is an unprofessional example of the sort of language I've heard: "Studies show, men like women who are nice, solidifying the hypothesis that men's primary motive is domination and that they seek the submission of others." Then every psych textbook from here to Australia lists it as fact. Despite the fact that almost any narrative can be made up to fit the data. Including, perhaps, "people just like nice people because they are nice."

The strength of a theory doesn't come from its ability to fit data. Plenty of other theories can fit the same data. If other theories can fit the data, the theory is not strong. Therefore you need to do more and more testing to create greater and more varied data, and then fit the data better than competing theories.

Most people say they would stand firm if they disagreed with a direct order. But based on waves and waves of studies, if you answered "no", you are statistically more likely than not to be lying.

We know this is deep in human nature, and that isn't inherently bad or shameful, it just means we are cooperative and conflict-averse beings. It takes something pretty strong to snap people out of it, which is why whistleblowers are exceedingly rare.

Plus, most disagreements are small in nature. You have to be honest and think about things like "that time your boss said you could come in to work without a mask despite it being mandated." A surprising amount of things happen due to an extended sequence of small corners being cut, or small disagreements being overlooked. Not everything is watching people being rounded into concentration camps right in front of your face.

However that being said, it is still a duty as a soldier to be a whistleblower. Soldiers especially are required to disobey unlawful orders. In fact, if we did not have such a law in place, the Nuremberg trials would have been entirely hypocritical.

I would say it is unethical to restrict something between consensual adults that does not affect anyone else.

A case could be made about specifically making pregnancy of first cousins or closer being illegal, since it brings someone else into the world and could harm them. However, in order to hold the stance that it is immoral to reproduce if there is risk of genetic disability, you must simultaneously hold the stance that people with genetic disorders should not be allowed to reproduce as well. ie Eugenics.

And to continue this point, this is also restricting the behavior of non-reproducing couples on the basis that one potential combination could create offspring, and that those offspring could share recessive genetic disorders. If inbreeding is the issue, then shouldn't homosexual and sterile couples be exempt?

Oftentimes, people are quick to jump to declaring the absolute morality of something on the basis that it makes them feel gross and therefore is wrong. They can't quite put their finger on it, so they just outright ban it for good measure.

What would be your thoughts towards homosexual incestuous couples? Or other couples who can't reproduce?

Similarly, I would argue "there isn't a positive impact on society" isn't a satisfactory logical argument. Making something illegal is the active stance, the ban itself is what needs to be justified, not releasing the ban.

For instance, if sugar was banned nationwide, then if someone wanted it unbanned, someone could just as easily say "There is no specific benefit to society. Obesity would rise drastically." and use that as justification to continue banning sugar. However, it would actually be the ban on sugar that needs to be justified and re-justified.

So for reproducing couples, we also have genetic mapping, which would be able to easily predict likelihood of genetic disorders due to incest. If "any risk is too much" with regards to producing such offspring with genetic disabilities, then the same must apply to all individuals with genetic disabilities. People with Aspergers, Autism, Type 1 Diabetes, and other genetic disorders would all be banned from having children, as many such genetic disorders are both more likely and more severe than inbreeding-related disorders.

I can't speak much towards the abuse since I haven't seen the information myself. However it does sound like it is primarily referring to cases of in-family statutory rape. In that case it is still illegal because it is statutory rape.

Another distinction is that non-monogamy and cheating are not synonymous. Group relationships or open relationships are consensual but not monogamous. Cheating would be breaking the agreement.

I expected this to go a certain way, but it was quite nuanced and well thought out.

Honestly, school uniforms solve the whole "who can wear what" debate.

The schools I grew up in had much stricter dress codes for boys than for girls. It's just that boys socially only have the option to wear jeans and a t-shirt. It's hard to break any dress code with jeans and a t-shirt.

I mean I'm well aware that might not be the case everywhere. Just everywhere I've seen.

Have everyone wear the same thing, and it ends the debate outright.

Women get attached. Men get attached. You get absolutely drowned in oxytocin, so you basically have to be taught or learn how to not be attached.

It never said anything about how much these roles could overlap.
Let everyone be free to choose what they want, but if the results don't turn out 50/50, don't prevent people from doing what they want just to fix your numbers.

While I agree gun ownership may help the individual gun owner, from a sociological standpoint, gun ownership wouldn't affect crime rates much, and would do more to escalate the magnitude of crimes.

A disillusioned student might bring a knife to school and stab a kid who then needs stitches. With guns, they can bring in an assault rifle and mow down a classroom.

A man might rob a bank by punching cashiers and stealing property. When things settle down, there is blunt physical trauma but very little death, the robber is apprehended, jailed, and heavily fined, and insurance largely takes care of lost property as per usual. With guns, several people are killed, the property is stolen, then police show up to an armed robbery, get to open fire, bystanders are often injured or even killed in police fire, the robber is now dead so now there is additional legal action on that front, insurance has WAY more to cover, and the whole thing went from an almost petty crime to a national news worthy total fiasco with dozens of casualties.

A person comes up to steal your car. You two get in a scuffle. Maybe they overpower you and take your car. Could a gun have helped? Probably. But chances are, the criminal also has a gun. One of you is now probably going to die. You switched from likely losing your car (which can be covered by insurance and legal action) to likely losing your life.

The main benefit I see is where the population is rural and sparse. Crime is generally less organized and guns are able to de-scale most petty property crimes.

It should only be illegal for individuals unable to consent. The entire practice should not be made illegal as it harms nobody but the individual.

To be concise, gender/sex is absolutely only relevant to a physical, sexually-reproducing entity. A nonphysical deity would not be such a being.

Furthermore, the idea of a single god who is referred to as "he" originates specifically from early monotheistic religions created in cultures that would only ever accept authority from a male. So it is a very specific case created by a very specific case.

Polytheistic beliefs and lore are loaded with male and female authority figures.

The presence of billionaires is only unethical when it coexists with other signs of inequality.

That is, if the country has a strong middle class, little-to-no poverty and homelessness, and housing is reasonably affordable, then I don't personally have much of an objection. Especially if said billionaires use their wealth to fund major innovative projects that wouldn't be very motivated by the public sector. This is why I place Elon Musk at a higher standing than, say, Jeff Bezos.

However, these billionaires do not exist in a vacuum. If one can accumulate billions while the majority life paycheck-to-paycheck and many can't afford housing at all, then the well-being of the masses should have priority over the insane wealth of the few. These things should come first. Billionaires don't help people out of a rut. In fact, they exploit people who are in a rut, as we see with minimum wage workers, Amazon workers, and Frito-Lay workers.

Another difficulty is that, tax loopholes aside, it is still not as simple as looking at someone's net worth, since most of that value exists in the form of things like machines and factories, not actual cash. And to retrieve that capital as cash would require selling the assets themselves. That is, you might have a 500k house, which gives you a net worth of 500k. But that 500k isn't available to you unless you want to give up having a house.

Honestly I believe this is more true than it isn't.

However, don't mistake cheerful distractions (which help reduce rumination) with dodging important issues.

But often things like depression and anxiety can come from a non-specific cause that might not be something that needs to be addressed itself. That is, you might think you are sad or unmotivated because you are alone or unproductive or useless, but you might simply be depressed. And thus, simply thinking about your loneliness won't make you less lonely. Things like medication, physical activity, and behavior therapy, and yes, cheerful distractions, would be more beneficial.

There isn't even evidence for this in any original version of the Bible or its parents, as far as I know. The concept of an immortal soul and heaven/hell were adapted into Christian culture from other sources, such as the Greeks and the Scandinavians for which Hell ("Hel") gets its namesake. And even in that case, it isn't some "valley of the damned" doomed to eternal suffering. It's just where dead people go that simply wasn't alongside the gods.

For scientific inquiry of this sort, we should avoid jumping to such political conclusions. There's nothing less scientific than "Don't question it. Even questioning it is offensive." Science has a very rough history with such a phrase. Question everything.

Exactly.

The message implied by the original question is that such hypotheses or studies are inherently sexist and should not be done because "there is no question to ask", and that even asking questions about the origins of the female orgasm is "ignorant and sexist".

I couldn't possibly disagree more, and think that this anti-scientific, anti-curious mentality is basically poison flowing in many places of social justice movements, and will be a constant ball-and-chain to social progress.

Gender roles were formed out of necessity for human survival. Now that human survival is of least concern, and in fact lower human populations would actually be better for both our survival and quality of life, gender roles in general are no longer necessary and are instead a source of frustration and social ills.

I don't just disagree, but I would argue exactly the opposite.

Heterosexual relationships are advantageous primarily for reproductive reasons. High fertility rates are only important these days because of their economic value: Having more young workers to pay for fewer retirees. Economies can change, and an economy based on population growth is doomed to failure.

I suppose another advantage of heterosexual relationships is that it forces members of one gender to have to understand or relate to the other. But I'd imagine that is just as likely to end in bitterness and frustration as it is empathy and understanding.

Otherwise, in a world where we are not anywhere close to extinction, and where lower populations would result in a higher quality of life, homosexual and other non-reproductive sexual relationships are especially advantageous as they don't contribute to population growth. Bonus points if they adopt. Adopters have to meet qualifications that birthers don't, so adopters are likely more consistently fit to be parents, further reducing the number of children raised by unfit parents or over-burdened single parents.

Additional benefits come from the lack of social restrictions that game from birth rates being important. When birth rates were of top importance, social restrictions were put into place, especially with regards to women's sexual expression and economic freedoms.

In this case, restrictions on homosexuality are less of a cause and more of a co-symptom. But most of our social disgust towards homosexuality comes from the idea that because reproduction comes from sex, that sex must always be reproductive.

Any time we can separate reproduction from sex, we benefit, because we can keep populations under control without neglecting our sexual needs. Humans are an extremely social and extremely sexual species. Our sexuality is about way more than reproduction, as it has important social functions and implications.

I think the reason behind this post is that discussion around polygamy usually assumes polygyny.

Besides the general idea that basically anything should be legal with regards to what consenting adults do in the bedroom, there's a bit extra with regards to polyandry.

History has its share of polygyny, which creates strong and often violent hierarchies amongst men. Such hierarchies amongst men are responsible for a great deal of social ills.

Polyandry, in many ways, does the opposite. It dissolves male hierarchies, but doesn't necessarily create similar hierarchies amongst women. While it's conjecture on my part, I would argue it may do more to reduce hierarchies amongst men than even monogamy does.

In my own school, dress codes for men were much more strict than they were for women. Most of what women wore would never be allowed by men. The narrative that dress codes are primarily anti-woman largely ignores this.

I would argue gender should be completely removed from the equation both in the rule and in its enforcement. If girls can wear tank tops and short shorts, so can guys. If guys are restricted to sleeved shirts and long shorts, so should girls. Let the results end up wherever they end up, knowing the exact same rules are applied to everyone.

Absolutely. Honestly I feel like there should be no law based on gender as well, for this same reason.

Any time you create a new market, you create an industry. Industry expands by any means necessary and is only kept morally in line via regulation

There's a reason we don't negotiate with terrorists, for instance. It isn't about some national pride. If a hostile entity can get money or service in exchange for a hostage, it creates a market for taking hostages, and thus more hostages will be taken.

Ethically-sourced human organs is a thing. But creating a market for human organs would create a drive to harvest human organs ethically or otherwise.

I mean, people have been using things like "straight" to vent their frustrations or even scapegoat at times, which does paint an overly-broad brush.

But it certainly isn't common for that to be put into discriminatory action. That's not to say that it hasn't or couldn't have been used that way. But to say it's "common" is certainly stretching.

The issue is that news outlets are aware that people are wary of this sort of language, and jump at the chance to report on the few scenarios where this happens.

Remember to take news with a grain of salt. Insecurities garner clicks. A fear that non-straight people are seeking revenge on straight people is enough to built a whole website.

Not to sound discriminatory against heterosexual couples, but homosexual couples have often been some of the best parents I've known.

There is nothing about a homosexual couple that would make them inherently worse parents. There might be some additional struggles with a girl growing up with two dads, or vice versa, due to having a parent of their own gender to relate to. But this same issue applies to single parents.

Furthermore, since there isn't a way for homosexual couples to reproduce sexually, then there is no "accidental" or "unplanned" pregnancy. Couples must have planned it out before making their decision, and met certain requirements to be parents.

There is even an evolutionary argument that suggests parenthood and other social involvement may have been the reason homosexuality wasn't very strongly selected against, and thus why it is comparatively common in humans.

Finally, the main issue people seem to have is that they believe couples should be a man and a woman for reproductive reasons. But if that's the case, then simply being infertile would also be blasphemous. As well as being a couple that simply hasn't had children. There is no difference between a homosexual couple, and any other form of non-reproducing couple.

There's a difference between what intersectionality IS and how it is USED.

I've been in numerous social justice groups, and the stability and effectiveness of those groups was strongly affected by how intersectionality was treated.

In the best cases, it created understanding for how different people have can have many advantages or disadvantages at the same time depending on which groups they belonged to.

It also understood nuances, especially how belonging to a particular group might be an advantage in one case, or a disadvantage in another. For instance, you might speak of male privilege, until you look at the statistics that show police violence against black Americans overwhelmingly targets black men more than black women. Or similarly, how homophobia is often more pronounced against gay men than it is towards lesbians. The important part is to leave dismissal and prejudice at the door, and practice understanding how people can surprisingly unique struggles based on how traits of their lives line up.

However, in the worst cases, intersectionality immediately created divisiveness. A black woman saying a white lesbian "could know nothing of discrimination" was one I had seen myself. It would turn into a competition to see who was more oppressed, and afford social legitimacy and leadership "rank" based on a hierarchy of oppression. It was divisive and several of the groups either dissolved or broke up into multiple groups, and created lasting rivalries. This sort of dynamic should not be anywhere NEAR social justice issues, as many disadvantaged groups need to come together to form their own majority to enact the change they want to see.

It may seem weird for anyone to take a stance against this.

However, internal prejudice is natural and common, and exists in every group of people of any race anywhere in the world. Certain prejudices, such as towards skin color, have been shown in children too young to have even developed prejudices from personal experiences or information/misinformation. It is a thought, which is different from discrimination, which is this internal prejudice put into action.

Do you know where discrimination is most common? In people who think they aren't prejudiced. Either because they have defined themselves as "not racist", or consider themselves part of a group that "can't be prejudiced, because they themselves are the victims of prejudice."

In order to fight discrimination, you have to acknowledge prejudices in yourself. It IS there. Maybe you had a boyfriend who treated you badly so now you feel especially snappy around men. Maybe one too many off-color 80's action movies has your guard up around black men, if ever so slightly. Or perhaps people dismissing your social issues because they don't apply to them, leaves you defensive around others.

If you can't acknowledge these biases, and you can't overcome them, you can't understand how they crop up, and you can't fix them. A system is only stable as long as it has feedback. A zero-tolerance policy towards thoughts results in things internal paranoia, overcompensation or nervousness that makes things worse, or outright denial.

We have to accept that prejudice DOES and will CONTINUE to exist, in order to know what to look for, and what to keep in check in order to keep internal prejudices from turning into discrimination.

Jews are diverse due to the refugees who fled to places like Europe.

Most Jews in the US are largely white-passing since most fled from Europe and therefore would be grouped with white people with regard to certain social issues such as police brutality, redlining, racial income disparity, and many/most others. Most in the US have German or Polish surnames as well, meaning things like name-based resume discrimination aren't especially strong-either.

The social issues the Jewish people face are generally more point-to-point rather than broad, systemic issues. It is a couple of specific groups of people who specifically seek out and target them.

I can't comment on issues regarding the broader world, as it includes Israel/Palestine relations which I am not versed in, as well as how other countries may view their Jewish citizens.

Polyamory isn't wrong. Breaking your agreement and trust, especially with a sexual partner, is wrong. Sexual infidelity is an extremely deep wound to inflict on someone. It would be less of a deal if we were a more amorous culture, but we are relatively stoic.

There's a difference between "can't" and "shouldn't".

Ideally, people would be able to be fully integrated. In reality, your success will very much be determined by which country you live in. Western countries, while often criticized, are often more open in this regard.

In countries like the far east you could have several generations of history and still never be considered among their peers. In some cases simply having brown hair instead of black will earn you a "foreigner" title.

It depends on the context.

From a social standpoint, gender-blindness can ignore social issues unique to each gender.

From a legal standpoint, I believe no law should be made that acknowledges gender. But rather only acknowledges certain specific commonly-gendered items for only the context in which they are relevant.

IE, if you don't offer gender-neutral "parental leave", then the wording should be listed as "birther leave" rather than "maternal leave", and the difference should only be relevant to giving birth.

This reduces issues with edge cases such as trans men who can get pregnant, or women who can't.

This also reduces laws which target or apply to people differently based on characteristics not immediately related to the issue at hand. For instance, domestic violence is in many cases treated differently based on if the victim was male or female.

But under the above policy, it is harder to reasonably pass or enact such differences. There aren't many ways to enact a law regarding domestic violence that works differently "if the perp/victim can give birth" since it isn't related to birth, or "possess a y chromosome" since the issue isn't related to genetics.

Honestly, the term is a bit overused and inflated beyond its original meaning.

Similarly, many people who demand others "check their privilege" are often unwilling to provide the same criticism to themselves that they serve to others.

Everyone should be humble to the ways in which they may have been lifted up without realizing it.

Reword it this way in your mind: "If you go to Italy, should you respect Italian laws and customs?" Replace Italy with nearly any country.

Many people hold other countries to a different standard than their own. This applies whichever side of the issue you are on.

I would add a qualifier.

Pornography itself is not necessarily degrading. The same could be said about sexualization in general. I think human sexuality is something that should be celebrated, and that both sides handle it too much as taboo.

Rather, the plurality of pornography is degrading. Not because it is porn. Porn is just a type of media. But specifically because it is degrading porn.

I'm not going to link to or mention specifics, but there are a lot of forms of porn you could almost describe as "wholesome", though that might seem like a weird or nausea-inducing word to use. Stuff directed by women is usually good about this. Or stuff that features real couples doing their thing. Or it's generally fun and upbeat, rather than some exercise in dominance.

Some feature all body types, rather than filtering for specific people with specific proportions. Different people are into different body types, but nobody sees that if only one type is presented.

But yeah, on the whole, the medium is swamped with degrading stuff. I will say that it is at least getting better.

It took me a while for the concept to click. Like it all sounded super petty at first. But once I understood it, I saw examples in my own life.

Like, if you're a guy and don't understand, picture being in a group of girls and they're like "you're pretty nice...for a guy". It might seem harmless, but next thing you know, you feel like you have to "make up for" being a guy. You feel people view you with hostility by default. And they didn't even have to mean anything bad by it for that to have happened.

That's what it's like for, say, non-white people in the US. "Where are you from? China? Japan?" "Umm.....Arkansas". It seems mundane. But that person has to deal with the general perception that they aren't a "regular" American. That they will never be just seen as "American", but as "some other type of American" at best.

Nobody should ask you to overhaul how you talk or micro-manage all your thoughts. Just try to do it within reason. And if you slip up just say "Oh shoot I meant it this way. My bad."

I think the "aggression" part is what throws people off. Most of the time it isn't aggressive. Many times, it is well-meaning. I think the title puts people in a super defensive stance rather than an understanding one.

I would argue, rather, that what is good for corporations generally has little correlation with what is good for all of us.

It could be a sign of a booming economy. A sign that consumers have lots of money to spend. A sign that products have become so cheap as to improve everyone's quality of life even if their income didn't increase.

It could also mean unchecked worker exploitation. Not paying workers based on productivity per-worker, but underpaying by exploiting job desperation. It could mean extensive tax evasion. It could mean price fixing, price gouging, a monopoly, or other captive consumer exploitation. In the case of healthcare, private prisons, and military contractors, their business model exists only because human suffering does.

The point of regulation is to try, where possible, to force business interests to align with public interest.

"Banned" is a strong word to use here. But it should be generally discouraged. What kids learn in life after school is generally more important than what they learn IN school. Kids need to learn by playing, not by churning and regurgitating idly in a seat.

Some schools are having a ton of success by having class work take place in class. Some colleges assign recorded lectures or other videos as homework, and then do the class work in class where the teacher is there to help.

Most of the paper work and pencil pushing you're going to be doing will happen during work hours anyway.

I can only provide an anecdote of my own experience.

Homework actually discouraged independent study for me. Everything I know that has made me successful has come from things I learned in the time I wasn't doing homework.

Homework made me despise math. I refused to be interested in it until college calculus, when the homework was scaled back. Then I became hooked and declared a math minor.

I despised history until it became another low-homework class, and it was taught in a more story-oriented and less fact-oriented way. When homework isn't on my mind, I got to just take it all in. I retained nearly everything I learned in that class. I don't remember much of anything from the homework-oriented classes.

I'm aware not all people learn the way I do. But our homework levels are frankly out of control. I had 7 classes per day, and generally a homework assignment every day for most of those classes. Instead of learning to socialize, I just sat at home fighting my ADHD and dealing with the constant guilt of turning in partially-completed assignments. I ended up somewhat socially-stunted until late high school due in part to medications I was taking to be able to focus on homework.

Leaving homework behind was one of the best things to happen to my mental health.

Again, this is just my anecdote and not something I would consider a strong argument.

In fact, we are gaining a certain understanding of particular factors involved.

For instance, the first children are more often to be male or homosexual female. The more children the mother has, the less likely they are to be male, and if they are male, they are more likely to be homosexual the more males the mother has had.

This is because the female body doesn't recognize Y-chromosome traits and treats it as an invader. While an immune response is suppressed by other hormonal factors, it isn't entirely eliminated, and still gets better at attacking or modifying certain traits. One of which is sexual orientation.

So the more boys she has, the better her body gets at attacking or changing straight-male characteristics, so the less likely she is to have boys, and the more likely they are to be gay.

Note that infidelity and sexual promiscuity are NOT the same thing. Infidelity is simply not respecting the rules and wishes you and your partner(s) laid out prior.

This is almost always an agreement to be sexually exclusive with one partner. And generally includes things about other forms of romantic or sexual interactions.

But it could also mean being sexually exclusive to multiple partners. Or some 1-to-1 exchange to keep sexuality balanced. Or an agreement that your partner must meet additional partners first. Or that additional partners must join in.

Regardless of whichever rules you agreed on, infidelity is betraying this. Sexuality is a very highly emotional, highly charged part of human life, so sexual infidelity creates a ton of drama and leaves a ton of scars. Honesty and fidelity are the best policy. If you don't like how the rules are set up, communicate with your partner about changes.

I can put it as simply as possible:

After World War II, Germany dismantled any and all public displays, statues, quotes, or references to the Nazi regime or its members, especially those who represented them in any positive light.

As I recall, Germany has not forgotten World War II.

The existence of non-binary or other gender-queer people is almost an exception that proves the rule. Cultures in India and the Americas had ideas of third or fourth genders. However just because they existed at all does not mean they weren't still the exception, rather than the rule. They were often considered "blessed" or "of the gods" because of their rarity.

Furthermore, if gender is purely a social construct, then it partially invalidates transgenderism. Gender as a social construct means the association of a particular gender with a particular sex is merely constructed and can thus be socially reconstructed. That is, it implies that you could raise a boy as though they are a girl, and end up with a healthy girl.

But we know from rather unethical experiments on raising identical twins as opposite genders that being raised as the wrong gender can be absolutely devastating.

While gender and sex do not always correlate, and this should be respected, there is more to gender than simple social roles. And while gender falls on a spectrum, it is still very much a weighted spectrum.

That being said, a good portion of what we think of as gender still IS a construct of demands and expectations that are placed on top of the gender "core". These demands and expectations should be re-evaluated and reduced.

As with Tarot readings, Astrology can have a function or benefit despite its fake "accuracy".

To describe this, think about doing a coin toss when making a decision. They say the best way to do a coin toss is to toss the coin in the air, catch it, but don't immediately look at it. Instead, think about which result you were hoping to see while it was in the air. That's your answer.

The result of the toss doesn't matter. You learned which answer you really wanted just from the process itself.

With something like Tarot, the descriptions and readings are so broad they can apply to anyone. Sure that's nothing new. The interesting part here is in how you take these broad statements and apply them to yourself. You use it not for answers, but as a way to digest information about yourself.

Many "metaphysical" activities work this way. Some are plecebo, which is a real and measurable phenomenon. Others are simply meditation with quirks. Others yet are like the above: tools for digesting existing information.

It is, in essence, all "fake" in the general sense. But if you know how to work with them, you can use them as tools.

Trigger warnings are not censorship, so I don't have an issue with them. However, I also don't think we should overly INSIST on them.

For many people, if the topic is triggering, the trigger warning itself may be triggering. Furthermore, almost anything can be a trigger.

In my case, "theatre" was and somewhat is "triggering" in a sense, after a horrible incident in college. However, I'm well aware it would be unfair to expect or demand people forewarn me about references to "theatre". That if I could not function without such warnings, it was my job to seek help about it, not everyone ELSE's job to prevent me from hearing about it.

But depending on the trigger, isolation makes the issue worse. The bulk of the issue in my case was mitigated by just exposing myself to it more. I also see a therapist regarding the incident itself.

Some triggers are much more of a process though. Particularly regarding combat scenes and other violence. These should definitely have warnings or ratings.

I practically speak in metaphor when I am trying to describe anything.

I much prefer thinking about the big picture rather than the smaller details.

Regardless, we need to come up with meat replacements, such as insects or lab-grown meat. It is unrealistic or even outright unfair to expect huge chunks of humanity to just drop meat. But it is also our least efficient agricultural good, on top of the ethical issues.

So our best focus would be on different forms of meat.

There is already a rather strong association with inhibiting or shaming sex and sexualization, and higher rates of violence, depression, and other social unease.

In the USA this is compounded. Simple nudity has been enough to jump movies to near-adult ratings, while violence hardly gets the rating to budge. We are shocked by a female nipple or male genitalia, but the torture scenes or mass murders 5 minutes prior barely raise eyebrows.

In essence, we raise people to be sexually-frustrated warriors, and then wonder why we look for war.

Men should be much more in touch with their emotional side in general. And furthermore, we should do more to learn about men's experience and emotional expression. Despite overrepresentation, a lot of men's inner experiences haven't been as researched as you might expect.

Speaking as a guy, it has taken me years to be able to look inwards at myself and not see a running set of numbers, stats, and rankings. I know many men who struggle with this as well. When you see the world through this lens, you feel like your meaning is entirely functional. Like, the idea of having value for simply existing is completely foreign. You are instead ever longing for a function, and if someone else fills that function, you feel lesser for it.

That being said, our focus on crying or other direct outward expressions might be misplaced if we emphasize it too much. Simply put, while we feel the same emotions, it is generally just naturally harder to express these emotions.

I can't recall the study so don't take my word for this, but there was a study that looked into this which found that men generally don't cry of sadness as women do, cry much less easily from frustration, but cry somewhat more easily than women from happiness.

What I'm saying is that we need to be okay with men crying, but it shouldn't necessarily be an obligation to do so. That is, if you don't cry easily, there's nothing wrong with you. You just shouldn't feel the need to hold it back when the time comes.

It's hilarious that this is such a lasting debate, given it is such a mild flavor. I get that it's a half-joke at this point. But I'll throw my hat in the ring anyway.

To understand the flavor that pineapple on pizza is going for, I recommend trying grilled pineapple at a place that grills food like kebabs. It is sweet but surprisingly savory and especially works well with other salty and savory items. That's where the ham usually comes in, as it brings out more of the savory side of the pineapple, while the pineapple brings out the sweetness in the ham.

Political division has been worsening the last couple decades. The USA has dropped in status to an "incomplete democracy", with many areas no longer being considered democracies at all.

Politics is no longer about moving the country forward, and is instead all about how the minority party can lie, cheat, and steal whenever they can, wherever they can, to simply prevent the elected party's policy from going through.

The public, instead of focusing on a corrupt political class, focus their vitriol on each other. The media hasn't even attempted to convey solutions, but simply continue to profit on expanding partisanship if it means taking the country down in the process.

The Overton window is completely out of whack, and everyone is wanting an authoritarian who can impart their will as forcefully as possible.

There is a difference between "changing your diet" and "dieting".

Simply put, if you're 100lb overweight and your weight isn't changing, that doesn't mean you get to "work off" 100lb of weight, and then to back to how you were doing things before "now that you've lost the weight". It doesn't work like that.

If you have to run a mile a day and eat kale to be at your ideal weight, you will only be at your ideal weight so long as you CONTINUE to run a mile a day and eat kale.

And that only works if you REALLY like running, and REALLY like kale.

This is why "dieters" tend to yoyo so much. It isn't something you get to just "do" and then "be done with". It's a lifestyle change that has to persist.

So I would argue that "dieting" is a waste of time, willpower, and stress. Instead, "changing your dietary habits" is what needs to happen. This should generally happen slowly, with a few changes at a time. Enough that the changes aren't a major inconvenience.

If they become too much of an inconvenience, you will either long to undo it, or you will drain your willpower trying to push through it. That might work for lifting a set at the gym, but not for being in the habit of showing up to the gym week after week.

There's a difference between structural hierarchy and submission/domination/caste, which I will call a "value hierarchy".

Structural hierarchy is how you manage a large population. It is more or less a form of specialization based on whether you are good at hard skills, managing tasks, or managing people.

A manager isn't "better" than those they manage. They are handling the distribution of labor, but cannot perform the amount of labor they are managing.

In fact, I would almost say that management could be reframed as a service for the laborers. Offloading the politics and administrative tasks onto someone who dedicates themselves to these tasks, while they focus on actual production.

But with things like domination and caste, it is more often antithetical to being "civilized". Humans have a very strong, often violent, aversion to value hierarchies.

Amongst groups of friends, association is voluntary and tasks are agreed upon. If someone thinks too highly of themselves, it is instinctual to knock them down a peg. If someone thinks ill of themselves, it is instinct to lift them up.

Value hierarchies can really only be maintained if the scale is large enough to not be experienced in-person, or at least not very strongly. It isn't that they "submit". It is that they haven't withdrawn consent.

In essentially every single unstable society, the key defining feature is that the hierarchy became too value-oriented that it lost the consent of its participants: Tyrannical rulers. Authoritarian regimes. Single-party rule. Unregulated markets.

All these societies exist in a state of constant turmoil and revolt because they govern without the consent of the governed. Exactly the least civilized places on Earth.

The key traits of stable societies are things like public accountability requiring the consent of the ruled, and a reduction in disparity between the top and bottom.

Rome was its strongest when its people flourished. Rome started to crumble when it instead demanded obedience.

I could perhaps see it with theatres.

But definitely not with museums. THAT would be forgetting or restructuring history. More so than arguments over statues or school names.

This isn't even pessimism, either.

Try eating without hunger.
Sleeping without fatigue.
Loving without having ever been lonely.

In Norway, they have crazy stories about the people they were able to rehabilitate.

One guy cut up several people with a chainsaw. By the time he got out of prison, he had a job as a lumberjack.

A death sentence or life sentence is simply an admission of an incomplete or inferior criminal justice system.

The Norwegian justice system has some of the lowest recidivism or repeat offense rates in the world. They have no life or death sentence, and I believe the logest sentence served was 21 years.

They proved it was possible, and in the process, proved that recidivism, or the need for life or death sentences, is a failure on the part of the justice system.

This is more or less the only advantage of authoritarian regimes, and one of the main reasons extremists often turn to them.

People often mix up justice for revenge.

Revenge is burning someone's house down because they burnt yours down.

Justice is instead making their responsibility to get you a new house.

Libertarians, for instance,, are often concerned about political tyranny, but completely gloss over corporate tyranny. So it would depend on your definition of a free market.

Mercenaries are a free market.

Selling weapons to two parties and then starting a war between them is free market.

Private prisons thrive on demand, so they will seek to imprison as many people as possible for as long as possible. Hardly free.

The Atlantic slave trade formed because of no ethical or political regulations against the practice.

I could make an argument about healthcare, but healthcare is not a free market. The provider holds 100% of the cards. So it does not qualify in arguments about a free market.

I would argue yes but only for necessities.

Needs and luxuries should have two completely different economic systems governing them.

I only partially disagree.

People will dismiss it as the "placebo effect".

But the placebo effect is not a dismissal. It is a real thing. Placebos can work for a decent number of ailments.

That said, selling water diluted in water in a solution with water for 50 bucks is a scam.

A skittle would work just as well.

The sexualization of breasts is not a social construct. It can be emphasized or de-emphasized, but in and of itself, it is not socially-constructed.

I have heard "indigenous tribes who are primarily topless do not sexualize them". However it is also well-known that such tribes are much more sexually-active.

Whether or not we sexualize each other should not be something to concern ourselves over. Sexualization is not immoral. Sexual objectification is. Demonizing sexualization is, if anything, a carry-over from the Victorian era.

People should just generally try to be nice to each other in general.
Part of being nice to each other also includes not expecting or demanding special treatment from one another.

Honestly, I think we should come up with better pronouns that don't already have an existing function.

But otherwise, they/them works pretty well for this purpose, because we already use it in a similar fashion.

"If you have a passenger, make sure they put on their seatbelt"

Assuming this also refers to contraceptives in general.

The fewer people we have on this planet, the higher the quality of life per person, and the less we have to watch, restrict, and regulate individual behavior for environmental reasons.

Flawed, yes.
Discriminatory, how?

We tried this already. The result was Scarface and mafia control of entire cities, while alcohol usage continued anyway.

My understanding of this issue is that the holders of the Dr. Seuss IP chose to remove these books. They weren't forced into censorship, they just decided to longer publish these books. They have that right.

This very much depends on your point of reference. All creatures have the capability for violence. Humans especially are extremely adaptable, able to change our behavior in wildly-varying ways.

But if we are going to talk about some genetic propensity for violence that is in some way unique to humans, or makes us uniquely violent beyond most creatures, it's really quite the opposite. Even our anatomy shows it.

For creatures in which violence is a priority, usually the males physically fight or intimidate each other for power. This incentivizes bigger and stronger bodies, and leaves no room for becoming thinner and weaker. Yet we are the thinnest, gangliest great apes. You can't pin this on tool use, because a stronger tool user still has the advantage.

Furthermore, one of the more common ways to die is by choking to death on food. For most of our relatives, the esophagus and trachea split at a different location so this is less of an issue for most animals. But humans can literally die from eating. Why? It gives us more vocal range. We can literally die from eating because being able to talk a little more expressively was more important.

If you compare our behavior to our relatives, the difference between hunter-gatherer behavior and chimpanzee behavior is one of the most striking contrasts amongst the great apes. This puts us in line with the likes of bonobos, making bonobos, humans, and gorillas similar, and chimpanzees being the odd ones out for their level of bloodshed.

And contrary to how things might seem when reading history, life has actually gotten less bloody for the average person ever since. The 20th century, for instance, with its nuclear bombs, numerous genocides, and world wars, was the safest and least violent century for the average human in our entire existence. The average person hasn't killed someone. In fact, the average person is appalled at the idea of someone even being slapped or bitten. Something that is a simple and standard communication method for most animals.

And for many primates, killing is the only way to solidify your right to live.

Do we have the capability for violence? Absolutely. A wolf will bite animals on their territory. A Gorilla can rip you limb-from-limb if you don't show submission when they threaten you. Both these animals are considered peaceful. And they ARE peaceful. Yet if humans behaved like either one, they would be considered especially violent for humans.

It's easy to talk about millions of deaths when there are billions of people. But the simple fact is, your life involves less death, bloodshed, and murder than do a great number of animals. Socializing and cooperation are literally the primary reason we have the largest brains in the world. Tool use came secondary.

Great points. And it proves as a good counter to my own.

I would argue, however, that the genes you listed were genetic abnormalities that caused violent behavior. That is, they aren't examples of human-wide predispositions for violence, but genetic abnormalities that create such a predisposition. That is, you proved humans, like any other animal, can have certain members genes that cause abnormal violence.

For intra-species violence, there is a major flaw with what such a study would have measured. A pre-filter of sorts. Let me explain it with a quick example:

Wolf kills might be directed towards wolves 1% of the time, but they are also killing and being killed by a lot of other animals.

If you were to cage a bunch of wolves and allow no other animals in the cage, then 100% of all wolf murders would be against other wolves. That's the only thing a wolf can kill, and the only thing a wolf can be killed by. Yet the wolves didn't have to get any more violent for this statistic to change.

Humans interact almost entirely with other humans. We clear out a space and essentially the only animals on it are the ones we allow.

The best way to compare humans to other animals would be to use hunter-gatherers as a point of comparison, not post-agricultural humans who only really interact with other humans. And on that front, immediate-return hunter-gatherers are renowned for how both peaceful and egalitarian they are. More comparable to the behavior of a bonobo than to a chimp.

In fact, chimps are missing a gene associated with empathy and bonding that is present in both humans and bonobos. So in a sense, common chimps are the odd ones out. But either way, it's important not to confuse capability with preference.

Other than than these two counter-points, I'd be interested to read your sources. This subject is super fascinating to me. And if it turns out I'm dead wrong, then I'm dead wrong. I guess that would count as another murder....

Simply put, private donations give extra weight to wealthy people. It means money votes, not people.

I could make the case that some people do better in leadership positions than others. But I could also argue that some people are better innovators. Others are better organizers. Others are better "worker bees".

Chimps often have alphas, yes. But the concept of being a leader through dominance isn't the most stable one for chimps. Pro-social "alphas" are often more stable and generally sought after. The behavior of a "pro-social" alpha is often in conflict with what is often referred to as "being alpha" by the likes of PUA books and so-called "red pill" narratives.

And we are equally-related to bonobos, though they may actually be closer in behavior. Their social hierarchy isn't determined by dominance. The males are associated with their mothers, and the social ranking of the females is determined primarily by age.

Next onto humans. For 95% of our time as anatomically modern humans, we lived as hunter-gatherers, who pretty much universally practice "fierce egalitarianism". Which is a fancy way of saying "nobody tells me what to do".
Any displays of social dominance are treated as especially rude immediately. Attempts to "take control" are met with strong retribution up to and including death.

When men go to hunt, some tribes throw their weapons into a pile and pull from that pile, so if one gets a kill, it could have been another guy's bow, and another guy's arrow. The point is nobody knows, so nobody can take credit. They often split the kill as they come back, so no individual gets credit when they get back.

Not to mention, they are not dependent on big-game hunting. Most food is actually acquired by gatherers both male and female. There really is no way to assert dominance through gathering.

The only reason we may have the so-called alphas we do now is simply because of social distance. Any self-proclaimed "alpha" is someone who hasn't been put in their place by social interaction.

The rich and powerful may be rich and powerful, but among their immediate friends and family, the general rules of egalitarianism apply. It's just that their friend group doesn't include the poor or the powerless, so nobody is holding them to account.

Whoa. I hadn't thought of it like that.

If we decide to make college tuition-free, we should also forgive student debt.

You can call it the "sunk cost" fallacy if you want, but doing the former without doing the latter would result in an entire generation of people spending decades in debt and falling behind the group just a year younger than them who are no longer straddled.

It is basically like a really mild version of making pot legal without releasing prisoners with pot-related sentences. A black man spending life in prison for simply having pot, while his neighbor makes bank selling it just because he waited an extra year.

I have my own debt nearly paid off, so neither of these would affect me too much. But an added benefit is that since higher earners have paid off their debts more, the benefits would naturally be more directed towards those who actually need it.

I totally disagree. However, the language used for civil rights like this needs to be that of oppression of blacks or other minorities.

"Privilege" is more often than not used as a condemnation for the crime of.......not being treated unfairly.

There is nothing wrong with NOT being treated unfairly. There is nothing to be sorry for and there certainly should be nothing to make you feel bad about yourself. Anyone arguing like this toxic and arguably discriminatory in their own right.

TL;DR: Privilege is unfair good treatment. Oppression is unfair bad treatment. Activists need to stop confusing the two.

A privilege is something that can be taken away without infringing on your rights. When a black man is shot during a routine traffic stop, that is a right being taken away, that is black oppression. To call it white privilege is to say that white people are getting unfair benefits by NOT being shot by cops.

Then, if the cop is ultimately not found guilty, such as the case of George Zimmerman, that is cop privilege. The cop is not receiving justice where anyone else would be in prison within a week.

Or for instance, there is Church privilege. A church NOT having to pay taxes when any other organization otherwise would.

Why does the language matter? Because the fundamental perception by most groups who aren't in-the-know is that fighting for black rights is less about "helping us" and more about "punishing you".

Yet the main role privileged people have to play in all of this is to speak out and act on behalf of their unfairly-treated counterparts. It does nobody any good if they are just sitting there apologizing for being white. They might as well send "thoughts and prayers." This "privilege" style of thinking results in white people just participating in self-punishment as some sort of virtue signal, rather than inspiring them to pull others up.

It's this sort of galvanization that has been the primary source of the left's contribution to political division. (Though don't get me started on the right). It has also been the major argument I've heard from otherwise-left centrists about what makes them hesitant to associate themselves with the left.

TL; DR: Our will is only as free as our minds.

Our will is essentially as "free" as it needs to be.

If you were in a prison that was bigger than anywhere you could ever go, and its walls were farther than you could ever reach, does it even matter whether it is a prison?

The prison is determinism.
The fact that it doesn't ultimately matter is the illusion of free will.

Anything and everything any human will ever do, think, or say is within the normal parameters of human biology, and could ultimately be predicted with given sufficient information.

We view it as limitless, because we are not capable of seeing the limits. If we could see the limits, that would just mean the actual limits are further out.

We might wonder "how does an ant live with all those limitations?" But an ant doesn't care, because it can't perceive what it is missing. To the ant, it is living without limits. To us, it is living an almost entirely deterministic life.

TL;DR: Budgets need to shift drastically. But defunding is not the way to do it.

Improper funding is why we expect ill-trained officers to have a whole cluster of skills that are best left to professionals.

What we need to defund is police militarization. We drastically need to INCREASE funding towards specialization. A bodyguard with a gun doesn't make a good social worker. A social psychologist doesn't make a good riot guard. Having specialists be both well-trained and available is paramount for having an effective justice system that doesn't do more harm than good.

One issue is that nearly all politicians are lawyers. We have no specialization in politics. So you have lawyers voting on social issues and scientific issues. We need social workers voting on social issues, and scientists voting on science issues. All the lawyers in congress just try to throw money at some "one size fits all" solution.

This is dangerous to the public. But also, it is unfair to expect one type of officer to have every skillset imaginable. It cripples officers' mental health, and the public pays the price just as much.

Traditional dating roles are generally insulting to both men and women.
Women are treated as "objects of desire" or "trophies to be won".
Men are treated as undesirable and having little value until they have proven such.

While online dating could help mitigate this on paper, it actually exaggerates it to an absolutely preposterous level.

Women get ALL the messages, and a good number of such messages are disrespectful.

Even the most attractive men get virtually no messages. Though amongst men, it is still directed to very few at the top.

The best method, in my opinion, is what Bumble is doing: Men can't send messages until women initiate. It doesn't fix everything. But it does prevent men from spam-messaging women, and it forces women to actually take initiative.

The imbalance in dating roles in general leads to a TON of social toxicity. But online dating is where it peaks.

Many countries, especially those in Scandinavia, completely removed both capital punishment and life sentences, as both qualify as "cruel and unusual punishment", a concept some included in their own constitutions at the inspiration of the American constitution.

As such, everyone who goes to prison WILL come out and be amongst others, so proper and lasting rehabilitation is paramount.

Through proper rehabilitation, they have achieved some of the lowest prison recidivism (repeat offenders) in the world. Complete rehabilitation in less than 20 years. Usually in less than 5.

They have proven that capital punishment and life sentences are not necessary in a properly structured system. Therefore, any life sentence or death sentence in any other country represents only the inadequacy of that country's criminal justice system. As well as lives lost due to such inadequacy.

All lives do matter.

"Black lives matter" is not in opposition to this idea, really at all. Though I have always argued they need better PR, and often have to describe their name as meaning "Black lives matter, too."

(But then again, I believe the left in general is horrible at their own PR, and seems to think "I shouldn't have to worry about it". It is THE most frustrating part of being on the left.)

The issue with "all lives matter" is not that "only some lives matter". Rather saying "all lives matter" is generally used as "dismissal by broadening."

A quick example of dismissal-by-broadening:
"Man, I'm starving today."
"Well people all over the WORLD are starving."

People should pay for their own food like grown adults. One of the most toxic things you could do in a relationship is start infusing money debates where none should exist.

If going Dutch means "the man is cheap for not paying for me", what does that make YOU, if you are offended that you even have to pay for yourself?

The expectation should always be going Dutch. Any expectation that you will be paid for is selfish. If someone offers, it should be seen as neither an expectation nor an insult. It is simply a gift, and you should accept or decline it with grace.

I don't know why we treat dating like the rules should suddenly be different from any social interaction. When you go out with friends, nobody assumes one of your friends will pay for all of you, or that you will split the bill. You pay for yourself unless someone else offers.