Edit: Real quick point of clarification. I live and work in the US, and so these are observations and views about these things within the US.

Hi everyone,

In my day job, I am an accountant, and lately I've been hearing a lot about how we have a big shortage in the talent pool.

I've heard similar things across a number of professions, most prominently in my mind including teachers.

Separately, there are some professions where I feel like I hear a lot about poor or unethical performance. But when you look at the expectations of the job relative to pay, it is easy to make the case that the base salary is drastically low. In my mind, politicians, political appointees and police fit in this category.

The shortage in accounting has already and recently led to a decrease in standards, as many states have reduced the requirement of credit hours to become a CPA from 150 to 120. For jobs where performance is perceived as too low, I think there may have been a similar causal reduction in standards to maintain the levels of the talent pool.

My view is simple: Low pay leads to a smaller talent pool, and a smaller talent pool limits how strict you can reasonably be with performance expectations while still maintaining the level of otherwise qualified personnel that you need. To solve poor performance issues across a profession, you need a larger talent pool, and to grow a larger talent pool, you need to significantly increase compensation, thus increasing the incentive for people to join that particular talent pool.

Now, there is one implication of this that I would like to address: Am I saying that politicians are *underpaid*?

I am saying that if your option is to accept $200K salary by being honest, or a $10M / year salary by being dishonest, the threat of losing your job doesn't really provide a meaningful disincentive to bad behavior. Normal people who might otherwise be qualified for the management, policy and governance work of being a lawmaker are *not* going to be incentivized by a mere $150K-200K on a 2-6 year term, so it will tend to attract those who are in it for power or dishonest gain.

In other words, yes, politicians *are* underpaid relative to the expectations of their job *if* we want to attract politicians who do the job honestly and competently.

A couple of hundred years ago, the infant mortality rate was around 50%. Everywhere. If you had four kids in the past, you'd end up with two adults. And as far as we can tell, it had been that way for the entirety of human history.

Now, it's globally less than 4%. In a lot of countries, less than half a percent.

It's because of a lot of work in myriad areas (vaccines, hygiene, nutrition, etc). And we could still get that number lower. Particularly in countries like Somalia. But the overall result is clear - we have made an astonishing gain in recent history that has saved an incredible number of lives, and eliminated a huge source of suffering in parents everywhere.

It is, in my opinion, the best news story in the history of the human race. But news stories usually focus on something that has only just happened, and happened suddenly, so we don't hear it much.

I am not looking to have my view changed that it is a good news story. You won't be able to do that. We don't have an overpopulation problem, and we don't have a food shortage (just distribution problems). Poverty has actually reduced despite the 800% increase in population. Yes, we have some challenges that wouldn't arise with a smaller population, but that doesn't mean dead kids is better. No arguments against it being a Good Thing will get any traction.

Rather, I would love to be convinced there is a better news story in human history. Because that would be great. I'd love to learn something even better happened that I haven't considered.

It's up to you to decide what counts as "good" and "news", but:

• Needs to have at least some specificity - "invention of the scientific method" is a bit too broad, for example
• Similarly, I don't buy that an upstream change is automatically a better news story. i.e. you might convince me vaccines are a better news story, but it isn't automatically better because of its massive contribution to lowering infant mortality. Looking for the news, not the cause.
• "human race starting" doesn't count because it's lame

Go ahead. Make my day.

Ok, so first, I'm not attacking anyone's "Love" for their Nation or Country. I'm just saying that the political Philosophy of Nationalism doesn't really have any Future Potential for humanity.

In the "Modern World" Wanting your Particular Country to be prioritized first in the world is an Understandable desire, but that only holds true for as long as technology limits humanity to one planet at a time.

But 500 years in the future, (assuming humanity survives this far without reverting to MAD MAX)

Humanity is quite possibly an interstellar species.

We probably have colonies on other planets atleast in our solar system.

I don’t See the concept of Nationalism surviving to that age, it will likely transform into Globalization at some point (Earth first over Mars)

SIDENOTE:

what if Humanity Discovers Aliens? Do Nationalists really believe that the US, England, China or South Africa would be able to INDEPENDENTLY negotiate with aliens without including input from the rest of humanity?

The moment Humanity Discovers that E.T exists, Nationalism as we currently know it becomes A Still Born Concept.

So to summarize, I dont believe that there is any sustainable Future in Nationalism because Nationalism itself doesn't really think about the future of humanity,

Globalization is the only path that can actually survive in a Future Humanity.

Of course, this is a relatively awkward comparison to draw out at first impression. These two histories are both separate and inexorably intertwined. I am still in the early moments of preparing the groundwork for how I want to lay out my view. They each affect different (central, and focal) aspects of society, and stem from a variety of cultural influences. In an era of globalization, it may not make sense to compare these changes across our planet.

It is an oversimplification to say that one moves people, whereas the other does not. It is equally naive to claim that one involves a design element, an intelligence that the other lacks. As many a young boy did, I loved trains and engines, race cars, hot wheels, etc. As I grew up, my fascination shifted somewhat in ways that I am not fully understanding still. Learning about the history of photography gradually substituted for what was formerly a love of cars. It occupies the same place in my life. I consider this a revolution of sorts, one running in parallel with the life of the mind, and I would pray, a considerable growth. (This is not to imply that automobiles are foolish, senseless things!)

While cameras and cars share a delicate "mechanism," that allows their operations, it remains one well worth reverse engineering for those who train to possess such talents, i.e., with mechanics tinkering, or with black camera boxes opened, each amendable to breaking down and the necessity of routine repair, etc. Some early car enthusiasts were known as bicycle salesmen who saw the future; some photographers did not know with what magic they were experimenting until much later, either. It could very well be that the same enthusiasm of the hobbyist is at play, even though the subject matter of my attention as an adult now proves vastly different, as we all continue to drive on in an world of self-driving modes of transportation.

You can learn significantly about yourself by interacting with these dual systems as an entirety, by paying attention to how something looks. Both trajectories continue to experience rapid development, as do my relations with each of these technologies. I write positing this at the risk of reducing this to a matter of mere choice or whimsy; however, there seems to be an importance in the effort to articulate why the comparison is not arbitrary herein. How shall we define "a revolution" in this context apart from relating our personal histories of the individual? How does one measure that "progress," objectively across a culture? Is the attempt to do so futile, without the passing on of memories and storytelling?

Even still, it seems to me we depend so proximately on both of these machines, for our daily living. The camera wins, in my book. But just what does it capture, by winning? A photo of a car crash? Another accident?

Until I can find a better description, please CMV: The history of the camera is "more revolutionary" than the history of the car/automobile. Thank you.

Many people have noticed that Pedonald Trump (famous for his many appearances in those files that his followers redacted predators’ names from) bragged about “acing” dementia tests multiple times. He was even confused about the test “is this animal a zebra, a giraffe, or a donkey” being an iq test, rather than a standard dementia test.

I imagine his handlers fooled him into taking them by telling him they were IQ tests, & he could easily ace them & it would prove he is the smartest ever. Since he is embarrassingly easy to manipulate by his bloated ego, he took them, and his handlers probably tried but couldn’t stop him from bragging.

He keeps falling asleep in public. This is normal for the oldest man ever elected, but it’s not a good sign for his health. Also it’s extremely ironic, given how much criticism Pedonald threw at Biden. He keeps slurring his words. Again, to be expected for the most geriatric man ever elected potus, but also an obviously bad sign for cognitive ability.

Another big sign, is that Pedonald forgot about his promise to unredact & release all of those files on day 1 of his presidency, and arrest Clinton & Obama using the evidence in them. He’s got so bad that he even said “it was all a democrat hoax! No files exist!” which means he must have forgotten it was one of his campaign promises that he swore was real, because he wouldn’t intentionally expose his dishonesty, if he was mentally fit for office.

I want this view changed, because I really hate believing that Pedonald Trump is demented. It’s very concerning to have a man with extreme cognitive disabilities in control of the executive branch, almost as concerning as having the republican legislative branch fail in their responsibility to impeach him. Please convince me that it’s actually normal to be confusing dementia tests with IQ tests, falling asleep in public, slurring speeches, and claiming he was spreading a democrat hoax, when he swore to immediately release those files to arrest Clinton & Obama. I desperately want to hear normal people say “President Sundown’s brain has melted & congressional republicans are failing us by not impeaching him” & think “NO!!! That’s impossible!!!“. So, please help, CMV.

Edit: My view has been changed by people who pointed out that article 25 is the one that congress is obligated to use to remove an unfit president from office, not impeachment. Impeachment is for crimes.

Edit 2: My view has also been changed by people who pointed out that lying constantly is actually a strategy Pedonald uses to control his base, he probably never intended to arrest Obama & Clinton, he just lied to get people to vote for him. And he lied about the files being a democrat hoax because it worked on some people & other people just said he was joking. It was not a sign of dementia, but rather a sign of evil.

Edit 3: my view has been changed about article 25, by actually re-reading the constitution. It does say that congress needs to remove the president when he is incapacitated. If he does have dementia, congress does have a duty to impeach.

Edit 4: So many people have been robotically repeated into “what about Biden!” Y’all are acting like you’ve been mentally reprogrammed like robots. Yes, Biden was mentally slipping too, that doesn’t make Trump not have dementia.

If you honestly believe that Biden’s mental illness proves Trump isn’t demented, do y’all also think that if Biden wasn’t having mental issues, then that would prove Pedonald does have dementia?

Now, since the latter half of this claim is the most provocative, allow me to explain and defend it first: when I say “Nazi,” I do not mean it in the way that much of Reddit, Twitter, BlueSky, etc. uses the word to refer to anyone who either politically disagrees with them or a right-wing extremist or populist. I mean someone who identifies with the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and their actual ideology. So before someone responds saying something like, “Oh, but [insert vaguely racist influencer or politician] is also a Nazi, and they still have followers/got elected,” I want to be clear that I am operating off of about the strictest definition of the word “Nazi” as is possible in the modern era, and I strongly encourage anyone engaging with this post to do the same. I will also establish that this is coming from someone who considers themselves a cultural conservative but an economic left-leaner (I’m a big fan of Huey Long, Harry Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson, if that’s a better indicator of my political leanings).

With that out of the way, allow me to explain what leads me to believe that Graham Platner is a Nazi: Platner is a person who claims to hold left-wing views but is predominantly considered a leftist in regards to economics, not social policy (his strongest left-wing social stance is his opposition to ICE, and even then he only started expressing that view after an affluent white American woman who also happened to be politically aligned with him was killed by an agent). These traits are precisely what made him appealing to me when I first heard of him, and clearly that struck a chord with many other Americans, whether they live in Maine or not (people are generally tired of the Dems being the party of overly politically correct sissies, for lack of a nicer way to put it, instead of the party of the working class). However, this is important to note because it’s a contributing factor in what makes Platner being a Nazi more believable. Nazis, historically, have identified with a lot of economic policies and ideals that we would consider to be leftist—even extreme left—like the nationalization (or de facto nationalization) of industry, opposition to a (non-state sanctioned) privileged or decadent upper class, and the view of collective labor in the service of a common goal (the glory of the nation or the revolution) to be essentially the highest calling of the individual, strict management of the economy, and so on. Even the contemporaries of the Nazis called out their tendency to emphasize the “Socialist” and “Workers” part of “National Socialist German Workers’ Party“ when campaigning to the working class. There is obviously not 100% overlap (otherwise fascists and socialists would not hate each other so much), but the similarities are there and should be noted. These similarities are why someone like Nick Fuentes, a certifiable Nazi in every regard, can think it is even somewhat reasonable for himself to declare that he is now a Democrat (a traditionally leftist party in the modern era): because he thinks that the economic policy (and the opposition to Israel) of the growing populist wing of the Democrats is close enough to what he wants politically that he’s willing to take it over Trump. All this is to say, it isn’t as simple as “Nazi = extreme right” (or the other way around) and that Nazis can identify with several aspects of leftist politics, especially when it comes to economics, like with Platner. This isn’t to drag people who liked that Platner was predominantly concerned with left-leaning economic policy and largely avoided stuff like identity politics or aggressively pushing leftist social policy—like I said, that’s precisely what initially drew me in—but it’s something that, in hindsight, makes his Totenkopf tattoo make much more sense. 

Now, Platner’s excuse for the Totenkopf tattoo is that he got it with buddies overseas and didn’t know what it meant until it was brought up during his campaign. This, in my opinion, is complete and utter horseshit, especially considering that Platner has emphasized many times that he is a military history buff. No one who has a serious interest in military history would have no idea what that symbol is or where it comes from, and the idea that it took nearly two decades after he got it for him to learn what it was—and only AFTER it became public knowledge and inconvenient to his campaign—is so absurd that I question the intelligence of anyone who believes he’s telling the truth about that. The thing is, I actually believe that Platner could have saved it if he had just said something along the lines of “Look, that was in the past, it was a bad time in my life where I made some mistakes that I regret, but it does not reflect who I am now.” He did just that for his atrocious Reddit history, and that worked and was the correct way to handle it. But for him to so blatantly lie about the tattoo and act like he never knew what it was makes it much more likely that he’s lying about it, always knew what it meant, and that it reflects his current beliefs. 

Now that that’s out of the way, with what I learned about Platner after looking deeper into him, I believe he was always a bad candidate. As demonstrated with his story about the Totenkopf tattoo, and with his constantly telling his campaign and endorsers that he didn’t have anything else in his past that would or could come back to bite him instead of disclosing them, he is a pragmatic liar who is perfectly okay with straight-up deceiving people, even those very close to him and that are supposed to be helping him succeed, when it’s convenient for him to advance his ambitions. However, that’s the least of the problems (a politician being a liar, who’s ever heard of that?). He’s a proven serial cheater and abuser (even without considering the allegations made against him now) who cucks his wife while pretending to be a family man. He presents himself as a working-class man, but it’s all a sham. He went to an absurdly expensive boarding school, that oyster farm of his is little more than a hobby farm, and his number one client is his mom’s restaurant. This trend of prominent leftist figures in America who are nepo babies larping as working class (examples are people like Hasan Piker and Luigi Mangione) is seriously starting to piss me off and will become a serious public image problem for the American left if they continue to put people like that up on a pedestal. Even Zohran Mamdani, who I like a decent amount and is more upfront about coming from an extremely privileged background, still tends towards this habit of acting like he’s part of the working class when it’s convenient for him. This denial of privilege makes “early life checking” candidates like Platner a public image time bomb waiting to go off. It’s very easy and effective proverbial jugular vein for people running or rallying against them to attack when their image is dependent on the appearance of a working-class background. Furthermore, this subset of privileged leftists larping specifically as country-style working class people has become notorious and mockable enough that it’s spawned a specialized insult for them: “hicklib.” It‘s just a disaster waiting to happen once the facade falls apart. And don’t even get me started on crap like his attitude towards women and inability to productively take criticism. 

Point is, I think Platner was a bad choice from the beginning and I think he should serve as a lesson for the American left on what NOT to do and who NOT to associate with or lift up. I know I’ve certainly learned a thing or two about vetting candidates and populist political figures before I throw my support behind them. However, I have seen a lot of people fervently defend Platner and blame the establishment Democrats for “sabotaging“ him when almost all of his campaigning disasters were his own fault, even up to and after the r*pe allegations against him went public. I understand that people liked his persona and economic politics and I empathize with people who are disappointed by this outcome, but I am curious if anyone has legitimate defenses for Platner. 

Take them off if you like. If you're a guest, and the host requests it, take them off out of politeness.

But let's not pretend this is a hygiene/cleanliness issue. There's nothing unhygienic about wearing shoes inside.

Obvious issues aside:

"I have cream coloured carpets" okay, makes sense to take them off.

"I work in the sewers (or other atypically dirty job)", fine, change into normal shoes.

What could CMV:

Empirical evidence that wearing shoes inside spreads disease or causes some other genuine health and hygiene concern.

I’ve been seeing a lot of pushback lately on technology that automatically records drivers & cars and logs license plates into databases. There are plenty of arguments for or against it. I’m not so much interested in those unless they pertain to the legal precedent. My view is that I don’t think there IS any legal precedent to say these shouldn’t be allowed.

I’m reminded of seeing first-amendment auditors harping on the fact that anything or anybody viewable in public areas is fair game for recording. I largely agree with this. There is no constitutional right to privacy when out in public.

Opponents of systems like those mentioned in my title often cite the fourth amendment as their grounds. The fourth amendment secures people against unreasonable searches and seizures. I argue that recording drivers and logging license plates are neither searches nor seizures. These systems don’t physically search anything that isn’t observable from public space anyway, and they certainly don’t seize anything from drivers, as that would involve drivers physically having something taken away. People will argue that the data collection is unreasonable. That may or may not be the case, but the data collection is neither a search nor a seizure for similar reasons as the actual recording isn’t.

There HAVE been cases where the data has been hastily, inaccurately, or unethically used by law enforcement or courts. That is concerning, but that is a separate issue. After all, if somebody takes something that is legal and then does something illegal based off of it, that doesn’t make the initial thing suddenly illegal.

For example, it’s legal to buy scissors. It would be illegal for somebody to stab somebody with them after buying said scissors. But that doesn’t make the act of buying scissors illegal—unless indirectly if the act was used as evidence of premeditation maybe? In the same way, courts or law enforcement acting hastily, inaccurately, unethically, etc. based off the data and recordings doesn’t make the data collection and the recordings illegal. There would have to be a direct link, I think, that law enforcement or courts were intending to do illegal things with the data.

Maybe I’m overlooking something legal here. So change my view. What legal precedent is there that would make mass recording of drivers & cars and collection of license plate numbers on public roadways illegal?

CW: Mentions of violent crime, sex crimes, CSA, etc. (nothing graphic); capital punishment

I very, very often see a sentiment online, specifically when it comes to sex crimes or particularly gruesome crimes, that we should impose harsher penalties. "Rapists should be castrated" is the one that immediately comes to mind.

But the severity of sentencing doesn't actually deter criminals from committing crimes. There is a concept in criminology called "marginal deterrence," which basically just says that when the penalty for a lesser crime (e.g., rape) approaches the penalty for a more severe crime (e.g., murder), the perpetrator's incentive to stop short of the more severe crime shrinks. If rape and murder carry the same sentence, killing the witness/victim no longer carries much of an additional cost.

Now before I go any further, I want to say that I don't view rape as a "lesser" crime necessarily. I am a survivor of sexual violence myself, and it's not something I would wish on anyone. I would like to see justice for survivors and I would like to see a world where this is not such a pervasive problem. I just don't think that harsher penalties are the solution. I am a SURVIVOR, I am alive and well, and that is a big deal!

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Kennedy v. Louisiana, which struck down the death penalty for child sexual assault when the victims survive. The majority opinion stated that the death penalty may not result in better enforcement, and might actually add to the risk of children/survivors not reporting their abuse, especially if he is a family member. They also said that by making the punishment for child rape and murder equivalent, a state may remove a strong incentive for the rapist not to kill his victim.

Criminal justice reform groups largely agree. I will acknowledge the bias they hold, of course, but many of them are very credible. Vera.org notes that severe sentences do not deter crime, and retribution often does not help survivors of crime heal. The United States has the highest prison population in the developed world, and it hasn't improved our crime rates - in fact, all we really have to show for it is overpopulated prisons. I'm not going to make the leap to assuming our high crime rates are caused by our punishments for it, because the evidence isn't there. But we CAN make the claim that harsher punishments are not an effective deterrent for committing crimes.

As a slight counterpoint: The certainty of punishment is an effective deterrent. It is definitely a problem that so many people are not punished at all for these kinds of crimes, and there is obviously work that needs to be done there. But there isn't any evidence that more severe penalties would deter people who are already going to commit violent crimes.

EDIT: Nowhere have I said that we shouldn't have consequences for crimes. As a commenter stated, a 20-year sentence with a proper reform and rehab program has been shown to be very effective, and I fully support a sentence like this. What I wouldn't support is more severe/capital punishments.

Honestly I am mostly posting this to see why people believe they can't be friends? I genuinely don't understand where this rhetoric comes from. I have seen a large amount of discourse about this and would love to understand the other side.

My view:

1. Assuming men and women cannot be strictly platonic friends implies that every man is attracted to every woman and vice versa. This is not the case for most people. I am yet to meet a man who is attracted to every woman he meets or a woman who is attracted to every man she meets. As a man/woman do you see every member of your preferred sex as a hookup opportunity?

2. If people cannot be friends with the gender they're attracted to, are bisexual people expected to be friendless?? Are lesbians expected to not have any female friends?? Its ridiculous to write off half the population because you happen to be attracted to that gender.

3. I've seen many people say that they dont want their partner to have any friends of the opposite gender because "what could they possibly be talking about" Uhh.. shared interests?? Work? Movies? Games? Hobbies? Literally anything that both parties find interesting and want to discuss. It seems oddly toxic to imagine that any conversation with the opposite sex with eventually become romantic or sexual. Have you never talked about something you find enjoyable with someone who also enjoys it??

4. People who refuse to befriend someone of the opposite sex because of the possibility you may be attracted to them have poor boundaries and cannot regulate their emotions. Of course no one can control who they develop feelings for. But there are ways to maintain a friendship without facilitating these feelings. For example, if you've developed feelings for your coworker but want to remain friends, don't spend time with them one on one. Invite others from your workplace so that the setting changes from date to hangout.

5. A man with many female friends may actually have an easier time finding a girlfriend as he understands how to talk to women and can receive advice from his female friends about how to connect more with his gf. I believe the opposite is also possible! Knowing how to platonically interact with the other gender makes you a better communicator and allows you to see people as human beings rather than genitalia.

My claim here is that apologists and preachers (and the equivalent for other religions) have an inaccurate view of their own scriptures compared to scholars or educated people who look at those holy books critically.

I will give an example, critics will often point out that the Gospel of Mathew and the Gospel of Luke contradict each other in their genealogy of Jesus. They give different names for Jesus’ grandfather, great grandfather, and so forth up until the lineage reaches King David, then after that they agree. You can’t logically have two different paternal grandfathers.
So apologists say that one gospel is actually describing Jesus’ ancestry through his mother, Mary, while the other is describing it through his (technically adoptive) father, Joseph. The problem is that the text doesn’t say this. The text says it’s Joseph’s lineage for both. It gives no inclination that it’s describing Mary’s. This is something apologists have just made up and assumed into the text in order to make the contradiction go away.
Of course, if you can just make things up that the text doesn’t say and then assume that is what the text means, then you can make the text say whatever you want.
(There are also several other contradictions made within these differing genealogies that are not alleviated by assuming one is Mary’s, for example they differ by generation numbers quite significantly, and they actually do share a few ancestors at some points, only to diverge again after them, something that is not logically possible within a family tree, you can’t share an ancestor and then not share the ancestor of that ancestor, meaning the father of my grandfather is always going to be the same no matter which parent’s ancestry I’m looking at)

Most biblical scholars are more interested in what the Bible actually is and what the authors who wrote it actually meant, while apologists are motivated by what they want the Bible to say, due to their religious beliefs. This leads them to make inaccurate claims about what the text says in order to preserve their narrative. They are more likely to interpret the text in whatever way is most convenient, rather than interpret it in the way that is most accurate to what the text actually says or most likely means.

I only have one example due to brevity but there is much more I could say, also my post focuses more so on Christianity because that is the religion I am most familiar with because I live in a predominantly Christian country, but really the claim could apply to really any religion, however I would say maybe some are worse culprits than others.

I am open to changing my view, but my experience in studying the Bible in depth has lead me to this conclusion, that the critics are more inclined to understand scripture more accurately than someone who has a motivation to view scripture through the lens of whatever religious belief they want to promote.

Put simply, religious authorities are more likely to be influenced by confirmation bias than people who study the text critically.

The Constitution is clear: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice". Trump was elected to the office of the President in 2016. If he was elected in 2020, that would make twice. That would make him ineligible to be elected in 2024. If he was ineligible to be elected, he must step down as soon as he notices this. It is everyone's duty to obey the Constitution, and especially anyone involved in government.

Now of course if this is mere hyperbole, and he thinks he lost in 2020 due to voters being unfairly convinced to vote for Biden, this doesn't apply. But if he thinks he won that election he doesn't get to win three times. He has to step down.

The fact that he didn't serve when Biden served is irrelevant. Two wrongs don't make a right.

First off to provide some background on my view and/or any potential bias you might foresee, I am not at all MAGA or Republican. I, like many Americans, was absolutely incensed and stunned in disbelief when I heard that the USWNT gets to keep some of the revenue that the USMNT earned during this World Cup when they didn't step foot on the pitch. I am a strong advocate for equal pay, but I think many people have inaccurate views of what equal pay actually means...

Equal pay does NOT mean that you pay the men and women the same amount- it does not mean that if the men get paid $1 mil, that you pay the women $1 mil. What it means is that the women are entitled to the same PROPORTION or PERCENTAGE of revenue, so if you pay each men player 2% (arbitrary numbers, but follow the logic), then you should pay each female player 2%, which means that female players would still make less as their revenue is lower, however they are getting paid the same percentage of total revenue as the men.

Take a look at this video by football legend, 5x EPL champion, and former England captain John Terry: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XA1hwlKIgeU?app=desktop . I concur 100% with the points that he makes, we should continue to support/promote the women's game, but taking STEALING money from the men who earned their money isn't the way forward. I mean what happened to "you don't work, you don't get paid"? Not to mention England is just as if not more liberal than the US, even foreigners are ridiculing our so-called "equal pay" system.

Stealing money from the USMNT to give to the USWNT who did absolutely nothing is morally and ethically wrong. In fact I would argue that long term this will hurt the USWNT as this does not create an environment conducive to hard work, maintaining a strong work ethic, and earning your dues. As I stated before I absolutely value a system where women get paid the same porportion/percentage of the revenue as men, but this is not the right way forward.

Anyway, change my view!

The two-station solution has been tried and failed several times. Even if brought back today, the dynamics on the ground have changed and have made it impractical. Today, Gaza and the West Bank are not the same place. They are not governed by the same people and they don't even have the same political culture. Also, they're not even connected to each other. There has been no unified Palestinian control since 2007 when Hamas violently carried out a coup against the PA. The idea that these 2 areas (gaza and the west bank) are together some sort of unified state just waiting to be born under the right conditions simply ignores reality.

A more workable solution is a three-state solution. Israel, a Palestinian state in the West Bank, and a separate country in Gaza. This makes the most sense given the region's geography and recent history. The west bank is governed by the PA, has a growing urban economy, and even though its not always perfect, the PA has a working relationship with Israel over issues like security etc. Gaza meanwhile has been under Hamas control for nearly 2 decades and hasn't been shy about its goals of pushing for the destruction of Israel as more important priority than coexisting alongside it.

A three-state solution approach removes the impossibility of getting entities in the west bank and Gaza to agree, which history has shown is all but impossible.

While this may sound absurd at first, the history of the region makes this plan seem less crazy. Remember that before the west bank was the west bank, it was part of Jordan. All of the Palestinians clamoring for a Palestinian state, for nearly 2 decades from the 40s to the late 60s, were actually Jordanian citizens. No one back then was pushing for Jordan to somehow unite as a country with the area that is Gaza.

For decades, Palestinians in the West Bank were full Jordanian citizens, with Jordanian passports, full voting rights etc. So why not have them become full PA citizens in an entity separate from Gaza?

History shows that that the West Bank had for a long time a very distinct political history from Gaza, which was administered by Egypt. Again, the two territories were never one unified political entity. They ended up in the same conversation largely because of geography and the shared identity of their populations. That is important but doesn't automatically mean they function or can realistically function as a single state.

If the goal is peace in the region, 3 separate entities is the most logical conclusion in my opinion. Trying to arbitrarily tie the west bank and gaza together is not only impractical but only serves to prolong the conflict. It's why tying the two areas together seems to be mostly backed by people more interested in replacing israel than coexisting alongside it. This makes for great slogans and a great opportunity for people in the west to feel like they are part of a resistance movement, but it actually harms real Palesitnians who live in these places.

It's not an ideal solution, but if the goal is peace and an end to settlement expansion, its the only workable solution. Especially if people care about the Palestinians, isn't it time they have statehood instead of being used as props to fight an endless and impossible war to destroy Israel?

Remember that previous rejections of peace from Palestinians ironically led to settlement expansion. The idea that the west bank should remain jew-free for decades while Palestinian leaders fought to destory israel is not realistic. Accepting peace offers before settlements were a problem would have prevented this. It's important not to make the same mistake once again. A 3-state solution would ensure that.

People often say "whatever man, the Oscars are corrupt anyway, they all get bought out. Everyone knows corruption is the norm at these awards" every year when their favorite movies don't win.

As much as I believe many institutions and competitions are rigged and corrupt to hell and back (the FIFA World Cup, the Golden Globes, critics circles that review movies, etc); the Oscars seem to have maintained some semblance of dignity over the years.

1. The Academy is just too big for members to be bought out. Unlike FIFA, which is one centralized organization, or awards circles with a smaller jury, the Oscars have a voting board of almost eleven thousand independent voters who operate worldwide. For a studio to pay off enough voters where it will make a difference in the ranking would be an exorbitant amount that would be better invested as traditional marketing for their movie. "Shush" money costs a lot, and multiply it for enough voters to make a difference in a scale of eleven thousand is just too steep of a bill. Also: these voters are not critics. Critics vote in the CCMA, not in the Academy Awards.
2. More money does not equal more awards. For the same reason that Uzbekistan could never pay off FIFA, if the Oscars were corrupt, we'd never see small budget productions overperforming at the awards. And yet, small movies like Anora frequently fight neck-to-neck with industry giants (and, to extrapolate, it's rare that a proper blockbuster with billions and billions of marketing money even gets nominated at all).
3. More important (and to me more damning) than points 1 and 2, there just haven't been any proper corruption scandals in the Academy Awards. None. Zero. You can look it up. We've had corruption scandals in the Golden Globes, yes. But for the Oscars? Nope, none have been reported. In almost 100 years of Academy Awards, not a single whistleblower or leak.

Well, not quite. There have been some scandals, but they are extremely minor:

• In 2014, Bruce Broughton had his nomination revoked for having a lot of friends in the music branch of the Academy and sending them letters asking them to consider his total-carwreck-flop of a movie, a move which earned him a nomination.
• A similar case happened in 2023 where Andrea Risenborough was mysteriously endorsed by many of her friends in unrelated interviews and press releases during voting window, causing a surge in popularity for her role in To Leslie. This was not revoked. (Personally, I think the difference was that To Leslie was actually a good film with a good performance and the Academy figured votes were genuine even if boosted by dubious campaigning.)

If you consider this to be proper, full-blown capital C corruption, then I concede. Sure. Maybe Andrea pulled her strings with her connections and... got some of her friends to praise her movie in front of the cameras so she'd get more votes.

If we're talking about proper corruption, the type that makes competition wholly invalid, the type that gets brought up year after year to invalidate bad academy decisions... then it just doesn't happen. The academy's record is very clean.

It's far easier to believe that voters sometimes have bad taste & have a tendency to vote for their friends, than to believe that corruption and bought votes are somehow prevalent enough that it happens every year at a large scale but also that none of it has ever leaked at all and all 11,000 independent voters have always kept their mouth shut. I get it. I myself disagree with their decisions every year. Sometimes the voters just make weird/bad choices.

People in communities such as disabilities debate endlessly over whether “[trait] person” or “”person with [trait]” is most respectful to the person or trait in question. I don't think either are a problem. Put whatever you like in your bio, it’s your preference how you describe yourself. What is incredibly weird to me is the massive emphasis on which one is more or less humanizing than the other to certain groups. It's made out to not just be a simple linguistic quirk, but rather it’s a moral crusade since both apparently convey such extremely different meanings. Even when people leave it up to personal preference rather than saying one is universally good, the reasoning why people choose one over the other is because there’s apparently such a difference in how the terms embody how the person relates to their trait. I don’t see that difference.

For example, calling someone an "engineer" isn't dehumanizing or reducing them to engineering, since we can still call them other things and still consider them human. Is the only correct way to refer to these people "person whose main source of income is engineering?" This is already ridiculous to me, but even in this extreme, one could argue that while "person" is put first, the term is also still putting income at 2nd tier when the subject may care more about other things and would more closely associate/identify themselves with that. There would then be no way to even talk about income, because any reference to it could be seen through this lens as valuing or identifying them only by how they make money. 

Quite obviously (IMO), this is absurd. The thing is that identity first does not bar someone from anything. A person can be an engineer, and also a human, and also autistic, and also a father, and also Latino, and also a fisher, and also a car enthusiast, and so many other things at the same time. Calling them "autistic" is no more diminishing to their humanity than calling them a "Latino" is diminishing to their car enthusiasm. When the topic of the current conversation is about a certain trait, we refer to that trait. We're talking about cars? I can bring up that this person is a car enthusiast. We're talking about autism? I can bring up that this same person has autism. We're talking about engineering? I can bring up that this same person is an engineer. This isn't "only defining them as this trait", as they can have another trait be brought up later in the conversation or in another conversation.

In the same way, I don’t see how calling this person a “person who has Latino ancestry” is separating the person from their trait. Nothing about this is taking intrinsic genetic features to be separable from the person. It’s just a different way to say the same thing. If I call them a “person who has lots of cars”, I’m not at all thinking about if that means the cars can or can’t be taken away from their possession, or if calling them a “car enthusiast” is taking their car enthusiasm to be as intrinsic to their existence as their genetics.

Weird linguistic inconsistencies happen, like riding "in a car" vs "on a boat", even if you're inside the boat. It's like getting into a huge moral debate over whether to call it water or H2O; or dog vs canine: soda vs pop. For reference, I have ADHD. In English, there's not really an identity first version of "person with ADHD". But does that mean “people with ADHD” are intrinsically considered more human than “autistic people”? Or for the other side: does that mean people with ADHD are intrinsically considered to have their “personhood” be separable from their ADHD? One example I’ve seen is someone asking why they can call themselves an artist but not disabled. Is this supposed to mean “artistry” is an intrinsic physical feature of their existence? Or that we’re solely defining their entire existence and value as “you produce art”? If they were referred to as "person who produces art", is that supposed to insinuate that their deep, lifelong interest in art is actually completely superfluous to their life, as if it were clearly just a phase?

The only other argument I can think of is a simple euphemism treadmill, but I’m not convinced of even that. For example, "disabled" to "person with disability" doesn't bring to mind the same idea as "colored person" to "person of color", at least to me. Has "disabled" been used in the same way? Has anyone perceived someone else as more or less human depending on if “person who has” is put in front of the trait in question?

Everytime some kind of race-adjacent news on Reddit appears or under the comments of a race bait post, I’ve noticed one comment always appears: “ohh this is just Chinese bots trying to stoke a race war”. But I disagree, Chinese bots aren’t needed to stoke a race war in America, Americans are just like that generally.

Like for example, the Karmelo Anthony case. Delusional people were claiming that all the love and support he received online “Chinese bots”. The question I have is, are all the money from donations he made sent by chinese bots? Are the protestors who showed up at his trial, were they bots? Anyone who’s grown up in America knows that bullshit, all the various races hate eachother and would gladly support the murder of other races if it benefitted them. See the Indian truck driver, Derek chauvin etc. People won’t admit this because it makes them uncomfortable but it’s the truth.

Or when that white lady called that Somali kid the nword and it made her a millionaire. People called those “bots”. As if China would send over a million dollars to some random lady just to troll Americans. And this shit has happened two other times. So is china sending these secret double agents to call kids the n word and then make them millionaires, all in some grand scheme to make Americans hate eachother? Laughable.

And there’s been a recent rise in racebait post on Reddit where people see a certain identity do something bad and they use it to attack the identity. And of course you have people in the comments going “well obviously this is just a Russian bot stoking a race war” delusional. The reason we’re seeing a rise in these kind of posts is because there’s less moderation online now, we’re seeing what Americans always thought all along, but they were just banned before they could get their thoughts out.

And if it’s really bots making Americans racist, it raises the question why were they so racist in the past? Did these Chinese bots make them do slavery, Jim Crow, Japanese interment camps etc. Who knew the Chinese perfected time travel. 

There is no Russian bots online stoking a race war. Americans are just obsessed with race and extremely racist. You’ll hear people say that America is the least racist country in the world but that’s not really true. There is no group of people on earth more obsessed with race then Americans period.  America is just a racist shithole, that’s why they’re racist, not because of “muh Chinese bots”

CMV: does anyone have any evidence that Chinese and Russians bots are stoking a race war? 

We see article after article about students cheating by using AI tools… buried in all the articles about amazing productivity wins, improved quality of writing for foreign-language natives who struggle with professional writing in English, deeper research. I’m starting to think universities have it backwards. Shouldn’t their mission be to teach us to use these tools in the best possible way? Courses outmoded by AI should be pruned, no matter the consequences. New courses about using AI tools to be a sensational professional in any career path should take their place. Worried about learning to code? Well, does a CS or IS major actually need to code? Worried that translating ancient medical texts in Latin into modern German will make it impossible to do the historical part of your MD/PhD on the evolution of tuberculosis? Why should anyone need to learn Latin in the first place?

In more formal language:

A digital platform implementing Conditional Commitment System (CCS)could increase political mobilisation substantially - it is a pity it has not been tried much.

What is a CCS?

A conditional commitment (CC) is a contract like this:
If 10 people in my street go out to vote, I will go out to vote as well. 

So “I will do X if Y people do it as well.” 

Political mobilisation for any good cause suffers from the collective action problem.  If too few people become active, all of their time is wasted. You cannot stand up to say, a big Pharma company with 10 people.  If enough people get active though, the benefits outweigh the time+money spent. 

Many people don’t get active in the first place, because they are well aware of this dynamic, and have no certainty to know whether they have enough people or not. This can create self-fulfilling prophecies, where even a large enough group of people fail, because too many think they don’t have enough helpers. 

A platform like Kick-starter has solved this problem in the area of art-fundraising by using a digital CCS.  If a boardgame - developer needs 10.000 to create a game, the platform can collect monetary pledges. Only when the 10.000$ are reached, the money is collected from all pledgers. The amount of currently pledged money is visible. 

I think this system should exist for political action. I wish there was a platform where you can put up your pledges like “I will go to a demonstration for taxation justice, but only if 4000 people minimum pledge to come as well.”  If the threshold is reached, the event happens. You get an alert. 

People rightfully ask themselves “What difference will it make?” And the answer is often: It will only make a difference if enough people attend/subscribe/write letters/whatever. 

In a CCS you could have different pledges for the same event, so some people say: I will come if 100 people come, and others say, I will come if 500 people come. Maybe you could have **cascading effects**: When the 100 people threshold is reached, all pledgers that said 100 was their threshold get actived, maybe pushing the active people over 200, activating another group. 

In my mind, this would create bigger protests, more engaged, politicised citizens, and so a better democracy. Because the collective action problem is solved via visibility.

I am asking for counterarguments why this would not substantially increase political engagement.

Risks that I have thought about myself: 

Risk 1) Too few people have the intellectual capacity to understand a conditional commitment. I am not necessarily saying too many people cannot if they tried - just saying that for some it will be too much work. I think it is easy enough to understand.
Risk 2) A goal (e.g. 5.000 participants) not being reached could have a demobilising effect and harm a campaign. I think that will happen - but positives outweigh the negatives - overall mobilisation for political action will be increased.

+ People would need to follow a cause for some time - maybe 5 days, maybe 5 months, as pledges accumulate. That could be an advantage, that could be a disadvantage. People loos interest over time, loose hope. But shared anticipation is also a great marketing opportunity, and gradual progress gives faith. Again, I think the advantages outweight the disadvantages. But professional campaigns can probably harness that better.

+ yes, the “other side” could use it as well - that alone isn’t a counterargument for my question. But I would be interested in arguments why such a system is more vulnerable to hoaxes, demagogery, false information, and so on. Why it is more vulnerable for people looking to mislead citizens than other places. I see no such reason.

On the pledge bank website (accessed via Internet Archive) I saw annoying stuff — bullying pledges, pledges to try out non-scientific medicines, pledges to not read books.

+ I would take maybe a decade or so until enough people know and understand this system before it can work on a national level.  Yes - i think a platform would first have to generate proof of concept in a niche topic on a local level. But a national campaign and celebrity endorsement could quickly change that.

I'd be especially convinced if your argument discusses one the following:
+ CCS platform causes more demotivation than motivation

+ impossible to monetize 

+ a single campaign with a terrible drop-off rate ( say 60%) would harm the system's reputation beyond repair ( I think that will happen sometimes, but even with an average of 20% overall political participation increases)

+ nightmare to moderate

+ (e.g. tons of lawsuits) 

+ drop-off rate (of 100 pledgers, how many actually pull through when a numeric goal is reached) would be more than 20%)

+ platform would soon have a scandal on their hands. 

+ whatever else you can think of to go wrong

==READING==
I have searched a fair bit for instances where this has been used. Unfortunately, there have been few, and zero big political campaigns have worked with a CCS, to my knowledge

Here is a short list of instances:
https://richdecibels.medium.com/i-will-if-you-will-3086587a03ce

And follow-up links for the inclined reader

https://web.archive.org/web/20200828005149/https://www.pledgebank.com/success

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jul/06/students-win-15m-pledge-from-ucl-after-five-month-rent-strike

https://www.researchgate.net/publication284431738_How_the_internet_can_overcome_the_collective_action_problem_conditional_commitment_designs_on_Pledgebank_Kickstarter_and_The_PointGroupon_websites

https://publication2023.bits-und-baeume.org/a-collective-effort/crowdacting-as-a-spark-for-climate-protection/) Benjamin Parske & Karen Kastner [Link](https://publication2023.bits-und-baeume.org/a-collective-effort/crowdacting-as-a-spark-for-climate-protection/

It is common for progressive shows about the future such as star trek to seek to show a diverse cast. However, the only way to keep such a diverse set of humans around hundreds or thousands of years from now would be to prevent them from having interracial relationships.

The real future of a diverse society is a racially homogeneous society where everyone sort of looks the same as everyone else. This homogeneous appearance has occurred in every human region on the planet from the native americans, nordic people, chinese, etc...

Segregation is the origin of racial diversity and integration is the end of racial diversity.

I know it isn't there intention to imply star trek lore has blocked black people and white people from being in relationships to preserve racial diversity, but any critical analysis would end up at that conclusion. Either that or the blood lines of the characters on the show are themselves a long line of racists who have avoided interracial relationships for hundreds of years.

Before LLMs, it was extremely obvious to me that a future AI will need to learn in the same way humans learn in order to mimic (perhaps surpass) human behavior and understanding. Unless you are simply opposed to new technology, this is something we must accept and encourage if we are to improve AI capabilities.

Making it illegal, or thinking it's immoral, to train on human-generated datasets is just a technophobic step that holds technology back.

My main argument is: If it's moral for a human to learn from books, media, and the public internet, then it is moral for an LLM to also do so. If it's stealing for an LLM to do so, then it is stealing when humans learn and later make money from the skills they gained training on human-generated data.

Counterarguments I see coming:

1. LLMs are not human, it's totally different:

This is not really a good argument. The logic is the same, and nothing about being human, per se, makes it more moral than a machine learning from public data or data the LLM's owner paid for.

For the most part, this is the only argument people can come up with, in my experience, and it's more of a cop-out to shut down conversation, and there is never any elaboration.

This is Change My View, and "LLMs are not human" is incredibly unconvincing to me as an argument, even if I agree with the fact that LLMs are not human.

1. AI companies pirate and actually steal data in order to train their models:

OK, this I agree with! We both agree that, for copyrighted work, not paying for it is immoral. If, however, no piracy is used in the training of the model, then it is definitely moral.

1. AI can regurgitate copyrighted work and it can hurt authors/artists:

Again, we agree here. If the AI does not meaningfully include safeguards against spitting out copyrighted work, then that would not be OK. I am talking about an AI that does implement these safeguards.

1. I just don't think AI should exist:

OK... Irrelevant to the topic at hand. Downvote and move on if you want.

I am open to changing my mind on this. But, even before the AI hype, it has always been clear to me that training on human-generated data is both necessary and OK in order to push the technology forward.

I’ve always found it weird that religion is treated like something you inherit instead of something you actually come to believe. The religion you end up following is usually determined by your family and where you were born, not by a choice you made. If you had been born into a different family, chances are you’d have grown up believing something completely different.

I think parents should absolutely teach their kids their religion, traditions, and values if they want to. That’s completely fair. But I don’t think a child’s religious identity should be considered decided from birth. As they grow up, they should have the chance to question what they’ve been taught, learn about other beliefs, and decide for themselves what they actually believe.

And this isn’t anti-religion. I just think faith means more when it’s something you genuinely choose rather than something you simply inherit.

CMV: I’m open to hearing why assigning a religious identity from birth is better than treating religion as a personal choice made later in life.

I apologise if this topic has already been discussed previously.

My view is that passport strength isn't just a reflection of today's politics. It's also the result of history. Many countries in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America were colonised for centuries. Their wealth and resources were extracted, borders were often drawn by colonial powers, and many faced conflict, political instability and economic challenges after independence. In contrast, many former colonial powers accumulated wealth, built stronger institutions, expanded their global influence and helped shape the international system that exists today. Countries like the US also expanded through the displacement of Native Americans before becoming one of the world's most influential nations.

Today, visa policies are based largely on nationality rather than an individual's income, education, qualifications or travel history. Someone from a weaker passport country earning US$70,000 a year may still need to pay visa fees, buy travel insurance and provide extensive financial and travel documents, while someone from a stronger passport country earning around US$40,000 a year may be able to enter the same destination visa free.

I think a fairer system would rely less on passport privilege and more on a points based assessment. Points could be awarded for factors such as income, employment, previous compliance with visa rules, travel history, financial stability and criminal record. Travellers above a certain threshold could receive visa free or simplified entry, while those below it could provide additional documentation. In my view, this would judge people on their own circumstances rather than the country they were born in.

I recognise that diplomacy, security, migration and reciprocal agreements all influence visa policies. My view is that these factors have also been shaped by history, particularly colonialism.

Change my view. If you think passport strength should continue to be based primarily on nationality, or that a points based system would be less effective or less fair, I'd genuinely like to understand why.

This isn't intended as criticism of any country or its people. I admire every country's history, culture and traditions.

I was at In-N-out with some friends scrolling Reddit and came across This post

Essentially OP stated that feeling uncomfortable around black people is justified as they are more likely to victimize them. This is hilarious and wrong.

If you are say, a random person in Kentucky and want to know your chances of being a victim of any kind of crime committed by a black criminal, you would divide the number of black arrestees by the population of Kentucky.

That gives you the likelihood of a random person in Kentucky being victimized by a black person. And that number is lower than almost any other race. Period.

The per capita number that gets thrown around a lot is the “in group” arrest numbers, which tells a different story : black arrestees divided by the population of black people simply tells you how often police decide to arrest black people. It’s not an indicator of anything OUTSIDE of that group. It’s an indicator of choices made by law enforcement.

One thing: the first formula is technically flawed because we use arrest numbers not actual crimes committed, but it is the best and easiest available numbers we have and if it’s good enough to form in group per capita arrest statistics it’s good enough to predict risk to the general public

Edit: Many of you seem sidetracked by the example i gave and seem to not realize that the core question is: “Is this person justified in feeling unsafe, based on the math?”.

The only objectively correct answer is "No, not mathematically".

The question people seem to want answered is risk of victimization, give a specific encounter, but we just don’t have encounter data which means we cannot mathematically determine this risk. That’s okay, math (and science) often presents questions we cannot possibly and reliably know. You cannot claim a fear is 'mathematically justified' by a math problem that has no real-world answer. Plugging in available but irrelevant in group arrest rates to force an answer is just a statistical bait-and-switch, ethically irresponsible and intellectually dishonest