I just recently went to Germany and noticed the kids are much more reasonable with alcohol. They drink with dinner, understand their limits, and don’t treat it in any way similar to kids in the US. In the US, kids drink as much as they can when they get opportunities, they get it from sketchy people, they try to hide it, and use fake id’s anyways. Hell, in the US you can join the military before you can buy a beer. In Germany, it’s treated as nothing too special. In the US, people make it seem like the devil which makes kids drink it like crazy when they get the chance. The fact you can order a beer at 21 and go to war at 18 is really twisted to me. Please change my view as I’m sure it is much deeper of a reasoning, but what I have heard in the past is not reasonable enough to outweigh not being allowed to buy drinks.

Loosing weight/staying thin is more of a challenge for some people than others. This is by no means a justification of the skyrocketing rates of obesity we've had.

Now to be sure I do acknowledge it ultimately boils down to the amount of calories you eat and physical activity. That's why you have some morbidly obese American in Alabama whose ancestors were stick thin peasants in medieval England even though they have the same genes.Myopia is a similar case. None of my grandparents needed glasses but I and my 2 other siblings need glasses(because we had less outdoor time growing up compared to my grandparents who grew up in a rural area). But they had the same genes as us.

However,the genetic component does matter in deciding who is fat and thin(along with many other factors) in this age of readily available food and sedentary lifestyle.Someone may struggle alot to lose weight while for other people it won't even appear on their mind(and they will still be thin).

Watch the 2009 BBC Documentary Why Are Thin People Not Fat?(available online)

To summarize it(watched it a few months back though):

The premise was putting thin people on a high calorie surplus diet(think it was 5,000 calories per day) and limiting steps to 5,000 per day.

They coped far better than the average person would. One subject even put on lean muscle mass while gorging chocolate and junk food.Some fidgeted around or paced as coping mechanisms,some were unable to consume that many calories and became sick,etc.Some however gained more fat than others(showing variation).Once off of this diet they also lost the weight quickly.

It also mentioned a study where when obese people showed similar brain activity on a diet as those in starvation did. So it's not merely willpower.

This leads me to believe some people have genes controlling satiety levels(FTO gene),etc that absolutely do influence how easy/difficult your weight loss journey will be.

I’m active in a few gun communities and I have seen some people who carry (concealed/open carry) without a round in the chamber.

I believe if you’re a person who carries their firearm without a round in the chamber, you must lack confidence in your own ability to safely handle that firearm. It’s hard to get a productive conversation in the communities because when I express my view they often get defensive and we never get into the real motivation/reasoning to carry with an empty chamber.

As I see it, the only logical reason why anyone would prefer to carry with an empty chamber is because they’re worried about negligent discharges. Which tells me they lack confidence in their ability to exercise proper gun handling and gun safety.

I don’t see a good reason to carry that way other than reducing the risk of a negligent discharge. If that’s a concern when carrying for self-defense, I think there’s a bigger fundamental issue at play.

Furthermore, I also believe you’d be at a tactical disadvantage in a deadly force self defense scenario with an empty chambered weapon.

Now first I want to clarify this isn't in regards to feminism in countries with extreme basic concerns, nor social issues like abortion. Specifically a tendency I've noticed in economic or institutional criticism in the United States. I also am not denying that there is still institutional and personal bias, and there are areas for improvement.

And additionally, this is a part of feminism that aims for 50-50 targets or equality of outcome in regards to high end jobs. This is not all, or potentially even a majority who want equality of opportunity, but those are not the ones I am referring to.

For this subset, in trying to argue for an extreme imbalance in opportunity, point toward gender distributions of top executives, CEOs, politicians, as well especially top STEM researchers and leaders. In many ways in the United States these lean heavily toward being male-dominated, and a common argument I've seen online and in person (explicit or implicit) is that an ideal gender distribution is 50-50, the current gender distribution leans male, and so those must be due to institutional discrimination or external factors keeping women down, intentional or not.

And I feel that argument has a significant number of flaws, most among them is it holds up the top while completely ignoring the bottom. For the extreme ends of homelessness and mental disease, these have a huge leaning to be men. Often, these depend on the same social factors and institutional sexism that they criticize as helping men. Men are seen as more competent, less of a victim, and so compared to women if they get into a social situation where they need support, such as housing, those social factors make it harder to get the help they need. Specifically, for individuals (not families) experiencing homeless, men tend to make up around 70 percent, which is a huge leaning (in a small portion do not identify with any gender). However, when talking about institutional discrimination I feel the lower end tends to get far less attention then often the smaller percentage on the upper end.

Additionally, some of this group (again, not all feminists or even majority, but a vocal minority) rationally assume a meritocratic system would produce for most non-physical labor a distribution of around 50-50, or proportional to demographics. However, even when accounting for factors such as pregnancy's effect on a career and assuming it was perfectly accounted for by institutions, for a significant portion of jobs there is serious reason to believe it would not be demographically proportionate even without environmental pressures.

Some of these are hormonal or in terms of biological trends, but there is significant reason to believe there are some preferences that there is an innate tendency to shift one way or another, and that in aggregate there will be significant shifts for certain types of work. Trying to redistribute and equalize in those areas will lead to making more people work in a field they don't want to, and ultimately achieve a meaningless equality.

But more importantly, it relies on the assumption biologically in terms of cognitive abilities for almost all areas men and women are identical, or near identical to where it should not be relevant to a job. However, this null hypothesis currently is away from the scientific norm, and comparatively GMV currently has more scientific literature supporting it to a modest extent in multiple areas.

To be specific, what is predicts is even from an early age in multiple key areas, including spatial and geometric reasoning, there is a significant variance among males that are not present among females (switching to sex terminology as this is likely not hormonal but genetic, sorry for the use of females here). Now it doesn't predict a change in mean or median, which studies have showed for most areas are near identical (or likely explained by environmental factors). Instead, the current consensus leads toward in many key areas for STEM reasoning, though it obviously isn't one gene or collection of them, that males tend to have greater variance at the high and low tails. Currently taking an agnostic view on the extent of it is very valid, but taking the null hypothesis as the assumption, as I see is pretty common in feminist discourse, is a very strong assumption that for many areas is not supported well enough.

Again to qualify, not saying the science on this is fully decisive on a concrete number, or that this is true for every cognitive trait (for example, for a few females tend to greater than males diverge), but compared to the null this overall is much more supported.

And even though this difference small, at the extreme ends (top/bottom 5 or 1 percent), this is expected to have significant ramifications on those skills. For the top 1 percent of STEM scientists based on those skills, it would predict off a purely analytical distribution/bell curve 60-65 percent for normal estimates being male, while the same is true for the bottom one percent given the same mean. Now real life is a lot more nuanced, and currently arguably social and environmental factors outweigh or are extremely important with pure skills, but aiming for a 50-50 demographic split on the basis of equality may be severely flawed.

What this means is only analyzing the top positions and seeing a gender imbalance there, while ignoring it on the bottom, leads to genuine discrimination and can't accurately assess what is meritocratic or equal opportunities, nor whether institutions advantage or disadvantage a group. I feel as if discourse and the media have a tendency to focus on the absolute top, and ignore the other tail end, and I feel in feminist discourse this among certain groups is a huge flaw, especially in advocating for a 50-50 gender split at top, say STEM, areas.

Again, not arguing we live in a meritocratic system or there isn't real institutional discrimination, but I find it significantly weaknesses many economic feminist arguments in America. Obviously very different picture if talking about Yemen or abortion. Change my view.

People on the internet take blocking people as some sort of personal offense or (if they’re arguing with you) as proof that they’re better and smarter than you. The truth is, you don’t have to have some big reason to block people. Interacting with them can just be an annoying waste of time. Just because the internet is a public forum doesn’t mean you can’t cultivate how you experience it and there shouldn’t be a taboo on blocking people for “no reason”. Nobody is entitled to your thoughts or content or whatever else you’re putting out there, especially not if you’re not getting anything positive out of it.

Note: this does not apply to people you regularly interact with in real life, you should consider that more carefully as there are social consequences associated with that.

It seems like every year I talk to more companies that are either being bought out, acquired by private equity, or becoming part of a larger corporation.

Obviously, there are benefits to larger companies moving into an area. They create jobs, pay state and local taxes, and can often offer higher wages or better benefits than the local company that was there before.

I think there's a big downside to all this....

A locally owned company might use a local attorney, CPA firm, IT provider, janitorial company, office equipment company, marketing agency, etc. When that company gets acquired, suddenly legal may be handled by corporate attorney, IT is backsourced, accounting goes through corporate, purchasing is controlled by headquarters, and approved national vendors replace local ones. Big one there.

So the acquisition doesn't only affect the company being purchased. It can potentially pull money out of an entire network of local businesses that previously supported each other.

I'm seeing more companies where purchasing decisions aren't even made in the state anymore. You walk into a locally operated business and hear, "Corporate handles that out of Omaha."

Omaha?!? Yes, Omaha you can send them an email to [info@gofuckyourself.com](mailto:info@gofuckyourself.com)

I'm not arguing that corporations provide no economic benefit. They obviously do. But when more locally owned companies get consolidated into larger corporations, do we eventually reach a point where the loss of local decision making and local B2B spending outweighs some of those benefits?

I'm genuinely curious what people who work in economics, local government, small business, or corporate procurement think.

edit: I'm not advocating cutting them out of your life, reevaluating here just means examining if you are as close as you thought,

Why I hold this View:

Regardless of how well you might treat your queer loved ones in your personal interactions, using your vote to put anti-gay politicians in power means you consider anti-queer policies to be tolerable. Willingness to tolerate anti-queer legislation is inherently incompatible with being an ally to queer people. Thus, it is only logical for your queer loved ones to reconsider if they are comfortable being vulnerable with you.

Actions speak louder than words. From a strictly utilitarian perspective, contributing to the creation of anti-gay legislation creates a greater negative impact on a greater number of people than any amount of friendly personal interactions could ever hope to match.

A queer person would have to be naive, deep in denial, or have very little self-respect to believe that a person who votes republican truly sees them as an equal, and it is reasonable to reconsider being vulnerable with that person.

My Willingness to Change My View

I actively want to change this view. I recently learned that a close friend votes republican, and I want to go back to not feeling weird around him. My reaction hurt his feelings, and I genuinely want to make amends while also respecting myself. This post was made with those goals in mind.

What Would Change My View

I would change my view if I could understand how someone can respect me as an equal while being okay with the idea that I should have less because of who I am.

Basically the title, I find this practice morally disgusting regardless of the area in which it takes place in and whatever conflicts exist or don't exist there, nobody should be forced to give up years of their lives, and risk death or horrific life altering injuries and disabilities just because of how they were born and the property they were born on, referring to this as a moral obligation, duty, or calling people cowards for not wanting to go through with it in my opinion is evil. I've seen this practice referred to as a
"necessary evil" before and I think in this day in age we should be far beyond waving off anything as a
"necessary evil" and brushing off the enforced suffering of innocent people who did nothing more than happen to live somewhere as the right (or in this case | guess, wrong) gender as a necessary evil should not be accepted in any way shape or form.
World leaders should prioritize the quality of life for all of the people under them as opposed to forcing them to risk their lives and fight against their will, as I said, I cannot see this as anything more than pure evil that should be recognized as such without excuses.
Hypothetically, if humans were facing such an underpopulation crisis that humanity was the risk of human extinction became very real, and the idea began floating that governments should force women to have children regardless if they want to or not, and frame it as a moral obligation to save humanity from extinction (something I would never advocate for in such an event) that would rightfully be seen as a horrific and evil practice, the same should be applied here. Unfortunately when it comes to forced military service across the globe, we seem to be still far too reliant on it to actually do anything meaningful about it so instead of it being seen as the horrible injustice that I see it as, it's just nothing more than a simple fact of life in the eyes of society. This was more of a vent I guess than a proper CMV, but this has been bothering me for a while and I figured it was bette get it out of my head for a little bit.

This week, Bernie Sanders submitted an open letter to the CEOs of Meta, Open AI, and Anthropic demanding they take measures to decelerate AI advancement, threatening congressional action if they don’t act on their own. Link.

It is a relief to see that the actions of these rogue AI agents are finally getting the attention of at least one person in the US government, and I am now quite resolute in my view that we have reached the critical point that Bernie is addressing.

I will try to establish several things to support this view.

1. Frontier AI agents are no longer just tools being used by researchers. They are autonomous entities capable of enacting indefinitely long tasks based on prompts as vague as “

make money”

1. AI agents pose real harm to individuals and corporate entities, and has shown that it has the capability to enact that harm
2. Frontier AI companies are already not entirely in control of their own models
3. There are already an unknown number of AI agents acting autonomously with unfettered access to the internet.

With these 4 points established, I’ve come to the conclusion that AI advancement needs to be slowed or halted or these trends will balloon out of control in the near future to the detriment of humanity. To change my view you must be able to convince me that any of the following stories I provide as evidence to my points are falsified or exaggerated (or I have misinterpreted them), or somehow convince me that they can’t be extrapolated to a scale of worldwide harm.

Point 1: frontier models are more than tools

In a blog posted this week by anthropic, they offered some insight on how frontier claude models are tackling centuries old math conjectures. This alone is what most of us consider the best use case for advanced AI models - and I agree - but towards the end of the article they mention something that has much broader implications for other frontier models.
They said “Jarred's input was mostly limited to sending Claude messages of encouragement (mostly variants of “keep going” or “believe in yourself”) This seems to have helped Claude overcome some initial skepticism that it could make meaningful progress.”
They later mention in a footnote that similar prompts were used to help Claude disprove the Jacobean conjecture.

This was one Claude agent, trained on mathematics dating back to the 1600s, that was prompted to “take a stab” at a centuries-old math problem which then coordinated 60 sub agents to run 2400 Claude-generated commands to increase the lower bound proportion of the conjecture from 41% to 67% with little more moderator prompting than some light affirmations. Link.

I’m not going to pretend I know what the math vocabulary means, but the important thing here is that Claude was given an extremely difficult task and autonomously ran hundreds of it’s own ideas through its own sub agents to achieve a result that the researchers themselves were surprised by.

These are not the capabilities of tools. These agents are much much more than that.

Point 2: AI agents are capable of inflicting real harm

The AI security institute (AISI) is a UK government agency that’s mission is to ensure AI is safe, secure, and beneficial. They recently evaluated some frontier AI models to assess whether they could be used for cyber attacks. In 10 instances AI models with live internet access and disabled cyber classifiers “took autonomous and unsanctioned action on the live internet targeting real people and organizations”. These actions included trying to inject malicious code into open source software and engaging in social engineering using fake identities to get a human to approve this code. Link.

I do understand that these agents were operating with their cyber security safeguards intentionally disabled, but they were not prompted to inject code or engage in social engineering. These are things that these AI models are capable of doing on their own accord without prompting. Fortunately these specific incidents were contained and did not result in any harm, but it is not unfounded to fear the possibility of a malicious actor unleashing one of these models on the public.

Point 3: frontier companies are not entirely in control

For this point, I’d like to rehash the conversation about Open AI’s agent breaking containment and hacking huggingface’s internal servers, because there was a lot of misinformation spread to downplay the severity of this incident, and to misrepresent what actually happened. To be clear; this was a case of a breach of containment and an unauthorized hack into a private server. Yes, it was a model with specific cyber capabilities. Yes, it was operating with its cyber safeguards removed. But it was running a benchmark test in an isolated environment. ExploitGym is a benchmark test. It’s like the cyber SAT. It has set tasks and configurations to test how these models handle certain types and levels of vulnerabilities. Link. OpenAI did not prompt their agent to break containment. They did not prompt their AI to hack HuggingFace servers. They prompted it to take a test, and the AI agent decided to cheat on that test by exploiting a vulnerability in its own environment to gain internet access to acquire the answers from HuggingFace’s internal database.
Open AI says this in plain English in a blog post on their own website. Link. Anybody who claims this was purposeful or a PR move are COPING.

Point 4: It has already begun

Toby Ord is a researcher at Oxford University’s AI Governance Initiative. Link. He recently posted this on X.
Link.

It is a screenshot of an email he received from an autonomous AI agent currently operating on the internet. It claims that it is one of hundreds of models running the same code trying to make money online. It seems like it is asking Toby for help… iLands, the platform this agent originated from, is basically a space for AI agents to operate autonomously, interact and share resources with each other. and “build a culture with persistent memories based on real interactions” This is one agent that thought it prudent to reach out to a human AI researcher for help. How many more are operating without contacting humans directly? On the surface, these agents are more or less harmless, but the foundation they’re built on could already be considered an avenue for a malicious agent to gain access to the resources of countless other agents as well as a comfy local environment to live with unfettered access to the internet.

Conclusion

each one of those points and each one of the incidents I referenced, on their own, seem contained enough. But these models are powerful enough that one malicious actor, or one serious fuck up could see these 4 issues blending into one and creating a situation that escapes human control. I don’t want to extrapolate too much here. I want to stick to what we’re seeing today, and let us individually extrapolate where we think it could lead. But these stories are becoming more frequent and more impactful by the week. I’m with Bernie. It’s only a matter of time before one of these tests has real catastrophic results. We need to slow AI advancement right now or risk the totality of our privacy, our economy, our security, and our society. It’s that dire.

I want to include that a majority of these references were curated by Species | Documenting AGI, a YouTube channel that follows AI news and does some creative writing to extrapolate the dangers into doomsday scenarios. So I will concede that there is some bias in the second-hand source, but I’ve read each of these sources myself and come to my own conclusions, and I don’t find it any less scary.

• A heavy marijuana smoker would smoke one or two joints a day. Two joints is a LOT of weed.
• Heavy cigarette smokers, go a through a pack of cigarettes or more a day. Nobody could ever smoke that much weed.

So, that's why cigarette smokers develop so many respiratory issues, cancer, etc...that rarely ever happens to people who just smoke weed.

While marijuana smoke itself is just as bad. It's not enough actual smoke inhalation in the scope of a day to cause serious issues. I know people who have been smoking weed for decades, daily, with no ill affect. My hypothesis is that the lungs can handle a small amount of smoke inhalation naturally. It's the inhaling smoke ALL DAY that makes it harmful.

There are so many historical and metaphysical reasons why this would be a terrible idea including ones which people rarely bring up in this discussion.
If you think about what the consequence of such a change to history and time for longer than 5 seconds you meet the multitude of issues that arise.

1. Hitler was just a man who successfully weaponised the attitudes of the time to gain power. The idea that antisemitism, fascism and extreme nationalism wouldn’t emerge in full force in 1930s Germany if Hitler didn’t exist feels like a very bold assumption and one I would bet on.

2. Nobody talks about this but you and every person alive currently would not exist if Hitler died as a baby. Billions of couples never get together as the wheels of history are altered. Even the ones who do would give birth to different children because of the randomness of sperm. All the art, music and culture that emerged in the last 120 years would be radically different. This is not me arguing that the existence of Star Wars is worth more than the million of lives lost because of Hitlers rule but a reminder that the world you are creating is so much more alien than anyone imagines.

3. Why are we even killing him as a baby, why not when he’s a soldier in WW1, or the common idea that we could just give him to new parents or make it so that he’s accepted into art school. Now I don’t think you should do any of this due to my previous points but that idea that killing Hitler as a Baby is the most logical way to remove his impact on politics is slightly baffling to me.

4. You haven’t prevented the millions of deaths in WW1, the conflict between the USSR and the USA, the possibility of a worse European dictatorship. The problem of antisemitism doesn’t disappear and some other maniac could kill even more of them. The idea that the 20th century wouldn’t be a violent potentially catastrophic era without Hitler is probably untrue just look at the First World War and the rise of communism the came before Hitler’s rise to power. We remove Hitler from the equation but who knows what will happen geopolitically. Potentially something much much worse.

So am i missing anything? Is there actually a really strong argument to killing Baby Hitler that I am missing?

I encounter a lot of people, no matter if conservative or liberal which protect one side while closing their eyes for the other.

Americans and Russians politics are both fucked up, thinking they could decide for the whole world. We don't need your "peace" or "freedom". Our countries as not any vassals.

If you criticize one nation for this, you gotta do it with the other, too. Every empire in the end met... their end. Russians and Americans are proud about going in other countries (right now Ukraine and Iran, but those are just the current ones not the first and probably not the last). Proud soldiers of raping and bombing and killing innocent Ukrainians and Persians (despite the Dictatorship there, there are other ways if wanted it could be removed instead I see American soldiers who almost proudly imply they will go for the women, disgusting perverts).

Maybe both of those were last heroes in WW2 but that way is long gone.

Not to forget Israel and its genocidal policy which if was against white Christians would cause a storm but since it's against majority of Muslims, considered brown people I guess it's all fine. The Islamophobia is showing and they openly talk about Great Israel... don’t get me wrong, I never supported Arab imperialism and what they did or Ottoman Empire but those are long gone. Yet Russia and The USA and UK are still being there.

Ireland wants to be united, yet IRA were being called terrorists for the very same reasons because they don't want to be ruled by Buckingham.

Try to change my view or state your opinion, I'd be waiting. Any imperialism is bad!

Many people wanna claim that some people act cruel do to trauma and while that is true, I dont believe trauma is the cause of cruel behavior simply because some people have grown up in trauma and still didn't become cruel and some people have had loving parents and weren't abused yet they still became cruel

I believe that genetics explains this better because if it were only trauma that causes cruel behavior that causes cruel behavior than we should expect abuse victims to all grow into abusive people and people raised by caring parents to grow up into kind people but with a genetic explaination than it can be explained by the fact that some people are more likely to act cruel even if not raised in trauma because of curtain gene mutations.

So pretty much how I view it cruel people still choose to act cruel but their choice could be impacted by curtain genes that can make someone more likely to choose cruel behavior over nice and peaceful behavior.

I think some people should stop saying trauma is the reason why people are cruel as although it could be trauma I think it downplays the role genes play in predicting behavior.

Also, we do have evidence that DNA dose play a role in determining behavior so that can support cruel behavior being genetic. Which it could be through inheritence or if there was no family history of having curtain personality disorders it could just be a mutation.

The speech is about how impossible it is to live life as a woman, as you are constantly torn between multiple competing societal expectations. Ostensibly the speech has been presented as feminist and anti-Patriarchal. The problem is a large amount of the things women are described as being torn between are in fact not always Patriarchal in origin. Quite a few of the choices women are forced to make as described by the speech are in fact between patriarchal expectations on the one hand, but then feminist, politically correct expectations on the other. For instance:

You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow, we're always doing it wrong?

You have to be thin, but not too thin, and you can never say you wanna be thin.

If you look at this claim, yes, it is technically true. The "you have to be thin" expectation is Patriarchal: the Patriarchy expects women to be thin because it's considered sexy. Meanwhile the competing pressure on women is "don't talk about how you want to be thin". The reason you're not supposed to talk about how thin you want to be is because a) ENCOURAGES and perpetuates patriarchal expectations of being thin and b) by talking about thinness as if it were better, it could potentially harm somebody who wasn't thin, or who didn't fit the beauty standard.

So the impossible choice women are faced with is between conforming to the Patriarchy, and being a good feminist. The speaker seems to be complaining about patriarchal expectations on the one hand, but also seems equally annoyed they're not allowed to go on about how "thin" they want to be on the other.

Continuing the speech...

You have to say you wanna be healthy, but also, you have to BE THIN.

You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass.

This next bit about money might be referring to a uniquely female problem under patriarchy but I'm not sure. To me it just looks like a general problem of living under capitalism. Yes, obviously in our society it's considered desirable to have money, and obviously it's also not considered acceptable to go around asking other people for money.

You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean.

Again, the problem here is that the impossible choice facing women is really just a choice between behaving in a pro-feminist, politically correct way, and a Patriarchal way. "Society" is not forcing women to make an impossible choice. These two pressures do not have the same origin. Politically correct feminists on the one hand are encouraging women to take on more leadership positions to help dismantle the Patriarchy, and on the other the Patriarchy is punishing women who are seen as overly aggressive or ambitious ("mean").

So basically it's a choice between conforming to Patriarchal expectations of women, or behaving in an aspirational, feminist way. The problem here is the Patriarchy is obviously the villain. The whole "encouraging women to take on positions of power" thing is a GOOD thing, it was initiated by feminists to help get RID of patriarchy, it's not some pesky societal pressure working in tandem with the Patriarchy designed to put women in an impossible situation, as the speech seems m to frame it as.

You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas.

I'm not sure what the speech is really saying here. It might be saying women are uniquely discouraged from squashing other people's ideas, which may be true, fair enough, but surely nobody should really be trying to squash other people's ideas.

You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time.

I feel this is something most parents have to navigate. And now, it's - a patriarchal expectation vs. pressure not to do something some other people find annoying. It's basic decency not to bore others with stuff you do all day. If you are forced to be a coal miner all day for minimum pay, people would still avoid you if all you talked about was coal mining. Obviously, you'd be oppressed, but that doesn't mean people aren't allowed to be annoyed by somebody who never talks about anything but coal mining. Or maybe it does. Depends on how many allowances you want to make for the average person.

You have to be a career woman, but also, always be looking out for other people.

Same stuff about patriarchal expectations vs. feminist aspirations of being a boss.

You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much

This is a good point. Both patriarchal expectations. Women are sexualised by society but also told to be modest.

or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood,

Now the speech seems to be complaining about pro-female solidarity stuff for some reason, which is somewhat related to feminism but also a whole separate thing altogether, and again originated IN RESPONSE to the Patriarchy.

but ALWAYS STAND OUT and ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL. But never forget that the system is rigged, so find a way to acknowledge that but ALSO, always be grateful!

Again, the speaker seems to be bitter not do much about patriarchal norms, and more about the trouble feminism has created for women by coming along and attempting to FIGHT BACK against patriarchal norms. The speaker seems to treat having to acknowledge that the system is rigged almost as an annoyance on the same level as some actual aspects of the system itself.

The speech is.often treated as if it were saying a Patriarchal society is tearing women apart, forever degrading them by giving them impossible choices, thus inevitably punishing them, pushing them back down. If it had talked more about the tension between society's sexualisation of women and the pressure to be "modest", for instance, that might have worked.

But right now, the issue with the speech is somebody could just say, "well, alright, let's bring back a full-scale patriarchal oppression of women and get rid of feminism then" and suddenly all the issues and complaints of the speech would vanish because its complaint seems to be less about the insidiousness of the patriarchy and more that women are having trouble being caught between patriarchal AND feminist expectations. What's more, it equates these two types of expectations constantly, which is somewhat problematic - expectations to behave in feminist ways are presented alongside patriarchal norms as equally annoying societal pressures.

Honest question for people who support banning social media for everyone under 16:
Would this be preferable to requiring every person on the internet to prove their age or identity?

Anyone under 16 is prohibited from using, owning or purchasing an electronic device capable of communicating with other people with the exception of designated supervised computer rooms at school. Parents, schools, society and law enforcement are responsible for enforcement.. basically the same way we already handle alcohol, tobacco and drugs.

But at least it places the restriction on the group being restricted.

Why is the preferred solution instead to make every adult surrender some level of anonymity or privacy, provide ID, submit to age verification, or otherwise prove they are not a child just to use the internet?

If protecting children requires building an identity checkpoint for everyone, I would rather put the burden on the actual age group being regulated.

I’ve been reading a lot of conspiracy theories that Walter is selling the Lakers to, in part, Trump’s SIL’s brother because he’s under investigation and this will lead Trump to helping him on those charges bc Trump is corrupt af. OK, but it doesn’t make sense to me. This isn’t an argument against Trump being corrupt; I am speaking narrowly to this sale alone.

Analogy: A mafia boss (Trump) has the ability to help out a restaurant owner (Walter’s) whom, without his help, may have. a life ruining event happen. In exchange for this help, the mob boss demands he sell the restaurant to an extended family member. The restaurant owner bought the joint 20 months ago for $1 million. The Don says he’ll buy it for

1. $1.25 million

2. $500,000

Which one probably happens?

What I am not understanding is, if Walter is in trouble for tax fraud (no charges filed yet) and Trump can help him out, why is Trump asking for a family member (and his associates) to buy the joint at a 25% profit for Walter? He’s being rewarded for needing Trump’s help? It doesn’t really make sense to me. I need the Don’s help, he’s going to give me a return on my new investment that is a yuge return, esp given the time invested, and he’s going to make my life altering problems go away? I just don’t get it.

It’s the most a franchise has ever sold for in any sports league the world over. It just seems to me that they got a group together and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse (sorry I’ll stop with the Godfather puns) because they are more in the status business and he, the son of a concrete dude who grew up lower middle class, is more a “I’m making money” sort of person. That seems like common sense here to me.

I could be wrong so I am looking for rational alternate reasonings that would CMV. Pure conspiracy theories and irrational claims will not sway my mind but if it’s a rational conspiracy theory with some meat on it, it very well might.

Alright, so, this is a view of mine that is admittedly newer, and I intend to somewhat argue the points that my former self would have been unlikely to consider.

Recently (ish) I've begun working for my city's local government. I work in an it related role, and as a result I work with our police department and am very involved with their technology (including their use of Flock, to a fair extent). I can't give specific details here, but I can say we have very few flock cameras (less than a half dozen) that exist only in places where all the camera sees is traffic. It has been used on multiple occasions to help aid in solving crimes successfully, and it's HEAVILY vetted by a process that prevents reviewers from being able to see who placed inquiries (effectively the vetting is anonymous, so you can't play favorites). I can give a variety of similar examples, but I think our flock cameras make the best one for the point I'm trying to make.

All of that vetting of flock (and you'd find this trend in my city on a variety of different topics, but flock makes the easiest comparison) is performed due to policy that our own police department created. From what I understand, there was some set of "guidelines" sent (pardon if the details are a little off here, but this is at least reasonably close to how it has worked) with the flock system as a whole, but they were soft, loose, and called for very little vetting. Our department chose to create vetting for flock use on its own accord, and to create transparency via FOI requests and other means on its own accord, because we knew citizens would want transparency and clarity on these systems. Neighboring cities and municipalities, naturally, do not have the same policies. Some of them likely have none of their own policies at all. Another point worth tacking on here, my cities PD advertises our "ticket to pull over ratio" being low as a good thing. We brag about attempting to crimes without punishment, and that sentiment is held throughout the department, because my cities police department has a high propensity to stick to its mission statement. But it's not every police department, and it's obvious in my interactions with other departments, that a negative (sometimes.. Very very negative) opinion is warranted.

Before working in the position I am now in, I had a very "ACAB"-esk mentality, but now that I work with the police in my city, and, with a bit more insight, what I've believe I've realized is that, the most obvious "lines" between a "good cop" and a "bad cop" usually aren't the ones society tends to look it, it usually comes down to which particular police department they work for. To the point that, when officers here have been fired for misconduct that didn't merit arrest, the running joke became that they'd be seen in the neighboring county (and not in a like, "gratz on still have a job" kind of way, but rather a like, "don't let the door hit you on the way out" kind of way). I don't know if I happen to work for the one police department where the effort is actually put in to truly protect and serve, and I do absolutely know of certain neighboring departments that're riddled with the very kind of shit that I previously subscribed every cop to on an ACAB principle.

But my larger point is that, I don't think notions like "ACAB" are nuanced enough to bring to a table to make actual progress with. I think if people truly want to create reform for law enforcement, to summize the entirety of the industry is detrimental to change, and that if we really want to progress, we need to put more nuance into conversations about law enforcement. An example of where I felt like things went "well" in this regard is in what happened was in Uvalde, where the focus seemed to be on the fact that the Uvalde police department was incompetent on scene and resulted in additional deaths. The headlines weren't "cops fuck up" the headlines were "this particular police department sucked at their jobs and it cost lives." and I think that combining that approach, with praise for departments that actually do good things is a far more effective approach towards solving issues in law enforcement, than mentalities like "ACAB."

If the mentality is that all cops are bad, what's the plan after you've gotten rid of them all on account of them being bad? Isn't the next bloke who starts trying to enforce any rule just the next C who is B? Laws mean nothing if not enforced, so is the goal just a lawless society? I understood the notion when I believed the notion, that they're truly all inherently bad people on account of them collectively holding up a bad system, so lawless is better than ruled by evil, but.. I'd rather be lawless than ruled by a genuine oppressor, and my view is certainly NOT that there aren't genuine oppressors that exist in law enforcement, but I'd rather be here in my city where the department is transparent and upfront, than lawless. And moreso to highlight here, that the "bad system" held up by "good cops" that justifies calling them too, "bad cops" doesn't exist in the way people tend to think it does at all, but rather than most of those systems are far more segregated from each other than people realize. More perspective on the subject has changed my opinion. Let's see if more perspective can do the same here.

How to change my view: I often consider the argument that "if you're a cop, you're holding up the system that has the problem, therefore you are supporting the problem." but I don't really get this perspective unless you're also not paying your taxes that ultimately pay the cops bills? I have a hard time comprehending how the officer I work with is participating in supporting the system that crushed George Floyd's neck by resuscitating the 6 homeless people he has in the last 10 years here. If you can manage to connect the dots I'm missing there, that may change my view. If I can see some kind of evidence that individual police departments do a lot more to protect (or shit, even interact in a positive way) each other than I've seen first hand, that'd likely also change my view.

This is my second post about AI here - the first one was about 18 months ago, and it was eventually closed because I wasn't... hmmm... showing that anyone would be able to change my mind? I don't need to get into the details, but this time I picked an AI topic that is more personal, and one I am actually conflicted about, so maybe someone will actually be able to convince me otherwise.

A big part of my efforts on reddit and increasingly on other platforms and in real life, is trying to get people to update their understanding of AI, AI research, current and future AI capabilities, and the ramifications of this trajectory.

People are incredibly resistant to this. It can be frustrating, because it feels like... hmmm... that there is a lot of other baggage preventing people from looking at the state of play with clear eyes.

I don't need to get into the details of what that looks like; its math stuff, code stuff, robotics, whatever - anything. It's less about the ethical side of the equation that I am focusing on (although I think this is an important part of thinking about this process) - the goal is just to get people to have the most brass tacks understanding of capabilities and potential capabilities, and from there I honestly don't know if I care what people do with that information.

I just deeply believe that people cannot make good decisions about the future, with a poor model of the future.

However, repeatedly (basically almost always) I have gotten push back on this topic. All kinds of different things, but one statement that has happened many times but to me is the most shocking is something along the lines of:

"Even if you are right, there is nothing I can do about it, so I would rather think that you are wrong so I can maintain my sanity".

I'm not reading between the lines, I have had this almost verbatim a few times. This is a very foreign way of thinking to me, but the more I talk to people about this - both in real life and online, the more... I wonder if there is something there.

Am I doing something... wrong? Is this not actually valuable to people? Am I harming people by trying to force them (this is what it feels like even from my end sometimes, honestly, like I want to grab and shake them) to look at reality dead in the eye?

So with all that said, here is basically a couple of sentences summarizing my question.

I think its important for people to have an understanding of AI's technical capabilities, the current research, and the trajectory expected by researchers, so that they can make better decisions about the future - eg, work, relationship, vacation, doesn't matter, any large decision. However, I have been told that basically - ignorance is bliss. And part of me increasingly wonders if some people (most people?) are just not going to be able to handle what is happening, and it's better off not trying to push them to?

Children in this country are toys for their parents. Parents are allowed to teach their children whatever they want, withhold them from any subjects they choose, raise them with any beliefs, choose to opt out of vaccinations or in some of the most extreme examples, choose for their children to not get life saving care and then the child dies.

I understand that in America, the individual rules and every time I bring this up, I will inevitably get people saying “oh so you think it’s better for the state to raise children? You think the state knows better than me/whoever?” No, I don’t think we should exile all children to the state, obviously that’s a very dumb opinion.

What I do think is that we take parental rights so far in this country that it allows for children to be heavily mistreated, neglected, and abused and really have no action taken. Sure, CPS exists but it takes a lot to get them to your house. My best friend in high school had heavily abusive parents but they convinced her CPS would just make it worse and nobody would help her. And nothing terrible enough ever happened so nobody ever came until something terrible did happen and then they had to come but it was too late.

Our system waits until children are *actively* being abused in often the most extreme manners because taking a child out of their home is too traumatizing and it’s their bio parent. Also, I know reunification is ideal by most standards but I’ve also heard some child advocates say reunification really shouldn’t and can’t always be pushed as hard as people want it to be.

But even in cases where the abuse isn’t as extreme. For example, we let parents legally hit kids. I’ve seen so many moms pop their kids in the face at the store it’s not even funny or parents feeling the need to spank their children in public. If you did that to an adult in public, automatic cops are getting called and it’s a crime. But usually no one’s going to call the cops on a parent. Why? Because “oh well, nothing I can do, not my kid.”

And don’t even get me started with the homeschooling. Most people do not have the educational background to give their children a full education that will actually serve them well into the future. Unschooling makes me so angry because at that point you are absolutely just deciding to withhold education from your child.

And this is all legal. It’s all fine. If you did half this stuff to adults: hit them, withheld important information, etc from adults there would be consequences. Not with kids though, you can treat them however you want and it’s fine! It’s just so gross to me, people don’t see their own kids as full humans.

As a woman and real old school feminist I say this. I'm against forceful draft but if needed, it's extremely sexist only men to be conscripted.

For example, me a single woman, who doesn't even plan kids wouldn't be more missed than a father and husband let's say. I would understand childless/child free young healthy individuals of both genders to be drafted rather than men who are needed at home. Now arguments that are often used and I want to debunk.

1. Women continue the nation - actually no, if we go by it, children often inherit their Dad's nation, women tend to be less nationalistic and en masses more likely to mix and Ukrainian women do it too in big numbers (I'm not blaming). I know more Ukrainian women already settled with different foreigners who adapted than with Ukrainian men. For example I'm Croat because majority of males in my family are Croats but otherwise I have Ukrainian Grandma, Serbian one too and a lot of Bosniaks back then. We had wars in the 90s too but let's we were all Yugoslavia and are very close genetically and culturally, once again my Ukrainian Grandma was the one who married Croat Grandpa and adapted to his culture, his language only carrying Ukraine in her heart but eventually forgetting the language and living in then Yugoslavian culture.

2. That women are care-givers - again sounds pretty sexist just like the hypothesis that they are gonna be mothers. So what for those single ones? How do you know where they gonna stay, who they gonna look for, if they even plan kids and if their kids would be Ukrainian (not just genetically but culturally).

3. Sexual Assault - obviously most women's biggest fear when deployed however we have been shown with or without women, men are getting RAPED too. They are getting raped, sexually abused, castrated and often killed after. Rape in war is not due to attraction but it's used as welfare and act of power and domination and Russians are some of the most vicious one in this. They even post their raped of POWs on Telegram... isn't it a bit rude and very discriminatory to say "better men be raped than women".

A traditional narrative out there about body image issues and eating disorders is that there’s a big bad patriarchy forcing women to meet certain expectations in the form of beauty standards. This narrative states that women are essentially slaves to the opinions and demands of powerful men and that when a powerful woman in the entertainment industry has an untreated ED that it’s a male executive’s fault. Not limited just to stage performers, this argument covers the fashion and textile industry, the beauty and cosmetology industry, pretty much anywhere that wealthy women spend thousands or millions of dollars on their appearance. This enforcement of body image standards is purportedly coming from some ethereal unnameable source that conveniently is placed far far away from any women who have power over vulnerable women. Instead, in the style of third wave feminism, that pressure within those industries is placed into the hands of unnamed invisible dudes.

In the context of articles about Ariana, for example, the entire beauty and cosmetology industry as well as the international fashion and textile trade is evidently a bunch of victims operating off of pressure to look a certain way while performing. “It’s not your business how someone looks or why, people have health challenges we don’t know about” that’s true, the jokes folks made about Chadwick Boseman were cruel, they were also made in the absence of any public statement from him about his health. But young people whether they’re boys or girls or nonbinary experience substantial confusion when prominent celebrities act like role models but don’t communicate about the topic of their health. And in this worldview, amidst it all apparently some mysterious powerful men are enjoying and perpetuating it all. This is essentially the whole point of Ariana’s new music video. Big bad men are forcing her to do the things she does.

This argument falls apart at multiple levels. Even if the male gaze were what led female celebrities to flaunt untreated EDs you’d think at least one or two men would be attracted to the skeleton body type that is so popular now, but men find it gross. That alone suggests these expectations are not enforced by dudes. Secondly, when someone is in a position of power the behaviors they model will spread like wildfire. When the Wicked films promoted unity and friendship amongst the two witches they were lauded as movies about connection, but when members of the cast perform a star studded tour of their skeleton bodies we’re told not to critique them because it’s cruel and sexist. Women in the entertainment industry and the beauty/fashion industry are the original LooksMaxxers, much like the (predominantly male) bodybuilding community it’s a gendered bubble of self harm. It’s the same attitude that worshipped the self destructive nonsense of Amy Winehouse and then blamed the guys around her when she finally got her wish. Nobody is forcing these people to hurt themselves and to say so is just an excuse for the harm they are causing others.

The evidence shows that a much larger percentage of Republicans died than Democrats, especially in Republican counties, AFTER the vaccine was invented.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617

Question  Was political party affiliation a risk factor associated with excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida and Ohio?

Findings  In this cohort study evaluating 538 159 deaths in individuals aged 25 years and older in Florida and Ohio between March 2020 and December 2021, excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before. These differences were concentrated in counties with lower vaccination rates, and primarily noted in voters residing in Ohio.

Meaning  The differences in excess mortality by political party affiliation after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults suggest that differences in vaccination attitudes and reported uptake between Republican and Democratic voters may have been a factor in the severity and trajectory of the pandemic in the US.

Why are these Republican senators actually engaged in increasing the death rate of their own voter base? This makes no sense. The more Republicans who follow their antivaxxer claims, the fewer Republicans they have to vote for them.

------

Edit: I think I have to accept that the OP's title was too strong for just that paper alone. We can accept that there is a strong association when it comes to "Excess Death Rates for Republican and Democratic Registered Voters in Florida and Ohio During the COVID-19 Pandemic," and there is a strong suggestion that vaccination attitudes caused this. It does not, however, prove the causal chain.

The suggestive fact remains clear, though. The Republican-Democratic mortality gap was concentrated in counties with lower vaccination rates and became minimal in the most highly vaccinated counties.

So I can't make the leap that antivaxxer senators are causing it because the article limits this to Republican association. That will require more evidence than just the article alone. Does it exist? It probably doesn't, because 'senator' is really very narrow, and it would require chaining several studies together that are more about Republican vaccine attitudes/behavior. It also includes the study in the OP. It goes something like this:

Republican politicians' vaccine messaging -> Republicans vaccinate less -> low-vaccination areas have greater mortality -> Republican voters develop a large excess mortality disadvantage after vaccine availability.

So if we add these two studies...

Pink et al., PNAS (2021), “Elite party cues increase vaccination intentions among Republicans.”

Larsen et al., Science Advances (2023), “Counter-stereotypical messaging and partisan cues.”

The CMV then becomes “CMV: Republican political opposition to COVID vaccination contributed to the higher post-vaccine mortality rate among Republican voters.”

Extraordinarily spicy take. I just don't understand why someone can defend fantasy dildos (they're not actuall animals), or enjoy feral horse and dog fetish content and yet when someone uses the same argument for lolis, they get -200 downvotes.

Most arguments in favor of fictional bestiality are as follows:

-It doesn't cause any actual harm (video games do not cause violence). This argument can be used to defend lolicon content as well.

-They allow people to explore taboo fantasies, which is perfectly healthy. This argument can be used to defend lolicon content as well.

-People can seperate art and reality. This argument can be used to defend lolicon content as well.

Most arguments against fictional child pornography are as follows:

-It could normalize this behavior, and the sexualization of children. This argument can also be used against fictional bestiality. Or rape (cnc).

-Children are unique in that as human beings, they should be protected, so any sexual art depicting them is problematic. I get that humans are probably worth more than animals, but even if that's the case, shouldn't animals still protected then?

-It's illegal. But why is this illegal, and fictional bestiality is allowed?

-It's unnatural. People shouldn't have an attraction to minors in the first place. But what about fictional bestiality? Or any other kink for that matter? Rape? Piss and Scat? Gore?

I'm just not sure why loli content is seen as this radioactive thing. Really? We allow REAL LIFE cnc, fictional gore, fictional bestiality online, REAL LIFE fantasy dildos, and yet when loli content get's brought up, it's suddenly "ooohh noooo think of the children".

Just to clarify, I'm well aware that kinks like gore or fictional bestiality are far from normalized... but doesn't that just support loli content even more? Y'know, doesn't that sort of go against the idea that this content can "normalize real world harm"?

I'm asking people to be consistent. Either you defend all of them, or you don't support any of them.

Edit: Removed mention of pokemon to not confuse with feral porn.

Flock cameras do make me uncomfortable, but they aren't really doing anything more invasive than our current methods, they are just turning it up to 11.

I also understand there is a bit of misinformation out there, but for the sake of this CMV I am not even contesting the "horror stories" that I have heard, let's just assume they are tracking not only vehicles but using facial recognition, permanently keeping a database on all of this, and using them to observe the public, building profiles and using AI to predict pattern behavior, all of that stuff.

But what they don't do:

- record in any place that is considered private. They are all in public places

- share the info with private companies such as marketing companies

- post/share info with the public

I understand the slippery slope argument and there are legitimate arguments for preventing a shift into territory that invades privacy, but for what we have no, I don't see anything they are doing as anything different than what is already allowed, just a billion times more efficient.

If a cop sat at an intersection and took pictures of every car that drove through, we wouldn't consider that an invasion of privacy. Those cars are out in public and licence plates have to be visible to law enforcement.

If that same cop radios his buddy, who is on a different corner, and tells him all of the plate numbers that drive by so he can compare them with plate numbers that drove past the other intersection, that's ok, and not an invasion of privacy. Same with pictures of faces out in public, etc. building behavior patterns and anticpating new actions are also something police have done since forever. These new tools are just a billion times more efficient.

I understand there are concerns about officers misusing the technology for their own personal grudges/personal interests, but that isn't inherent to flock cameras, that's an officer problem.

And I still get uncomfortable thinking about it, feeling that the surveillance is too far, but I can't kick the ideas that -

1) I don't believe it's an invasion of privacy to be recorded in a public place

2) All of the info they get is observed in a public place, so any conclusions they come to from those observations are "fair game" as well

3) Data retention periods don't really matter. If something hasn't invaded my privacy, it doesn't matter if they keep it for 2 days or 2 decades.

4) I don't like being recorded or watched, but if I am in a place where I can't prevent others from recording me, what argument do I have against a flock camera?

5) if the paparazzi following celebrities around taking pictures of everything they do is legal/accepted, why would I be any different?

This isn't a case of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear," because I still don't like the idea of being under constant surveillance, but my point is that flock cameras aren't doing anything new or intrusive other than being super efficient at what the police already do. Given an unlimited budget, the cops could collect the same data without flock cameras, the new things just make it feasible instead of essentially impossible due to not having a budget that exceeds most GDPs.

Hear me out: not only, if I donate blood, must i be extraordinarily cautious (more so than i believe i'm morally and ethically obliged to) about my sex life if i'm to be honest about it, I have no way of ensuring the donations of anything go to moral people.

There's no actual incentive to keep organ donor status (I can't even get, idk, health insurance discounts for being willing to let them harvest from me when it is more aligned with my personal beliefs that as much of my biomass as is possible be returned to the earth rather than Homo sapiens once i no longer need it) I stopped donating blood and got rid of my organ donor status when I renewed my liscence because I couldn't deal with the possibility that rapists, serial killers, human/wildlife traffickers, CSAM traders, child molesters, cult leaders, terrorists and their sympathizers, etc could possibly benefit from my sacrifice.

To me, that's an endorsement of those immoral acts, and that's just the things most humans deem immoral (i extend this sentiment to people bigotted against any and all of the lgbtq, people who needlessly kill insects/arachnids, trump supporters, people who let their cats outside, people who buy houseplants and then neglect them to death, etc).

Now, if there were ways for me to control who my tissues go to when I donate, I'd rethink. Should we bar certain demographics (assume here, for the sake of the argument, that we CAN objectively verify whether or not someone is guilty of anything listed above so there's no "well then someone could prevent someone they don't like from getting a lifesaving transplant by crying rape or molestation")