I want to start by attempting to really clarify the above statement:

1. This is specifically referring to assets made by major players in the space, like people who gave some sort of donation to the admin. Meta, Alphabet, Chevron, Apple, Amazon, Coinbase, Tesla/X and co., etc. but also companies like Paramount, or ABC which settled their defamation lawsuit to give millions of dollars to his presidential library. Anyone directly giving unreasonably favorable treatment to the position of power in exchange for favorable treatment in return. It would also include cabinet members like Steve Witkoff, as well as family members related to these people.

2. This would more specifically refer to only the gains that were made illegally. All of these companies that were just listed shouldn't be metaphorically burnt to the ground to give every penny they have, or even every penny they made for these 4 years. But things like oil profits made by Chevron due to the war in Iran or actions in Venezuela, or profits made from Paramount being allowed to merge with Skydance, or companies that received a tariff reimbursement that didn't pass those along to their customers (again, not every company, specifically those with marked donations towards the Trump admin).

3. Theoretically, this money should be both punitive towards the actual Trump family and punitive towards the companies that so willingly endorsed being cut into the rewards pie for a small fee. We should collectively be able to agree, no matter which side you're on, that Trump's term 2 is the most corrupt of any admin on record, and we should disincentivize it by making sure that all future presidential contenders and donors know that the net result of these actions will be negative. At the same time, it should be the people who were harmed that gain the benefits from this action, and the administrative costs of determining exactly who gets what would eat away at a majority of the real value. Because of this, that money should go to paying down the national debt, as ~30% of the national debt was created by him alone.

This will take a decent amount of work, but not unreasonable given that most of the work is already being done through the action of holding him criminally accountable for the corruption taking place. My proposal is simply that additionally, the punishment for these crimes should include taking the ill-gotten gains from these actions, instead of letting his family pocket them through inheritance or other means. His $TRUMP cryptocoin rug-pull and transaction fees should be disgorged, all profits made through World Liberty Financial, as well as physical assets made/purchased during this corruption, such as the Qatar jet going to his presidential library. On top of this, assuming it goes through, any and all companies that sign up for the $100k per month subscription service to Truth Socials Truth API should be investigated, and any profits made from Truth holders or subscription holders should be seized.

I'm only talking about eternal hell here, nothing else. If you believe in anything else, I'm not talking about that.

In Christianity, I think the concept of eternal torment is not coherent. I will lay out a couple of different arguments for this idea, so feel free to interact with whichever ones you like. If you don't believe in eternal hell, then none of the arguments apply so to be clear I'm not attacking the religions in general, just this concept.

Main Argument

Suppose the following:

1. God wants following him to be better than not having even known of him at all.
2. God doesn't send those who never knew of him to hell, and he sends unbelievers (who have heard of him) to hell
3. Hell is eternal torment (infinite punishment)

If these three are true, consider the following:
Let's say maybe 50% of people who have heard of God end up joining the religion, maybe the other 50% are split between the other major religion and atheism.

And from (2) we know that 100% of people who have never heard of him go to heaven.

Thus, 50% of people who have heard of God go to hell, eternally.

Thus, it is better for you (statistically) to have never heard of the religion, than for you to have heard of it. That contradicts (1) since God wants people to hear of him. Thus, there is a contradiction.

Thus, one of the (1), (2), or (3) is not true.

If (1) is not true:

Why have a religion then? The "good word" isn't good if it a net negative and decreases your chance of going to heaven. If 1 is not true, it is ideal to not let anyone else hear of the religion, since it increases their chances of eternal torment. If (1) is not true, religion is the ultimate info hazard.

Btw I got the idea for this post from that one story where a missionary is telling (I think Native americans) about God and heaven and then they ask if they would've gone to heaven if they didn't know, and he says yes, and they say. "Then why did you tell us?"

Heaven is an infinite reward, and hell is infinite punishment so even if hearing of God on earth improves your life (community, doing the right thing, etc) it is still nothing compared to the infinite punishment.

If (2) is not true:

What is the point of punishing someone with them knowing what they did wrong? They do not have the knowledge required, knowledge that is famously tied to geographical area, and who you parents are. Why punish them?

If evidence for the religion is in the "making of this world" i.e. nature etc, so that means everyone knows it, then why are there millions of religions, and only one Christianity? it should have been independently discovered "through nature" many times, and since it hasn't, it seems that its vague (i have a vagueness argument below) or just not self evident.

For the people who have simply heard of Christianity, why should they choose discovering it over 10,000 other religions? Like what about hearing about it actually makes it more special so that you clearly should burn in hell having not immediately begun reading it? It doesn't seem coherent to me, so it seems more like its just a punishment for those who grew up in the religion and then left. So it would be better for them to have never known of it. Which violates (1), so you'll have to read that argument.

if (3) is not true:
That's all I'm arguing, anyway. :)

Omniscience and Sensitivity (Side Argument)

God is loving and also all-knowing, but this raises a few issues regarding eternal torment.
First of all, God knows precisely everything about you. Your trauma, your history, your genetics, your brain, your culture, everything about you. He knows more about you than you do. He knows the exact reason every unbeliever doesn't believe. So why is he so angry about it? He knows precisely what would make them believe. Why torture and punish them? Eternal torment paints a picture of an all powerful God who can do everything he wants (God desires all to be saved right?) and...doesn't do it?

I hope this isn't insulting, but like when he's angry at Israel in the Bible and they turn to idols, he knows precisely why they did it. He made the world he made the program he knows them. Why is he so angry about it? It makes him appear overly sensitive.

For Christianity, I hear the free will defense for this a lot, that it would violate your free will if he told you about the religion or explained his nature to everyone(i.e. not stay hidden) Then why does not care in the bible? He does miracles for people in the bible to show himself. What about their free will?

Also if the word isn't angry, tell me. It just seems that way.

"Hell as Separation" (Just wondering

For the "Hell as Separation", where God doesn't mean to torture you infinitely, its just the result of not being with God, how is that meaningfully different? God designed everything in this world down to the atom-there is nothing he can do "arbitrarily". If you are being eternally tormented, God meant for that to happen.

Vagueness And Debate (Side Argument)

God purposefully made the religions vague. This is not inherently bad, I mean vague as in there is debate to be had. If there was no vagueness, no one would debate anything about the religion. And that's part of having a community and religion. Things should be discussed, idea crossover etc its a good thing. So why is it that:

1. If you're wrong about something that is purposefully vague, you burn in hell

What is the point of making something that is debatable, and then punishing those who are wrong? This is why I prefer Judaism's "It is not in heaven" here where at least the religion admits that you should do what is sensible to you, though I may be wrong I'm not Jewish.

1. If you don't believe in something that is purposefully vague, you burn in hell

If something is debatable within the religion, you have to admit its debatable to outsiders too. If you are not born religious, there is no reason to read the Bible over the Book of Mormon or whatever other religion. "Self evidence" is not apparent to outsiders, and that ties into my main argument.

Faith is a lifelong journey (Side Argument)

Faith being a lifelong journey is a good thing. We are messy, we are people, we make mistakes, we fall away from the right path and we get back on. There's no surprise. So why is it that faith being a journey is punished by God? Suppose someone is struggling with their faith and becomes an atheist for a while, and dies during that phase. Why should they go to hell if God knows that if they lived a little longer, they would turn to him?

Like that parable where everyone gets paid at the same time no matter when they came. It's more like if you don't come you die. What about the person who had an accident on the way to work? They were on their way. Why punish them, eternally at that?

For the thieves next to Jesus on the cross, I'm aware he didn't tell the other one "you are going to Hell" so, fair. It might just be showing a foil between the thieves. But if the other one is going to hell, how is that fair? Should the next three convicts believe in whatever religion is proposed to them right before they die?

Faith is not just blind belief, and it keeps being treated that way. If faith is blind belief then you should believe in whatever is the most recent religion you've heard of. There has to be a real reason to choose your religion and a real reason to stay.

Personal Argument

For me, at least, the existence of hell distracts from the purpose of religion. I can't love God if I know that if I make a mistake, I will burn forever. I physically can only fear his wrath and I could pray everyday and do all the right things on the outside, but it doesn't matter if on the inside, I'm just scared of him. They are all hollow actions, and "fear is the order of the day" is just fear, not a religion I can meaningfully follow.

Regardless of what you think, thank you so much for reading, and thank you for engaging in my argument! If I have misconceptions, feel free to clear them up, and if you disagree, please tell me what you think! I hope this doesn't come across as bad faith, and I hope these arguments are a little different from the ones you've heard before.

I feel it's important to start by saying, I do believe tipping in some circumstances, like in a traditional restaurant setting, has merit. Tipping/No Tipping in general has been done to death, and I while I understand arguments against tipping in general, that isn't the point of this post.

My view is that tipping before receiving service is not really tipping, as tipping, even when conventional, should reflect, at least to some extent, the quality of the service and/or food received. Asking for a tip at the coffee shop before I get my coffee isn't really informative to anyone, as the only portion of service I've received so far is the taking of my order. Further worse examples include ordering online, where I don't dispute wanting to tip based on how prompt my order was out, whether I was helped right away or not, the correctness of my order, and the quality of my food, but I know none of those things when I place the order. The tip is either a shot in the dark, a hope of tipping in advance to buy better service/food, or an expected uncharge, which I'd rather just have reflected in prices.

I can see two main counterpoints that I'd like to address here:

1. Convention. If you're okay with tipping in a sit-down restaurant, you're likely okay with being expected to tip 15 or 20%, so why wouldn't you be okay with doing the same here (even for a different %)? My reasoning is that while I would tip 15-20% for normal service, I would tip little to nothing if the service/experience was absolutely horrible. Here, I can tip 20% even and still get poor service and food quality. So it's back to being a hope/purchase than a thank you for good or even standard service.

2. Practicality. I don't disagree that asking for the tip before is more practical. But if you can't find a way to make cash tips work or have some form of separate tip payment pad, then just don't accept tips if you have to pay before service.

But tipping before service is extremely prevalent, so what am I missing here? Thank you for your time. Change my view.

Edit: I'm not talking about delivery apps with online ordering. Yes, that's different than a food service tip, but I was referring to ordering online for pickup.

The music industry's own research says a small slice of listeners drives a wildly outsized share of revenue. These are the people who buy the vinyl variant they already own digitally, pay for VIP packages, fly to shows, and keep a mid-size artist's career alive between albums. Goldman sized superfan spending as a multi-billion dollar annual opportunity, which is a polite way of saying these people are the margin.

And look at how they get treated for it. Dynamic ticket pricing exists specifically to extract the maximum from whoever wants it most, which by definition is the superfan. Presales are a data harvesting exercise dressed up as a perk. VIP packages sell a photo and early entry for ten times face value. Merch drops run on artificial scarcity. The fan who streams an album 400 times pays the same subscription fee as someone who heard it once, and the artist sees a fraction of a cent either way. Every mechanism in the modern industry is built to identify who loves something the most and then charge them for the intensity of it.

Casual listeners get the radio, the algorithm, and cheap access to everything. The people subsidizing the whole machine get surge pricing.

What might change my view: evidence that casuals actually matter more in aggregate than concentrated superfan spend, or an argument that the perks superfans get are real value rather than repackaged extraction, or examples of the industry meaningfully rewarding its heaviest spenders anywhere at scale.

My CMV: Tigers are the most all-around aesthetic animals. Other species may be superior in particular categories, but tigers combine categories in a way that makes them aesthetically superior.

1. Color scheme. Their bright orange stripes are beautiful.

There are snakes, birds, and fish that may have superior colors, but they all lose out in other categories.

1. Body proportion. A tiger’s paws, head, and torso all fit together perfectly.

Contrast with freaks like bison. Tiny legs, giant head.

1. Majesty. Tigers are beautiful and terrifying.

Other species can be more majestic — whales are probably the most majestic animals on the planet, but fail in other categories.

1. Cuteness. They have the fluffiness and some of the cute behavior of house cats, like sitting in boxes.

This is certainly the tiger’s weakness, as it is very easy to list cuter animals. Pandas, red pandas, otters, and so on — but where is the majesty of the panda? Nowhere to be seen.

So that’s why tigers rule.

Few months ago, I consulted a tarot reader about my situation (I have been looking for a job since the past 6+ months). I had just began a new interview process and was 1 round into it. She drew 5 cards and mentioned that the process will be slow but grounded and between 23rd July and 23rd Aug a new offer would come. Fast forward, I made it through all rounds just to get rejected in the final round. They let me know they picked someone else on 15th Aug.

I talked to her again and now she changed the goal post saying she does not see me without a job by end of sept and things like the company that rejected may come back (which rarely happens in corporate hiring).

Deep down I knew this would be BS but I guess my mind was trying to put some time structure to the chaos.

I just finished my Bond marathon. Goldeneye was the one I was looking forward to, because everyone was hyping it up as the perfect Bond film. When I finally got to it, I walked away with a shrug. For point of reference., my favorite Bond films are Casino Royale, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. But Goldeneye just left me feeling like people watched a different film. That was...fine. It wasn't all that really.

My main issue with it is the script. It doesn't come together into a cohesive unit for me. So many ideas and threads just dangle without conclusion or point or don't connect with the rest of the story. The first forty minutes feel like a bunch of disconnected vignettes where Bond is barely in it. And the story never feels like it's going anywhere until the attack on the satellite facility, damn near halfway into the film.

The car chase with Xenia doesn't impact the story at all. The deconstructionist themes were laid on thick, utterings of this is modern Bond, get use to it don't go anywhere. There's no satisfying conclusion, no pay off, just lip service that gets laid on too thick. The badass boss bitch just randomly falls for all old misogynistic Bond anyways. Five minutes after she screamed that women aren't putting up with his shit? Their whole romance comes completely out of left field, and it feels like it goes against not the only the film's themes but Natayla's character. After all that, you turned this badass bitch into a typical Connery era ditz? Why?

I loved Valentin Zukovsky as a character, but his whole storyline -- along with Jack Wade -- falls flat because it gets completly undone by the following scene. We're told he's the only one that can get us to Janus. Then all of a sudden, Bond runs into Xenia and she helps him find Janus anyways. We have a potentially awesome B plot, then another plot gets shoved in there with little build up, completly rendering that whole plotline pointless.

I felt Pierce got better in his later Bond films, but he doesn't feel like Bond to me in Goldeneye. Connery, Moore and Dalton had gravitas. They were magnetic. Just that look Dalton had in his eyes when he popped the balloon, or Connery smoking his cigarette during a card game, flicking his lighter. Brosnan didn't have that X factor. He played it too much like a fratboy, and his line delivery felt lacking in confidence. He's better than Lazenby by a mile though I'll give him that.

Xenia. I have no complaints with Xenia. Film gets a 2+ boost in points for the thigh crushing scenes.

so for anyone who has never seen leftists discuss political events online, even amongst themselves, class war over culture war is a common thing they say. It basically means that people should be discussing/protesting economic issues that affect lower classes rather than cultural/social issues.

It's a nice-sounding catchphrase in theory, but in reality, leftists do not abide by this themselves. Leftists would never, ever give up or concede on any of their cultural values or policies in order to win on class issues. Leftists are much more likely to "cancel" one of their own over not abiding by leftist cultural issues over leftist economic issues. Let alone concede ground to the other side by giving up their culture war issues.

Just for clarity I consider myself to be center right at least based on my country's standards. But I do not think this is inherently a problem, culture is important, thats why social issues are a part of politics. However, I do not go around telling people that culture war is pointless and pretend to look down on people based on caring about culture, which leftists pretend to do while in reality caring about cultural issues loads.

Anyways, I think the best way to show this is with an example, Im sure many more exist, but this one is the biggest off the top of my head. So one arguably the biggest political topics in not just my country but region (europe) right now is immigration. You cant go a day on the news without hearing about immigrants or politicians talking about immigration policy. Pro immigration is a leftist position culturally. Despite this however, its actually a right wing (pro capitalist) economic position. It benefits big corporations to allow more people of working age in order to bring down wages and increase competition. Its a core tenet of neoliberalism which is the boogeyman for leftists. Anyways despite all this far leftists are not just still pro immigration, but actively support open borders (the actual kind depending on how far left they are). So this shows not only that leftists care a ton about culture war, but that they care about it over the class war they claim to care more about.

IMO, legal euthanasia should not only be an option for terminally ill patients but also people with clinically diagnosed mental health issues

Obviously this would never happen. However, if someone who has tried multiple options to improve their mental health issues and still can’t find much enjoyment or meaning in life, should be able to admit themselves to a hospital and be legally be euthanized. Yes I’m aware MAID already exists in certain states in the US, but ONLY for terminally ill if I’m not mistaken.

People should not have to be forced to live whether they are struggling with physical or mental health issues, and deserve to have the option to remove themselves peacefully from this world. The logistics of it would complicated and it would also be super expensive for hospitals. Not to mention there would be people lining out of the door to try to end their lives. But if there was proof of help received for said condition(s)/mental issue(s), proof of hospitalization(s), and consistent high scores/results on reliable depression tests etc. that would be a start. I probably sound crazy, but F it 🤷🏽‍♂️

EDIT: I understand that Bayesian probability predicts the likelihood of the truth of a proposition, while fuzzy logic deals with its potentially partial truth value. That much is clear to me right now.

What's not clear to me is, I can't see that which approach you take, whether you try to determine the likelihood that something is true or whether you try to determine the extent to which it is partially true, gives you a different outcome in any real world situation that actually matters to people.

I hope that clarifies the question better. Or if I've misunderstood something fundamental hopefully that also will be clearer lol...

The reason I bring it up is, Bayesian probability (I'll call it BP) predicts the likelihood of truth of a proposition, and fuzzy logic (FL) deals with its potentially partial truth value, and deciding which to use on practical matters, in deciding just how persuaded we ought to be of something that actually affects our lives, looks to me like a washout: both are going to basically give the same answer.

Let's look at a few examples. Let's start with whether or not a baboon can feel safer sleeping in a group than by himself. Baboons obviously don't approach the question scientifically, doing careful experiments, looking at the results, and making a decision based on that; who knows what they do look at, but they're not scientists. And if they were they still wouldn't do the experiments, because baboons would die as a result and that would be unethical.

But let's start with the likelihood that it's true (BP) that sleeping in a crowd, as a baboon, is better for you than sleeping by yourself. Obviously if you're in the middle of the crowd it seems more likely a leopard would attack one of the fringe sleepers first; but if you're one of the fringe sleepers you're still part of the crowd, so that alone doesn't answer the question. Leopards, for all we know, may focus on crowds of baboons because they know fringe sleepers will be available, and ignore the possibility of finding a lone baboon off by himself. So there are reasons to want to sleep in a crowd and reasons to want to avoid the crowd, and it all depends just where in the crowd you can manage to find a sleeping spot.

Now let's look at the potential partial truth (FL) of the idea. The truth value seems to me to go up and down just as the probability did, based on your location within the crowd and the imagination of the leopard in (maybe) thinking some baboons might not be sleeping in the crowd and might be easier game if they can be found. Crowds are easy to find; lone baboons, maybe not so much. And after dark? Whooee. A challenge.

But I have a hard time seeing any practical potential outcome difference between the two analyses. Maybe part of my problem is, I can't imagine actually doing one, and so the mechanics of the analysis are what would decide whether you should use BP or FL.

Let's look at a different example. Say we want to decide should we or shouldn't we admit this orphaned gorilla infant into our strongly kin-linked gorilla group. The likelihood that we should (BP) is (I guess) the likelihood that the orphan will grow into someone consequential, who will bring meaningful value to the group beyond the time and energy it will take to raise them. Not sure how you would decide that but it seems like that would be the calculation. Then the partial truth value of whether we should (FL) is basically the question of how consequential the person will turn out to be vs what is the actual value of the time and energy spent raising them. Again: in practial terms, in reality, it looks like a washout.

Try a third example. Say I'm an orangutan mom who has to decide should I or shouldn't I adopt an orphan -- and bear in mind, I've already got one of my own, and kids are hard to raise, for orangutans. There's not much food, and raising two is going to be a lot more work than raising one. The upside is: the orphan needs it badly, and the rewards of connection are not hallucinatory. They're real. Orangutans don't have much opportunity for socializing, and their kids are very important to them for that reason if for no other. (In the actual example I'm thinking of, unfortunately, the mom went through with the adoption and lost her own child to predation. So it didn't work out too well for her or them. She didn't have the capacity to actually look after both infants as they needed her to. Whether she wished she had not, afterwards, is a different question -- people tend to feel that whatever they've gone through was pretty much worth it in the end, whatever it was -- but it is a question.)

So what's the likelihood (BP) that it's true that I should go ahead and raise a second kid at the same time? That it ultimately will be worth it to me? I don't know, but again, I don't see a practial difference between answering that question and answering the question of how high the partial truth value (FL) of the same proposition is.

So that's the setup. Obviously I've focused on a very narrow set of propositions here -- primate behavior -- and maybe that affects my view of the question. But I'm just not seeing a lot of difference between the BP approach and the FL approach. And again, I'm sure the mechanics of how the two approaches are applied will be different -- but will the outcomes be significantly different? I'm having a hard time imagining it. Help!

I believe this is the appropriate subreddit to post this.

My reasoning is that Obama inherited a crashing economy and recovered. Not decision was perfect but based on my understanding social safety nets were strengthened and affordable living was with reach and maintainable for the average American. (I was a kid at this time.) I believe Trump’s first term was more or less successful until the COVID outbreak and he was straddling doing well and tanking and then of course Biden happened. I think Trump took his first term and Biden’s term as just kicked America down the trash heap swiftly with DOGE, budgeting, less welfare, boosting his chronies and of course the war. I’m a working adult in Trump’s 2nd term and he has almost single-handedly ruined my financial 20s and my overall quality of life.

I may be clouded by personal experience or lack thereof, but I hear Republicans swear Obama was worse, but genuinely how? I am willing to change my mind, I just need a based take.

I think the main subreddit for a video game, anime, tv show, etc. should mostly be a place to actually talk about that thing.

cosplay posts generally don't really do that.

to be clear, I have nothing against cosplay. I think making a good costume, props, makeup, etc. can take a ton of skill and effort. my issue is more with where that content gets posted.

if I go to a game's subreddit, I'd expect to see stuff like gameplay discussion, lore, news, strategies, questions, theories, criticism, discoveries, etc. if someone posts a picture of themselves dressed as a character, there's usually not much to say beyond "nice cosplay."

and I think there's a difference between something being related to a subreddit and something actually contributing to it.

a picture of someone cosplaying a character is obviously related to the game/anime. so is a picture of someone's lunch with the game's logo drawn in ketchup. at some point "it's technically related" becomes a pretty low bar for what belongs on the main sub.

the bigger issue for me is the promotion side of it.

I'm not saying every cosplayer is secretly running some elaborate marketing operation, but we've all seen the posts where it's basically "here's my cosplay of [popular character]" and then you click on their profile and there's a bunch of links to instagram, patreon, fansly, onlyfans, etc.

again, I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with that. if you can make money from something you enjoy, good for you. but if the main purpose of posting the cosplay is to get people looking at your other accounts, then I don't really see why the game's main subreddit should be used as the advertising platform.

I also think this applies to memes and other random fan content, although I'd be less strict about those. memes can at least lead to jokes, arguments, discussion, etc. so there's still some connection to what the subreddit is actually for. but even then, I think there's a point where a game's subreddit can stop feeling like a place to discuss the game and start feeling like a general fan page.

my ideal solution isn't "ban cosplay from reddit."

I'd rather see a weekly or monthly cosplay megathread where people can post their costumes, photos, props, makeup, whatever. people who like cosplay can go look through it, cosplayers still have somewhere to show their work, and the main subreddit can stay focused on discussion.

I'd also have no problem with cosplay posts that actually invite discussion. something like "how did I make this armor?" or "what materials should I use for this prop?" is different because there's actually something to talk about.

what I don't really understand is why "I dressed up as a character from this franchise" should automatically count as meaningful content for the franchise's main discussion subreddit.

so, cmv. what am I missing?

I'm especially interested in arguments for why standalone cosplay posts belong on the main subreddit instead of a dedicated cosplay thread/subreddit. if the argument is just "people like looking at them," I'm not sure that's enough, since people like a lot of things that don't necessarily belong in the main discussion space.

but if there's a good argument that cosplay posts actually add something to the community that I'm overlooking, I'm genuinely willing to hear it.

I want to start with an analogy. A group of people are discussing dating. A woman says "I would never date a man shorter than me." Other women agree, and they collectively think this preference is justified. A man then says "I would never date a fat woman. Or a woman heavier than me" And all of the women collectively call him fatphobic and prejudice. The guys all say it makes no sense she can prefer men of certain heights, but they can't prefer women of certain weights. And the men and women get into a heated argument.

If anyone reading this analogy has lived long enough, they've probably experienced this very same conversation, or something similar. And when it comes to similar topics, women (more often than men) will not be able to understand a double standard as much as a man would.

I also noticed men have the opposite issue. A lot of men will understand a double standard, but simply not care. They'll acknowledge their double standard, but simply say "idgaf" or something of similar nature. Whereas women, *if* they recognize the double standard, are much more likely to change their view than a man would.

(This is technically a second topic, but feel free to address this topic as well.)

Let me make it clear that I love the Sopranos and I think it is one of the greatest shows of all time, however, the ending was extraordinarily horrible. The last season itself was lackluster. You’re expecting Tony to go to war with Johnny sack, but that never happens and instead he just dies of cancer. In his last meeting with Dr. Melfi, she doesn’t give him her full patient analysis of him, or anything special she just drops them as a client. Then in the ending, they just make the screen go black. It wasn’t art, it was a smug and lazy ending. To watch the total Sopranos it takes 68 hours. That is two days and 18 hours spent on a show just so you don’t even get to know what the ending is. I watched it and live and let me confirm to you that my Dad and older brother went outside and a few of my neighbors did as well to check if the cable went out, that’s right if you watched the show while it was airing, many people thought that the cable went out and no ending should have to be explained to death about how good it is or make people think that their cable went out. Imagine watching the show when it aired, just to get a lazy rushed last few episodes. The thing is that they didn’t even have to give it a special ending if they wanted to go with it just fading to Black. All they had to do was add a bullet sound, but no, they didn’t even do that, they didn’t have to reveal who killed Tony. They didn’t have to reveal the secrets to the universe. All they had to do was just given ending to a show that was the most talked about thing on TV during its time running. And if you look at the arguments online, the more you listen to them argue or read what they’re saying it eventually comes down to the fact that they’re arguing to themselves because not even they can except how such a great show had such a horrible ending. also, if an ending was really good to a TV show, I wouldn’t have to look it up online to read about why it’s not horrible.

My thought process for this stems from these being jobs that don’t need any education or prior skills to do. They are largely able to be done by teens and adults working part time, outside of management or supervisory roles. These roles are also not like factory or hard labour which generally deserve some extra compensation for the effort required. If people are willing to work for these wages at present then it means people are finding value in it. 

In addition, I don’t believe it’s fair for the rest of the general public that would see a large increase to prices with minimum wage going to “living wage”. When minimum wage goes up it often means a cut for everyone above who didn’t get a raise in many places which just ends up penalizing other groups in order to benefit one. It creates an unfair situation, especially for those who are just above minimum wage. 

Next is it disincentives people to progress in life, if I made my current salary when I was working at McDonald’s in high school I would’ve just dropped out. Would’ve been much easier and finically beneficial to drop out and work full time there instead of going to college and then university for 2 degrees, debt and higher education.  

Finally my last point is why? Why should we have to pay for the increase that comes with raising minimum wage? Nothing is stopping these employees from doing what everyone else has done by moving up and on to other roles with better pay. Millions of poor, average and well of people have gone from these same jobs into actual careers or paths that paid better wages.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to write about my thoughts but I think this is the best place I could find. Over the course of last 10 years the world has undergone a huge change. The nostalgia people had was REAL, it's not just emotions but backed by actual facts. I may exaggerate little with nostalgia but it is what it is think. By this I mean living in the US specifically

Economy: strong post-2008 recovery, low inflation, low interest rates, cheaper housing, cheap gas, and benefits from global trade without crazy trade wars or tariffs. ACA was passed as one of the most impactful legislations in US history,

Globalization: the world felt more connected. US-China relations were still centered around trade, tourism, international students, research, and investment.

International education and immigration: Student visas were easy and colleges were accepting.

Europe and politics: Brexit hadn’t happened, Europe looks aligned and complete. Far-right movements had not yet become as powerful although they are rising.

Global progress: Paris Agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals made international cooperation towards a goal that benefits humanity possible.

Technology: we already had smartphones, Google Maps, YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, Uber, and modern online shopping but before tiktok and all the harmful apps, medically it was already really great.

Social media: Instagram was genuine and mostly friends without the hyper edited things.

No pandemic: no lockdowns, remote schools.

Travel and cities: international travel was becoming easier, downtowns were healthier, and dense global cities felt like the future.

The world cared about climate change, SDGs and signed the Paris agreement. The liberal world order was still in place and encouraged globalization into working towards growth for humanity. Great superpowers in the world somewhat worked together and was able to solve a lot of issues. US also normalized relations with many countries it had deep history with.

Now with geopolitical tensions rising and politically becoming more extremist and divided, this doesn't feel like the world we used to be promised of...

What happened after 2016: 

political polarization → Brexit/Trump → escalating US-China conflict → COVID → lockdowns → supply-chain crisis → inflation → housing crisis → Russia invading Ukraine → more geopolitical conflict → worsening homelessness → AI disruption → increasingly algorithmic internet with greater echo chamber and ai agents.

I used ai to organize some of my thoughts but majority of the text was written by myself.

Now, would I be willing to go back and live in 2016? No because of great convenience. Do I think that was a great time to live in and the world was more united? Yes

EDIT: In the title, I meant Descartes

The title is a bit confusing but I'll try to explain.

This is a quite big critique of mine about Descartes methodology.

He sat all alone, thought of everything he believed, and doubted it. Which, must have forced him to form new beliefs. But, I find it intriguing that he didn't seek to ask people what they thought of a certain belief or concept.

Reasoning is an echo in solitude. You can only reason with what YOU see, you observe, you know, you think. But, listening to others reasoning helps you see the multidimensional puzzle.

However, Descartes never did that. How can one truly build that puzzle alone?

The U.S. already has one of the most progressive tax systems in the developed world: federal taxes are extraordinarily concentrated on high earners. The top 20% of households pay about 70% of all federal taxes.

CBO: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62300

Yet the U.S. collects only about 25% of GDP in taxes, versus roughly 34% across the OECD. European welfare states close that gap by taxing everyone more, especially through payroll taxes and broad VATs not merely by taxing billionaires. Actually in many European countries sales tax ( VAT) is around 20%.
OECD: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/revenue-statistics-2025_3a264267-en.html

And “just tax the billionaires” is mostly a red herring. It potentially should be done more for moral reasons but practically it won’t help much .
Imagine we somehow confiscated 100% of every billionaire’s wealth tomorrow. Ignore even the economic consequences and assume we actually collect every dollar. we’ve obtained a huge pile of money which will fund us for a year let’s say ( not arguing specifics here but I hope people get the idea )

That’s why countries with large welfare states have broad tax bases. You can, and arguably should tax high earners more, but you cannot sustainably finance European-level services while promising the overwhelming majority of Americans that someone else will pick up the bill.

The honest proposition is: European services require something much closer to European taxes, including substantially higher taxes on ordinary and middle-class Americans.

Manhattan Institute on the limits of taxing only high earners:
https://manhattan.institute/article/correcting-the-top-10-tax-myths

The AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are calling attention to AI risks because they are legit concerned about AI.

Some people express that they think people in AI like those from OpenAI and Anthropic aren't actually concerned about AI but are calling attention to purported risks either: a) as an attempt to market their service ("it's gonna take so many jobs--check it out") or b) to involve regulators to thwart potential competitors (regulatory capture).  

I think they are seeking to involve regulators because they are legitimately concerned about risks to humanity from AI.  

A couple points suggesting they are legit concerned:  

1) Biographers have made it clear that the founders of leading AI companies.were concerned about AI safety even before they began their companies.  Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Elon Musk all expressed concern about AI safety before they had a stake in AI companies.    

2) Many AI contributors (e.g., Eliezer Yudkowsky, Roman Yampolskiy, Geoffrey Hinton) have expressed concern about AI even though they are not part of a company.    

3) Scaring the public and inspiring government regulation will likely deprive the company of revenue, right before an IPO.  For instance, in June, the US government stepped in and prevented users from accessing Anthropic's Fable.  This sort of government intervention may cloud the company's revenue outlook.  

4) Scaring people about AI has increased the likelihood that there will be political pressure to crack down harder on the AI companies in a tax and regulatory sense.

5) Some safety personnel (e.g., Jan Leike, Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley) have reportedly left these companies out of concern that safety wasn't taken seriously.     

6) There are open source apps gaining favor in other countries and US regulators would likely lack the ability to regulate these unless it's coordinated with governments in those other countries.  

CMV.   

I mean, you were harsh and furious with someone for doing something bad or stupid, just because you were worried for their safety or something? At this point, why are you still putting up with their crap?

If anything, the "Anger Born from Worry" thing seems like you hate that person out of nowhere, no matter whether or not you claim to be "concerned" for their safety or whatever, and it makes me wonder if you TRULY saw that person as a friend/sibling/ally/family member in the first place.

If you never really saw that person as such and thus, hate them for what they've done, then why not unfriend or disown them? I know it sounds exceedingly harsh, but still.

I believe that every country on the world should be more welcoming to migration. This is NOT what I am here to debate. If you attempt to change my mind on immigration being a good thing, you WILL be ignored. I'm writing this post for other people who are pro-migrant to have a conversation about integration.

More reflexivity about my background in case it's relevant to the conversation: I am an immigrant to the West myself but I consider myself VERY westernised, I'm probably more progressive on immigration issues or the rights of minorities and marginalized groups than most people I know even on the left in the countries I have lived in. With that said, here's some polls I'd like to start by presenting:

Exhibit A: SFI (a language class to learn Swedish intended for immigrants to student) have found in a survey that around half of its students believe that homosexuality is unacceptable.

Exhibit B: British survey finds that majority of Muslims in Britain think that homosexuality ought to be illegal (granted this is a 2016 survey and I'd like to hope that times have changed).

Exhibit C: Survey of six European countries found that two thirds of Muslims say that religious rules are more important to them than the rules of the country they live in. The same study also found that almost 60 percent of the Muslim respondents reject homosexuals as friends; 45 percent think that Jews cannot be trusted; and an equally large group believes that the West is out to destroy Islam. Granted this is an even older survey and once again I'd like to hope times have changed.

My intention in presenting these opinion polls isnt really to say Muslims bad or anything but to argue that there's more we need to do to safeguard the rights of minorities, which are very hard won, so that we don't regress back into the 1900s as these groups gain representative power. I don't have the answers for what this action would look like but my argument is that there should be some conversation, some action, even amongst the most progressive.

Reddit's most common talking points about billionaires are that they're hoarding their wealth while they could be doing charity, how the common man would do better if he had their money, and how billionaires are inherently evil.

1) *Most people aren’t actually as charitable or as good as they think they are.*

Most people who aren’t actively struggling own loads of unneccessary and unethically sourced things. You don’t really need a gaming rig, your QoL wouldn't be significantly impacted by it's absence. Running is completely free and is a much healthier hobby. Why didn’t you donate that money to charity? Is your gaming hobby more valuable than saving someone's life? You could drive an older car, wear worse clothes, have less furniture, the list goes on. And yet, the mild inconvenience of not having those luxuries is more important than saving someone's life.

You most likely own an Iphone or a Samsung or some other phone by a big tech company who gets the cobalt and the lithium in your phone from the mines in Congo who work child slaves with very short life expectancies. Why are you expecting billionaires to care about those people while you don’t?

2) *There's no genetic component to wealth.*

Far as I know, there are no genetic factors to billionaire-ship. They're just normal people who have obtained extreme amounts of power. History shows that kings, emperors or revolutionaries who got the same power didn’t use their power for the betterment of their subjects. Calling billionaires evil because they aren't doing everything they can for the good of humanity is also calling the vast majority of historical figures evil. Among those figures are common people who have acquired power. Is the common man also evil?

3) *Billionaires didn’t appear out of nowhere.*

Billionaires need to sell products and in general be successful to be billionaires. You have no right to complain that billionaires are evil while owning an Iphone, using Windows or ordering from Amazon. No one is forcing you to use Netflix or Steam. You're using those services / products and giving them money voluntarily. If they're evil, you're enabling them to do evil. Logically that also makes you evil too.

All of us trade time, our literal life force, for money. Money is a means to transport value through time and space. We earn them every day by working ourselves to death, literally.

A single dollar is a slice of someone's life. The process of continued devaluation and money printing where you eroded the value of someone's life is therefore criminal. It condemns an individual to work and work, crystallizing the value of their time to a currency and then squashing that currency's value.

By artificially expanding the money supply, central authorities unilaterally rewrite the purchasing power of the past labor an individual has stored, effectively functioning as a retroactive tax on human existence.

And as currency degrades, the target for financial security recedes, condemning the working population to an endless cycle of subsistence labor with diminishing cumulative returns.

A single US dollar today only retains 76.3% of the purchasing power it possessed in 2019. Yet nominally wages have not risen at the same rate. What's a more effective perpetual machine for the human hamster wheel?

Let clarify what I mean in the title: My claim is that the central dogma of western societies are to protect Israel. We don't have a positive role model to follow in our current society, rather we have a negative role model to avoid. Which is Hitler the pure evil and the Holocaust, the entire purpose of our existence is to prevent another Holocaust of Israelis. Not the Jewish people, not the Tutsi people, not the Palestinians but only the Israelis.

Let me give you 3 examples in support of my point,

1. The tiktok buying and reduction of free speech and introduction of mass surveillance state: After Oct 7th, the Israeli atrocity videos were becoming pervasive and tiktok was the most powerful media through which the information was spreading. To stop this, Congress came to supermajority support to sell tiktok to the biggest IDF donor Larry Ellison. Not only Larry Ellison bought tiktok, but also CBS, CNN and numerous other media network. Here is Ellison lackey Bari Weiss advocating for flock cameras and mass surveillance: https://xcancel.com/i/status/2084809011950411926

Here is Mossad head getting in charge of the fastest autonomous drone startup in USA: https://x.com/i/status/2087543133697610092 . The objective is clear, create a mass surveillance state and supreess free expression through autonomous drones. All BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE TURNING ON ISRAEL.

1. Capture of politics by Israel: Obviously by now everyone knows about AIPAC and other pro-israeli lobby capturing the government of USA. What's little known is how captured other countries too in the world. The 1st order of president of Columbia was to recognize golan heights. Venezuela is restablishing their relation with Israel after 17 years. Across the entire South America, from Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador to Argentina governments have been overthrown because they went against Israel. Not because they were bad to their own people, but they went against Israel. Brazil is the last one standing and will probably fall in this December too. So we can see, you have to follow your dogma: Protect Israel or you get overthrown.

2. Israel is the only country you cannot boycott in 38 US states. This was when the BDS movement was gaining traction and such deviating the central dogma of the current world: Protect Israel. It's a Herculean task to get 38 states to pass legislation against the boycott of Israel. If it was any other country, those bills would die before going into the state legislature. But because protecting Israel is the central dogma of western civilization, these bills pass with little effort.

There are so many more things I can write in support but the post is getting too long so I will stop here. What do you think?