Here's one that I have: Bicycles shouldn't be on the road.
The physics of the situation are terrible. Cars have far too much momentum, and bikes have far too little. On city roads, drivers are operating under a fender-bender risk assumption, whereas cyclists are operating under a violent death risk assumption. Where cars are driving fast, bikes are driving slow, and where cars are driving slow, bikes are often driving fast. Also, bikes follow some, but not all rules that cars follow.
These mismatches lead to a very dangerous situation for cyclists which cannot be overcome by drivers simply being mindful.
Cities should either redesign roads to give cyclists a far greater safety buffer, or cyclists should ride on sidewalks and bike paths.
That none of the things posted in this thread will be unpopular on Hubski.
Bird feeders are immoral. They promote changes in birds' natural behavior such as changing dietary, migration and nesting habits, put birds at risk for contracting and spreading diseases, and it's hypocritical to say interacting with wildlife in such a way is wrong except when it comes to birds.
I've been considering buying a bird feeder to amuse my cats, but you're right. I'd never considered it. I feel very strongly about not feeding wild animals when I hike, and from a bird's perspective a feeder is the same thing.
Maybe find which flowering plants attract the most hummingbirds and butterflies in your area and plant them under the window. Entertaining and beautiful. Recommended species by state: http://www.wildflower.org/collections/ It is more work though.
To be fair, it's been a part of our culture for all these years so it's something that's normal for nature lovers to want. Also, on the scale of things, it's probably a lot less damaging than say purposely keeping your trash cans open so the raccoons can feast whenever they want. So I'm not gonna disparage anyone who owns one or wants to own one. But on the other hand, we used to promote feeding wildlife at our national parks and over time we learned how unhealthy that was. So, I mean, we have to at least appreciate the fact that communal feeders can have a negative impact on birds.
Where I live in Canada, it is generally seen as a non-invasive practice to have bird feeders out for the winter. Pickings can often be slim, but we need the birds to survive so that they can play an active part in the ecosystem come spring. Not everyone does it, just some people - most people don't want to waste the cash on the feed, and you have to make sure you get the right stuff so that it's good for the birds and also not going to sprout some weird invasive species.
Feeding wild animals in general is malicious. There are people out here that feed deer in order to develop populations on their property so that when hunting season comes around they do not have to leave land they own. In Kentucky if you own 20ish acres you can take as many antlerless deer. It's good that they are culling some of the population but it is one of those things that just comes off as cheating.
Social justice issues are being stalled and otherwise not making progress due to the methods and attitudes of protesters and people who are too far into these movements. (i.e. complete lack of pragmatism) Identity politics is pointless in it's current state. Self-help, meditation, parenting, etc. style of books are more dangerous than useful.
I have always thought self-help books were a bit of a scam. I mean if all of those books really worked in the first place, why write more? It seems year after year, the same things are being said in these books but in different ways. Overall, it's just a way to make money really.
Self-help books works flawlessly if one actually follows the programs within them. Of course, if one were disciplined enough to follow such a program one wouldn't need a self-help book.
I have ridden a bike multiple times a week for as long as I can remember, except during my time in North America. The increase in car size and distracted drivers combined with the decrease in physical buffers, separated bike paths, and legal protection meant that I just took the bus or rented a Car2Go for trips I'd usually bike. Some unpopular-ish opinions I currently hold: - There's no reason to eat meat every day and meat shouldn't be as cheap as it is - Eating healthy should be easier and cheaper. I am a staunch proponent of the traffic light system for food labels. - Your memory isn't as good as you think it is - Being famous is probably terrible - Recreational use of non-addictive drugs should not be an issue
Weed, shrooms, LSD, to name a few. The problem is that there isn't enough properly-done research to really know the full consequences of most drugs. In my ideal world, governments research and regulate it all and are the only good supplier of destigmatized substances that you can only consume in restricted environments like at home.
I don't disagree at all with your larger point but you can pretty well get addicted to anything. Physically: no, not at all. Physchologically: yes. Has anyone hit bottom and sucked dick for weed? Highly fucking doubt it. Actually, I support to some degree full decriminalization of all drugs with an appropriate and effective support and rehab based health system to go with it. No way any amount of health care for junkies is as expensive as the drug war and its mass incarceration.
I don't know the science of the addictive qualities (or lack) of marijunana... but I will say that anecdotally, I know LOTS of people who can't seem to function without marijuana. I know people who have. They may not have "needed" it.... but they certainly wanted it bad enough to do what they did. I'm not suggesting that weed (or shrooms, or LSD) is or isn't addictive. I think some science still needs to happen here.Has anyone hit bottom and sucked dick for weed? Highly fucking doubt it.
I suspect you're assuming that because a) you're not famous, b) you don't want to be. People stay where they are because the pros outweigh the cons. You want to be admired by the thousands of people? Those paparazzis are annoying, but if this is what you have to do to remain admired? I'd trade that for such a goal. With abusive relationships it's more complex, but the core is the same. You're persuaded to the idea that you aren't worthy of love, and when someone comes along that gives you that love, you admire them. Now, at least, there's some honey in the barrel of smut. Better than no honey at all. You stay because you perceive it as being loved, though it hardly ever is so. Leaving that one person who loves you is a terrifying thought because surely, nobody will love you afterwards... right? Matt Damon has been quite eloquent about it when talking about his mother's job as a teacher and his as an actor:Being famous is probably terrible
A teacher wants to teach! Why else would you take a shitty salary and really long hours and do that job, unless you really love to do it?
The reason to eat meat every day is because I want to and it is delicious. I mean, there's no grander reason than that even for people who eat meat every day. Food labels are a waste of time because people don't care and if they do then they already use the labels on there to care. The big reason that eating heatlhy and cheaply is hard is because there are a ton of foods that don't keep (fruits and vegetables) that are healthy, and because you can only mark up a salad so much before it becomes ludicrous. So marking up meat and fat based dishes makes a restaurant a lot more money. Memory is terrible. That's why it's awesome. I can re-write everything at will. Revisionist biography. Excellent. Being famous for acting and being pretty is probably terrible. Being famous for being rich is probably awesome. Bill Gates does not look unhappy. You are absolutely correct about the drugs.
That's the same logic I used as a kid. "Why bother telling people about something better? Those who don't care about it won't use it, and whose who do, will". It's the kind of deterministic logic that pushes away progress and education. "If they want to learn, they'll learn". Yes, well... Some people are just unaware of the same benefits you have in your head when you cite whatever it is you cite. Maybe they grew up in an environment that demotes creative thinking or education as a whole. Unless it is your job to care about this, you don't have to... but then, if it isn't and you do, how is your opinion relevant? You don't have the knowledge of the person possessing the skills to make these decisions for a living; why should we listen to you? At least food labelling is a step towards healthier eating. Not bothering is not. Never seen someone so excited about the prospect of lying to themselves.Food labels are a waste of time because people don't care and if they do then they already use the labels on there to care.
Memory is terrible. That's why it's awesome. I can re-write everything at will. Revisionist biography. Excellent.
It probably indicates that I took the easy road - see Quatrarius' post. :)
All right. Here's one. Democracy has a fatal flaw in that you can always vote yourself more things. You can leverage the future against the present because you won't be there to pay the bill. You can spend other people's money because the government says that it's the will of the people and they will jail you if you don't play along. You can steal as much as you want from everyone else as long as you convince everyone else that you're doing it for altruistic reasons, even when those reasons are just as often to kill strangers in foreign lands and jail people for silly crimes like drugs as they are to house the poor and feed the needy.
Since just about all of these are tame and float around the edge of the hive mind, what the hell, I'll go. I am significantly more socially conservative that most of the people of Hubski. And since that term has been bastardized by the religious loons, let me explain. "Social Conservative" in my definition is the preservation of the family unit as an anchor for a strong neighborhood, city, state and nation. One of the main roles of the government should be the strengthening and preservation of the family unit through taxation policies, welfare, health spending and social safety nets. Kids need two parents. Having a child as a single parent is foolish and selfish. The children of single parent families, both single moms and single dads, fare far, FAR worse in adulthood than children of two parents. It is turning out that even homosexual couples together in stable relationships raise kids that are just as good as straight couple. Data is still incoming but it is starting to look like two parents don't care about the dangly bits only that both parents are involved and in the kid's life. No Fault Divorce was a mistake, and alimony should go away; it's not the 1950's where women leave the workforce for a few decades to raise kids and have no job prospects any more. We as a society are far too sexually promiscuous for our own good as well and STD's that should have been on the ropes are making comebacks. The government should move away from "marriage" and more toward a "civil union" model so that the religious and traditional people can get a marriage and have that mean what they want. Everyone going into a union should be forced to have a counseling session with a lawyer and draw up a pre-nup, have it explained that "marriage" is not a wedding and is in fact a major fiscal and legal binding agreement. The marriage chapels in Vegas will go out of business, or will have to change to make this happen, and nothing of value will be lost. Having watched gay friends go through the legal hoops needed to protect them selves in a way a straight couple can by walking into a courthouse really drove the point home to me that this agreement adds over a thousand legal and economic protections that are taken for granted by most of us. There are only two reasons for a couple with kids to get divorced. One, physical violence. If you are getting beat up, get out. Period. Second, adultery. If they are willing to lie and cheat on you once, they will do so again, and that is not right to force someone to live with another person who disrespects them in that manner. Everything else, if there are kids in the marriage? Either wait until the kids are adults or do what everyone else has done for centuries and work it out and deal with your problems like adults. Adding onto this, welfare should reward families for staying together. Right now, welfare may not be designed to break up families but that is the end result of our social spending. Instead extra money should be given to to bolster in-tact families. Mom and dad still together with the kids? Use Section 8 housing to put them in an abandoned house instead of in the projects and use the extra money to encourage the family to improve the house. Keep the mom and dad together, help them get through the tough time so the kids are less likely to go to jail, do drugs, and be a drain on the taxpayer in a decade. I'm not sure if there is a way to structure the social safety net to discourage out-of-wedlock births, but that is something that needs to be looked at with a serious lens. If you are a single parent, you should get less welfare and benefits. Working the welfare system in such a way that it demands intact families will lower the prison pipeline, make the schools more stable, lower teenage crime and reduce underage drinking and teen pregnancy. Also I'd like to see an end to school busing programs and a return to neighborhood schools. Find a way to make school funding work better so that the schools in poor areas suck less. One thing I see here is that they bus the kids a hour across town and then the parent, some of whom work two jobs and don't have a car, can't go to the school, talk to the teachers and otherwise can't get involved. This leads to a devaluing of an education in the home. If the school in the in the neighborhood, however, families can see it as a real thing to anchor the area and not an abstract babysitter "over there somewhere." Removing busing in some parts of the country are going to have to be followed up on changes to school funding, but its an idea. Other than that? I don't care who you are banging. Gay people should be allowed to have the legal and financial benefits of marriage/civil unions. Want to sleep around a lot with lots of people? Go for it, just don't have kids unless you are in a stable coupling. Oh, and visible tattoos and body modification are stupid. WTF is up with the idiotic nose ring thing? And gauges? Stop that shit.
I very much disagree with the idea that two people who don't want to be married should stay together just for the kids. Kids aren't stupid, they can tell if you're miserable and you sure aren't going to fake happy for a max of 18 years. Even if the parents don't dislike each other they are the child's model for a healthy relationship. If you want your child to have a healthy relationship in the future then maybe it's a bad idea to show them a loveless one for most of their formative years.
It's hard to quantify, but what if children whose parents are in a loveless (non-abusive, non adulterous) marriage have better life-outcomes than kids whose parents divorced because they 'just weren't feeling it anymore?' Law has to be written in ways that are supported by evidence, if we are to move forward.
First of all: thank you for posting what may be the only unpopular opinion on this thread. Someone said something interesting! I think it hasty to draw policy conclusions based on descriptive statistics, there are so many nuances to quantitative sociology that would require further investigation to tease out. In fact, there is probably a limit to how well we can understand family structure and its effects on childhood performance from a quantitative standpoint because it's based on observational instead of experimental conditions. For example, to what degree are we conflating marriage with some hidden or common causes? Perhaps the kind of people who make good parents are also likely to get and stay married (i.e., the selection effect), as is evidenced by underperforming children in stable step-families. Perhaps the quality of parents matters more than the marriage itself. Also, there is certainly an interaction effect between poverty and single parenthood that researchers are still disentangling. I would be inclined to think the quality of a marriage overrides it's presence, but the data I've seen just doesn't make it clear either way. Even after admitting there is a lot we don't know about family structure and childhood outcomes, trying to determine the best course of action for an individual family from aggregate data commits the ecological fallacy. We cannot restrict divorce options based on statistical averages -- not only is that bad for the individuals involved but it's not necessarily better for society. Removing no fault divorce seems like a recipe for disaster to me because it requires proving fault. This will return to us to pre-1970 condition of women being trapped in abusive marriages unable to prove their way out of them. Historically, women were successful in proving drunkenness, failure to provide, and to some degree later on, cruelty. Adultery and abuse, especially emotional abuse, were extremely hard to prove. To your point about women's earning and job prospects, in fact to this date parental resources drop significantly after a divorce and job prospects for mothers are significantly worse for fathers after a divorce (on average, see my point above about ecological fallacies). One of the major contributing factors to childhood performance gaps in single parent households is the rapid descent into poverty brought on by single motherhood post divorce. If your logic is based on fulfilling a contract for the sake of the children, then a reasonable extension of that logic is that we should have child support (in either direction) in cases were divorce (wether fault or not fault) occurs. As for the school bussing program, it might be unavoidable for a period of time because it turns out that school desegregation is still a major issue at the heart of many public school problems in the United States. Integration is one of the best ways to improve academic performance, but we never really finished integrating schools (even in states that skipped the whole separate but equal thing) because lots of white/middle class parents (understandably but possibly incorrectly) take a NIMBY approach to integration. This American Life has a great two-part series up on school integration that is worth a listen.
I think that there is an excellent point here that "Incentives matter". Welfare is currently designed such that married couples or even co-habitating couples are punished and given less resources to succeed. Its unclear if that was an intentional attack on the black family unit or just an unfortunate consequence but the destruction of the poor black family is one of the main consequences of that policy. This could be easily fixed by removing the marriage penalty from all government programs and actually proving a small incentive for two people to stay toughener and raise a child. Just like incentives matter in welfare the do so in schools as well. There is no Incentive for good teachers to teach at poor schools, and no incentive for good students to go to said poor schools so anyone that can just gets out and goes somewhere better. Because of this, schools naturally segregate. If no effort is taken to integrate them over time schools will segregate into rich schools and poor schools which also tends to mean white/asian schools vs black/Hispanic schools due to how wealth is distributed demographicaly in the US. Its a self reinforcing loop where if a school is on an upward or downward trend it will continue on that trend until it either levels off at the top or sinks to the bottom.
Your point makes sense in regard to welfare, although to be honest I don't really know anything about it so take my agreement for what it's worth. I agree school segregation is a self reinforcing loop, because school segregation is both a cause and an effect of income inequality (via geographic segregation). But we could short that circuit if there were the political will to put resources into creating incentives for local governments (it's very expensive), teachers and parents. In the FY2017 Obama budget proposal, there was originally a $120 million grant program for integration, which was eventually reduced by 90% to $12 million. Now Devos might cut that in the name of "school choice" -- a dog whistle for de facto segregation. On the other hand, if we choose to follow political decisions (in this case, politically motivated legal decisions) like Miliken v Bradley and allow de facto segregation in schools, then we will never be able to have the equality of opportunity that would narrow the income and achievement gaps across races and prevent auto-segregation. Another thing to consider is why we can't appreciate the inherit incentives of school integration: It appears to do a whole lot of good for a lot of kids. Integration leads to higher achievement in several subjects, especially for black students. Based on the research I've seen, there is little to no effect on white students' performance. I don't know of any other pro-equality public policies that minimizes loses as much as integration does. As for the big picture, the potential knock-on effects of reducing systemic inequality should provide a lot of long-term incentive for white communities to embrace integration. It's not a panacea, but there are a lot of reasons to be (cautiously) optimistic about school integration. I think one, maybe not the only but at least one, reason we don't think about the inherit incentives of integration is that racism makes supporting integration politically toxic. Both white and black communities were widely opposed to integration in the 70s, and white families fought particularly hard to keep black students out of white schools. After that, white flight kicked in to avoid having to send white kids to predominately black schools.
Yea, sociology is a gong show at its best. Experimenting on human children is not something we should do, at all, in my opinion. Going through someone's pass and generating a representative sample to draw conclusions? Sure. But that leads to the next point you made. Stable well adjusted people with the ability to correct and control their emotions will stay together in a marriage. These types of people will also do better at work. They will do better at raising their kids. So, is it the stable marriage that helps? Or is there a deeper core root cause? And I agree with this. And I think we should rework Welfare to help couples when they are down on their luck because working through the tough times is one way people bond. The counter to this is that the divorce rate skyrocketed in the 70's and 80's. Granted there were legal and societal brakes on divorce and annulments back then making the comparison to a kid in the 40's and 50's to a kid now. It's not the 1970's any more and the courts take abuse etc very seriously. Each of the things you list are reasons for an "at Fault" divorce. It used to be legal to rape your spouse, after all. I've seen statistics that as many as half the divorces are a result of the couple not wanting to be married any more and no abuse, adultery etc taking place. I'm not linking anything in this reply because pick a number you want here and some think tank made that number happen. Even the fabled "half of all marriages end in divorce" is tricky; less that a quarter of marriages fail after 10 years and the longer you are together the more likely you are to stay together after marriage. Again, I am not saying the idea is simple, only that what we have now sucks. The French pay on average about 3% more in income taxes that we do in the USA. With that they get a national health care system, paid maternity leave and government funded infant and toddler care. This is a problem that is fixable. We also need to stop shaming mothers for staying home with the kids while dad works. (And vice versa. If you want to see vitriol, go to a forum for stay at home dads) the thing about two parents is that back when things made sense, a parent went out and earned a living, the other parent took care of the house and kids and doctor visits and school needs etc. Now with all the appliances, and other modern machinery, the need to be a full time stay at home parent is not as labour intensive as it used to be, but, it may be much more mentally taxing. Just like the US economy has gone from physical work to mental work, so has parenting. Busing is needed because of the way we fund schools. The schools are bad and failing because of the way we fund schools. Teachers do not get the respect they do in part because they do not earn enough to get better people into the pipeline. There are old crappy buildings that cannot get repaired due to funding issues. Teachers pay for their own supplies because of funding issues. The way we fund schools can and does depress neighborhoods. Changing the way we fund schools is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN in this political climate. Someone in here said it well: Beverly Hills, CA is not going to pay more taxes or surrender its existing real estate tax income to fund better schools in Compton and Watts. How you treat your schools now is what your tax base is going to look like in 20 years. Good schools lead to good citizens and employees, bad schools magnify the bad issues. Another big part of the school problem is that they are being turned into day care and babysitters and that is not right, either. I freely admit that I have no fucking idea how to even start untangling this shit show. Redlining and housing discrimination was a thing when I grew up. Catholics were not allowed to live in certain areas, Mexicans were not allowed to live in certain areas etc and this policy created areas where the schools did not have enough of a tax base to work on providing the core base of knowledge and discipline needed for kids to go out in the workforce and make a better life than their parents. We've lost sight of the core reason for a public education system. Davos, the retard in charge of the US Department of Education, only sees schools as a cash out and a taxpayer funded slush fund to be skimmed off and sent to her buddies. So it is going to be a decade at best before we can talk about fixing the issues. In fact, there is probably a limit to how well we can understand family structure and its effects on childhood performance from a quantitative standpoint because it's based on observational instead of experimental conditions.
For example, to what degree are we conflating marriage with some hidden or common causes? Perhaps the kind of people who make good parents are also likely to get and stay married (i.e., the selection effect), as is evidenced by under performing children in stable step-families.
Removing no fault divorce seems like a recipe for disaster to me because it requires proving fault. This will return to us to pre-1970 condition of women being trapped in abusive marriages unable to prove their way out of them. Historically, women were successful in proving drunkenness, failure to provide, and to some degree later on, cruelty. Adultery and abuse, especially emotional abuse, were extremely hard to prove.
If your logic is based on fulfilling a contract for the sake of the children, then a reasonable extension of that logic is that we should have child support (in either direction) in cases were divorce (whether fault or not fault) occurs.
As for the school bussing program, it might be unavoidable for a period of time because it turns out that school desegregation is still a major issue at the heart of many public school problems in the United States. Integration is one of the best ways to improve academic performance, but we never really finished integrating schools (even in states that skipped the whole separate but equal thing) because lots of white/middle class parents (understandably but possibly incorrectly) take a NIMBY approach to integration. This American Life has a great two-part series up on school integration that is worth a listen.
As for the school bussing program, it might be unavoidable for a period of time because it turns out that school desegregation is still a major issue at the heart of many public school problems in the United States.
So, you're saying that using one's body as a canvas is stupid? that what other people do with their own property bothers you so much? What's your opinion on BDSM practices, both private and public?Oh, and visible tattoos and body modification are stupid. WTF is up with the idiotic nose ring thing? And gauges? Stop that shit.
You body, your choice. But all actions have consequences and visible tattoos are a limitation on future options. I grew up that being told that only degenerates and military people got tattoos and have to fight that preconceived bias with people. In a professional setting, tattoos will make you less desirable of a hire. And I side on the thought that young people should not engage in behavior that limits future options if possible. Here we have a saying "poor life choice theater" to describe some of the face and neck art people wear. If that is your thing? Go for it. Just be aware that not everyone is going to be all into your wrap around neck tribal pattern or your hand tattoos.So, you're saying that using one's body as a canvas is stupid?
I find it entertaining that you didn't reply to the BDSM question. I feel like it exposes your thoughts in the matter - those of inacceptance of such behavior. Feel free to elaborate any time. There's a breadth of space between "it isn't my thing" and "it's stupid". I don't think you changed tone because of a sudden appehension: I think you did it for diplomatic purposes, which, at this point, only serves to hide what you sincerely believe on the subject. You make choices that limit your future choices every day. Can't run a marathon if your food is Lay's day in and day out. Can't be an engineer with Linguistics for a major. Taking it out on tattoos just because they're obviously deviant isn't fair.If that is your thing? Go for it. Just be aware that not everyone is going to be all into your wrap around neck tribal pattern or your hand tattoos.
Don't give a shit, honestly. Your sex life is the second least interesting thing about you in my opinion. I really do not care who you are having sex with. As long as the people involved are adults and know what they are getting into and not being coerced? Not my concern. Only time I care is if you are molesting kids or committing rape. My stance on the death penalty is convoluted and tied in knots (most Catholics are opposed, and as a social liberal I've seen too many cases of improper application see https://www.innocenceproject.org/ for a list) but I have zero issues with executing serial rapists and child molesters. Didn't say it made sense. When I grew up the only people who got tattoos were military and people on drugs and in prison. "Normal" people simply did not have them. I was taught that the infamous "bad people and others" got those and the "good, moral people" did not. It is a bias I carry with me that I have to fight. I have seen people with tattoos that should be considered works of art, full sleeves etc. And I know that a few people at work have their whole backs done. But the point I was making was that if you have an exposed tattoo it limits choices. Then again I'm the old fart who does not get it and it is possible that by the time the kids today are in charge I'll be the weird guy with no body art. But, say, look at this guy. Not knowing anything about him, if you saw him walking around you would have assumptions. He may be a very nice person, or he may not. The reality is that how you present yourself is in a way a uniform, a mask. A guy in a suit walks by and you have a core set of assumptions about him. A woman walks by with her hair done nice, good makeup and a dress and you make a core set of assumptions about her. A guy walks buy with a long unkempt beard and a leather jacket with denim pants and there is an assumption made. A guy walks by in a dirty teeshirt and jeans and the same. "Dress for the job you want" is a saying for a reason. Like i have said elsewhere, go do your thing. Let your freak flag fly. Have fun. But nothing you do is without cost and everything has a consequence, one of which is that you cannot control the thoughts inside someone's brain. The reason we have laws protecting kids and people under 18 is because on aggregate those people do not have the long-term understanding of consequences. As long as you are willing to accept the repercussions, both good and bad, AND HAVE AN INFORMED OPINION OF SAME you should be allowed a great leeway in your personal life.I find it entertaining that you didn't reply to the BDSM question.
Taking it out on tattoos just because they're obviously deviant isn't fair.
I'm having trouble reconcilling the two. Here you have a well-put, well-elaborated opinion on the thing. Here - a hateful nonsensical deeply-personal comment on the very same matter. Help me out. Until you do... Oh, look: the avatar!As long as you are willing to accept the repercussions, both good and bad, AND HAVE AN INFORMED OPINION OF SAME you should be allowed a great leeway in your personal life.
Oh, and visible tattoos and body modification are stupid. WTF is up with the idiotic nose ring thing? And gauges? Stop that shit.
But, say, look at this guy.
The initial comment was a snarky, throw away line that I thought would be passed over. Said snark then sparked a conversation that required a deeper, better written and more thought out reply. At least I did not link you this guyHere - a hateful nonsensical deeply-personal comment on the very same matter.
I agree with so much of what you said... in an idealistic sense... but sometimes unfortunately, on the front end... this makes a TON of sense... on the back end.. when asshole leaves the lady with four kids hanging... she's now up a creek. I am chuckling out loud at this one... a running joke in my family: face tattoos all say "DO NOT HIRE ME" a thousand times... this. Excellent post.If you are a single parent, you should get less welfare and benefits.
Oh, and visible tattoos and body modification are stupid. WTF is up with the idiotic nose ring thing? And gauges? Stop that shit.
The government should move away from "marriage" and more toward a "civil union" model so that the religious and traditional people can get a marriage and have that mean what they want.
Gay people should be allowed to have the legal and financial benefits of marriage/civil unions.
By "less benefits" I am not exactly saying cuts, but if there is a married couple with kids we should do what we can to keep them together and that will cost more. In the end keeping families together on aggregate is better for the taxpayers and society in general.
I get it... it's just tough to incentivize one without de-incentivizing the other. and the more I think about the individual couples, single parents, and kids I've worked closely with... some of this breaks down just because people are people, and some people are real assholes.
To you and francopoli: Obviously a face tattoo would indicate a lack of judgment and forethought by the person getting a tattoo. But what about a forearm tattoo? An ankle tattoo? Where is the line for you, and why is it that a more obscure tattoo than a forehead tattoo is a potential limitation to professional progression? To me, the examples provided are on the more extreme end of the tattoo spectrum. Does this, to you, indicate a lack of thought about the consequences of our actions? To me, a tattoo is paint on a canvas (speaking as somebody with no tattoos), and I'm of the thought that this in general serves little indication of a person's ambition, talent, and place in society.
I don't really care about tattoos personally. Don't have any... and don't care if anyone has any. It's a running family joke, but there is truth in humor. Our choices have consequences. Permanent choices like tattoos and other forms of body scarification can and will be judged by society. While you or I might still hire a person covered with piercings and ink... I think the person drastically limits their options.
Answered a bit elsewhere in thread. In a professional setting if you can cover the artwork? Don't care. I've seen good sleeves and some really bad ones. I've seen neat "tramp stamps" and some that are everything about the stereotype and beyond. And again, I carry my bias with me, as everyone does. A butterfly on a shoulder is a much different beast than a neck tattoo, or a line of writing across the chest. I have to force myself to put my bias aside because it is not the 1960's anymore and "normal" people have tattoos now. But that is still a bias I have. In other news, it looks like my views on body ink are the one thing in this thread that goes against the Hubski Hive Mind.To me, a tattoo is paint on a canvas (speaking as somebody with no tattoos), and I'm of the thought that this in general serves little indication of a person's ambition, talent, and place in society.
It's not going against the Hubski Hive Hind, it's going immediately to face/neck tattoos and hand tattos. Which yes, they exist, but are also edge cases more than anything else. Do appreciate reading your comments on this thread, it's a nice change in perspective than the typical Hubski conversation.
GMOs are fine, and trying to ban them is irrational and will end up harming farmers.
That's not unpopular much longer. Here's an unpopular version: Organic crops are cruel and selfish. They take up more land to produce the same crop and use 'natural' pesticides and herbicides which are often more toxic than synthetic herbicides and persist in the soil longer. They contribute to global famine by taking land away from more productive crops. They contribute to drought and desertification by taking land from less thirsty crops. They sustain the narrative that they are superior nutritively without proof. They contribute to deforestation and only exist to make rich people feel accomplished when really they've done nothing.
I like organic for totally selfish reasons I'll admit - it just tastes better. Sorry, but strawberries I bought last week tasted like water and almost were at apple-level of crunchiness. Them organic local strawberries are the best (even if they are the size of a gmo raspberry).
They taste better probably because they are slightly more perishable and therefore had to be sourced closer. The same strawberry could be grown using conventional methods to taste as good or better. I think it's just supper hard to differentiate good tasting berries from bland ones when the good tasting ones look the same or uglier and thus get the price premium. It's strawberry season BTW go out and pick some local ones. The farm fresh ones will blow you mind. No need for organic
Maybe the question should be more about heirloom v conventional? Most conventional veggies and fruits have been bred for packaging and aesthetics over flavor. Consider the conventional tomato. It is bright red, has a thick skin and is shaped to perfectly fit in a packaged box. It tastes like water. Conversely, Heirloom tomatos are oddly shaped and multi colored and taste so much better. But are harder to package and sell.
There's a degree of that. But if I may go against the spirit of this thread and push back a little, the main thing I look for is local, which often means organic by happenstance. I think it's dangerous for all our food to come from one place (such as California).
For the same reasons, local food can be just as bad, if not worse than organic food. It takes far more energy to grow citrus fruit in New York City than it does in Chicago. It would be terrible for the environment to insist that all the citrus fruit consumed in northern cities be grown there, instead of warmer climates.
Maybe, but I'm not exactly seeing a big push for this. I mean, the farm share we buy from doesn't sell anything that won't grow in our area.
I think the biggest strangeness in this whole debate is that there is now supposedly a dichotomy between organic and GMO. In my mind I don't see them as mutually exclusive but I guess it depends on how you define such. If all crops used by humans have been "genetically modified" in some way, how the modification or trait selection is a problem in and of itself is not clear to me. Arguably the debate should be more around the systems which underpin them today - increased fertiliser usage, land degradation, monoculture, seed monopolies, scale of production etc. For example, imagine a scenario where GMOs are developed for the public good - drought resistance, productivity increases, whatever. These are then cultivated in line with organic "principles" i.e. companion cropping, no-till, reduced reliance on synthetic fertiliser - take your pick. Where is the contradiction? I'm not sure there is one and maybe it can help to address the problems with food production we have today.
To add to that: they make people feel good - and that's a part we can't afford to discount when it comes to promoting something. Making people feel good about shit they don't need has been the backbone of advertising ever since Freud's nephew started promoting cigarettes for women as "torches of freedom". We are emotional creatures and will gladly fall for anything that promotes feeling good about ourselves, even if it's detrimental for our health and other resources. To make people feel good about products that are actually good for people is something we could learn from advertising. Facts don't work for people who don't seriously engage with those. Sure, GMOs might be the future - hell, they've always been the basis of farming - but when people are terrified into thinking they might be killing planet Earth by using them, there's no sheet of facts you can provide that would help alleviate that, let alone reverse the idea. If you want to be in the same vein, make people worry about killing sustainable land with too many organic crops. If you want to do better, let them know that what we're doing now is just an advanced version of millenia-long practices (those pocket dogs didn't come from nowhere), as well as that now we have more control over what we eat than ever as well as some of the great side effects, like saving children from dying out of lack of vitamin A.They sustain the narrative that they are superior nutritively without proof.
So I'm guessing you didn't grow up somewhere with a short summer ? We can be pretty extra
Driver's Licenses should expire every 5 years, and require a $50 test to obtain one. To take the test you have to show that your vehicle is currently registered and insured, and pay your $50 fee. Because here's the deal... things change. And the more we do something, the less precise we are about it. We cut corners. Literally. So making BMW drivers sit down and do a test every few years that reminds them how Stop Signs work, is a Good Thing. And the $50 fee? There isn't anyone in the USA who cannot save $10/year. Or even $1/week for a year. But it takes PLANNING AHEAD. Just like oil changes. And vehicle maintenance. And every other adult thing in your goddamn life. The opposite side of the coin is that there needs to be kinda draconian enforcement. Failure to have a current Drivers License or Insurance results in the vehicle being impounded. Even if it isn't yours. Two offenses, and you lose the right to a license for 5 years, but get discounted public transit fare. (Or something like that.) We need to incentivize people to do other things than drive. The bar is set far too low right now.
Oh hey... I missed the context of your "people who don't own a car", and realize it was a mis-interpretation of my poorly worded post. What I meant about draconian enforcement, is "...IF YOU ARE CAUGHT driving without a license or insurance..." I did not mean that acquisition of a driver's license would be a national requirement, or anything. Sorry for the confusion.
I read your post as saying that to get a license people would have to show up and get the car they wanted to drive inspected (and take a driving test). That seemed wacky considering how many people drive but don't own a car. I'm still opposed to mandatory inspection unless there is overwhelming evidence that the benefit would be significantly more than the cost. I think you are pretty cavalier about what $50 can mean to a poor person. It's half a week of groceries to a family that's already barely getting by. I'm opposed to more bureaucracy sucking our valuable​ wealth and time. I just shelled out $201 dollars today so a pair of firemen could walk around my shop for 5 minutes and tell me to buy a different kind if power bar. I don't feel like I got my monies worth in safety. This story came to mind thinking about your post. It seems applicable until you realize that the guy would have done the same thing under any safety regeime that didn't put him jail.
Almost an excellent point, but the "Not all _____" argument is just the millennial's version of the slippery slope. Sure. Some people don't own a car. That's fine. The vehicle they operate still needs to be maintained by the owner. And the driver still needs to prove they are capable of driving, by taking a test every 5 years. That's not too much to ask from someone sharing the road with me.
Lol, I don't even know what you are trying to say with that first bit . It seems like you are a little confused and really want two different but related things. You want drivers to have to prove they are capable drivers and you want cars to be inspected for safety concerns but you slammed them both together in your first post. I'm not sure what kind of impact safety inspections are going to make when the rubber hits the road. I've never had an accident caused by poor vehicle maintenance. Before we start charging everyone $50 a pop for each car they own I'd like to see some evidence that it would be worthwhile.
Association Fallacy. Aka, "Not all men..." or "Not all police..." or "Not all black men..." etc. It's a red flag that whatever follows the ellipsis is bullshit. All of the EU. All of Japan. China. Basically any civilized nation in the world has regular inspections for anything that operates in the public sphere, and could harm the public. Elevators, traffic lights, buses, and passenger vehicles, all require regular inspections, and defects found during those inspections must be repaired and validated. Or, ya know, like every single commercial vehicle operated on any road in America today. Lol, I don't even know what you are trying to say with that first bit .
Before we start charging everyone $50 a pop for each car they own I'd like to see some evidence that it would be worthwhile.
I agree with that. I think cgod's argument is correct, and I think there's a solution: Instead of checking the car, take a test. Road signs, situation response, maybe virtual driving around the city. Same $50, reasonable result. You fail, you take some time and try once more, for another $50. Speaking of which... Personal finance is not the most popular activity even in the US, is it?And the driver still needs to prove they are capable of driving, by taking a test every 5 years.
There isn't anyone in the USA who cannot save $10/year. Or even $1/week for a year.
Well, the knee-jerk liberal keyboard-jockey reaction to any sort of regulation is, "But the poor can't afford that! It prevents their access to (insert name of service here)." Which is patently bullshit. If you have a car, you have far larger expenses on far more regular basis. Coming up with $50 every 5 years is not a tall hurdle. So I wanted to stifle that particular complaint before it came up. Personal finance is not the most popular activity even in the US, is it?
Take a test every five years: yeah, but, the testers can't keep up with the demand for testing new drivers. A friend's daughter just flunked a driving test and all the slots are booked up until September for another chance to test. NOW - here's the thing. If you can train self-driving cars to also be testers, that would work. And why shouldn't a self-driving car also be programmed to note errors of human drivers. Given that self-driving cars will be taking over (See Humans Need Not Apply, we can get rid of testing humans altogether.
It kinda is. Dogs need to be licensed, and need to have a tag showing their vaccinations are up to date. The license is a one-time thing, but shots come up every 2-5 years, depending on the shot. Dogs that are a menace or injure other people or animals are captured and held until the owner can prove responsible. The state ensures children are in school, seeing a doctor regularly, etc, and generally not being "abused". And, well... CPS. In all these cases, the owner is showing themselves taking responsibility, on a regular basis, will a fee involved.
I think it could be argued that paying for tags/registration, and with states that require it, annual inspections is the same. For all three, the government doesn't look into your performance as a pet owner, parent, or driver unless there is a concern as to your ability to be responsible. For example, a cop wouldn't inquire about you as a parent unless they see you mistreating your child in public, nor would they inquire you as a driver unless they see you driving improperly. So for the driving, you're imposing additional tests, additional challenges that imposes upon a person's ability to be a free, independent citizen in a country that often requires the burden of car ownership to be able to be fully free and independent. There is no regularly scheduled state test to be a pet owner and there is no state test to be a parent. To be honest, I'd argue that regularly scheduled state tests for all three are unfair because they impede on us.In all these cases, the owner is showing themselves taking responsibility, on a regular basis, will a fee involved.
Yes I am, because it is a social good. Not everyone should always have access to everything. So for the driving, you're imposing additional tests, additional challenges that imposes upon a person's ability to be a free, independent citizen in a country that often requires the burden of car ownership to be able to be fully free and independent.
The same arguments could be used towards anything then, from restricting someone's right to use the internet (hey, if someone's computer savy, they don't deserve to use the internet, they could be contributing to malicious botnets) to voter I.D. laws (we gotta make sure people who are voting are who they say they are). What you're proposing is an impediment, and once that impediment is in place, it can have unintended consequences. You have good reasoning behind your opinion, I'm not gonna deny you that. I will say though, that your solution is very unfair and probably pretty unreasonable. Then again, that's what makes it an unpopular opinion, huh? Kudos.Yes I am, because it is a social good.
Maybe add to this a minimum level of car inspection? Many places require an inspection for emissions and safety, but not all. I've never had a car inspection. Too many things are treated as rights without exception when they should be earned privileges.
I'm with you on this one, Steve. When the GOVERNMENT gets involved in SAFETY, then things quickly get out of hand. Classic cars? Gone. Custom cars? Gone. Aftermarket parts? Gone. "Non-standard" anything? Gone. Art cars? Gone. Concept cars? Gone. Bespoke automakers (even something like Brabus)? Gone. Having a "safe" vehicle on the road is definitely important. But truly unsafe vehicles die, and are scrapped. Unsafe DRIVERS can be disincentivized to drive, thereby eliminating them from driving ANY vehicle: safe, or unsafe. The socially-constructed idea of "safe" is a moving target that, over time, moves in a more and more regressive direction. Putting that responsibility in the government's hands is what has led plastic bag manufacturers to printing "NOT A TOY" on the bag your TV came in. And that's stupid, not safe.
Cars here need a good inspection every year, with older cars excempt. You're telling me US cars don't get checked regularly? I'm genuinely astounded. You go ride whatever vehicle you want on a closed track, but on the open road, I feel much safer knowing the human-controlled boxes hurtling around me are actually capable of performing the task they need to do.
Required vehicle inspections do not improve safety. That's my somewhat unpopular opinion based in part on living in a state that requires annual safety inspections, N = 1. First hit for "effectiveness of vehicle safety inspections" says "We found no evidence that inspections significantly reduce fatality or injury rates." The second hit says "inspections should continue" but only looks at test pass/fail rates and not safety.
The EU requires vehicle inspections every 2 years. We all grumble every time our EU-kontroll comes due but dutifully take our cars in to find out there's a light burned out and a shock-absorber that's worn. We pay up, people complain but generally agree that it is nice to know that your car has everything fixed and every other car is in good condition. I actually like getting everything fixed on my car every two years. Folks that don't like the inspections quote the studies that say required vehicle inspections do not improve safety. But that doesn't seem to make sense. Google will give you stats favoring both side. I do know I see almost no cars broken down on the road, which I used to see often when in the US. How do cars on the side of the highway affect safety, both for the driver and passengers of that car and of the other cars? It is not zero. The question seems to be of cost-effectiveness: what is the cost of these inspections vs. the costs of repairs after failure/accident, hospitalization and funeral expenses related to vehicle failure, and is it worth this cost?
Thanks, I agree with most of your comments, especially the last paragraph acknowledging the trade-off between costs and benefits of an inspection policy. The choice of inspections every two years itself represents a decision to give up potential benefits of more frequent inspections. This sounds like wishful thinking. In order to have "everything fixed" we have to assume that every possible safety defect is included in the inspection standards, that every inspector does a perfect job, and that no one evades or cheats the system. Even so, two years is plenty of time for things to go wrong between inspections. Obviously the costs would be too high to aim for perfection, so we live with a balance of costs and benefits of imperfect inspections. One possible unintended cost might be encouraging drivers to assume their vehicles are safe as long as they pass inspections, so they are less inclined to look for problems on their own. The fact that we can find arguments for both sides online doesn't mean that both arguments are equally strong. If inspections significantly improve safety, it should be possible to measure that improvement in states with inspections. If we can't find clear evidence of a net benefit, we should not claim that there is a net benefit. I also wonder why I no longer see broken down cars at the side of the road in the U.S. It used to be common to stop and see if stranded motorists needed a hand. I think cars are generally more reliable, drivers are less inclined to try and fix problems, and most people can quickly summon help with a mobile phone. Flat tires used to be common. In the 1970s, "typical bias ply tires lasted less than 20,000 miles and were only expected to be in service for about two years" but today's tires are "approaching 80,000 miles of treadwear."people complain but generally agree that it is nice to know that your car has everything fixed and every other car is in good condition.
Lots of good points there. goobster makes the point about what vehicle safety inspections look like in Europe and Scandanavia. I live in Norway, where as he says the inspections take over an hour (and cost about $80). We don't have to be able to diagram engine parts for our driver's licenses, but it's not easy to get one. There are different requirements for immigrants based on the the country you're coming from. I got off easy because I moved from the US with a valid driver's license. I only had to take a 45 minute road test. One problem with Norwegian driver's licenses -- they are valid until you're 100 years old, although you have to a driving fitness test every 5 years starting at age 80. My driver's license expires in 2068.
I don't see the problem. I hope to be able to drive at that age, and read a magazine at the same time. My license expires every eight years. Last time I renewed it online. Paid the fee with my credit card and got my new license in the mail. If I renewed in person I would have to pay a $5 additional fee, wait in line for a new photo, and take a vision test. Easy choice! (Next time I will have to go in for the vision test, and again every eight years starting at age 75.) The obvious intended effect of stricter requirements is to improve skills and safety. But a possible unintended effect is to discourage people who might have jumped through fewer hoops from bothering to get licensed at all.One problem with Norwegian driver's licenses -- they are valid until you're 100 years old
I don't see the problem. I hope to be able to drive at that age, and read a magazine at the same time.
I can help with that. Add ride your bike to the tennis court to the goal.
You would be blown away by what a "vehicle safety inspection" looks like in the EU. I've been through a number of them, and it ain't some schlub with a clipboard and a pen. It is a TEAM of people, who swarm your vehicle for an hour(?), and check everything, right down to whether the bolts for your seatbelts are tight. Vehicle inspections in Nordic countries are even MORE thorough. Shit. To get a driver's license in Italy you used to have to be able to diagram and describe how a clutch, gearbox, and internal combustion engine WORK.
Yeah, I have never lived in a state that required regular vehicle inspections. Emissions testing? Sure. But checking your brakes work? Or your lights work? Or your bushings aren't worn and your wheels about to fall off? Nope. However, every single race track I have been on has required DETAILED inspections before racing. I have actually driven a vehicle to a race, failed inspection and denied access to the track, and drove the vehicle home. That's freedom American-style. (Completely illogical.)
My dad has an old truck in the twilight zone of pre-OBD but not antique (emissions exempt) yet. The equipment for emissions-testing those cars is expensive and fragile, and every year fewer have working test equipment.
I thought of several but will go with: high density housing only works on paper. When enough random people are put in close proximity, differences will add up. The quiet ones will want isolation from the loud ones. The loud ones will want space to be loud. People will continue living in high density housing only because they have to (location for work, distance to friends and family, price) but will always seek out distance and space should it become available.
The other side of that coin is that cities provide high-density housing because it is the only way to get enough income in tax revenues to provide services to all the people who come in from OUTSIDE the city to work there. You want to live in a bedroom community and commute into your highrise office building... and still have the fire department come and help you get out of the building in the event of a fire? Then you need a LOT of people, living very close together, paying their taxes, to fund that service for you. Because your taxes in your bedroom community are not helping the city pay their costs to provide you with a safe environment. (I think there is also an age factor here... young people are used to being closer together - school, dorms, parties, social activities, etc - and eventually move out to where there is more room and less interaction as they get older. But I'm not really gonna make that case here in this post.) People will continue living in high density housing only because they have to...
I worked for a company based in downtown Denver, and regardless of which of the suburbs you lived in, because the office was downtown, we had an additional payroll tax... It wasn't huge, but I think it was to pay for exactly the kind of things you're mentioning. It's probably no wonder that back in the 90's, "The Tech Center" started developing in one of the suburbs...the only way to get enough income in tax revenues to provide services to all the people who come in from OUTSIDE the city to work there.
Possibly! The environment changes and species go extinct - I reckon we'll see quite a few disappear as the planet warms. I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. As species disappear, new ones appear and thrive in the new conditions... so it has gone and so it will go. Homo sapiens will one day disappear as well, I just hope something smarter takes our place!
Self-driving cars are probably going to cause serious problems for society which outweigh their benefits. The problems they can create are largely related to civil rights and liberties. The apparent business model for these things is to move from sales to service, which means: 1). The public's ability to get around will be permanently subject to the capricious whims of a corporation. 2). People's daily activities and movements will be captured in large data sets, over which they have no control. One of the things that worries me about this, is that we already see the government using corporate actors to circumvent the civil rights of citizens. (E.g., asking telecoms to store data about their customer's calls so the government can rifle through it at will.) Imagine a world where they have access to high resolution data about citizen movement. A suitably obsequious corporation could probably be convinced to deny people transportation too. Want to go downtown to participate in a protest? Sorry, the cars aren't going downtown tonight. In fact, we've decided that you are an undesirable, so we won't be allowing you in our cars any more. You don't get to object because this is a private company offering a service to you. They can withdraw service at any time. Self-driving cars, while heralded as a life saving technology, are likely to create a situation where people are completely dependent on a system which extends to them no rights.
Self driving cars are not a problem, they are symptom of a shift our society goes throw from a mechanical one into a digital one. The shift is speeding, as digital systems allow of efficiency, the issue is that this efficiency is not understood by the majority of people and is controlled by very few companies. As those new tools are more efficient, everyone not using them for what ever reason is left behind. As they are efficient, they are convenient to the majority, and so, used everywhere a social/economical pressure to use them is created. It started with PCs, and gave us lock-in of data into proprietary file-types, now we have smartphones the ever spying tracking devices that make people walk into things. While the programability of the smartphone is still being explored, we will get self driving -things-, cars, tracks, chairs, what-ever. On the side you get automation of an ever growing list of jobs, and you can't stop it, efficiency wins, you will get 3d printers, and you you might get the ability to download and print viruses from the internet at some point, it can already be done in a lab with a few million dollars worth of equipment, but bio-science is moving forward so who knows. Prepare for an ever growing list of "smart" crap, phones, cars, TVs, light bulbs, toasters, shoes, if there is profit to be done in putting a CPU inside, it will have a CPU inside. I'm all for computing, hack, bioinformatics will give us DNA testing to fit you with the best medicine, smart cars will result in less death on the roads, and so on. The issue is not with the technology, it's with how it is created and who owns it. Because very, very soon Google is going be controlling a shit load of cars traveling at 80-100[KPH], at their full control, with the ability to literally kill and cripple people everywhere, intentionally, a power which for better or worse used to belong only at the hand of governments, and they were mostly limited by boarders. On the other hand we have FOSS movement that is trying to empower people (somewhat) with computers, but a lot of battles are lost. Sorry for the ramble.
Except: Cell phones. All of these things could have been said about cell phones (or other technologies), and we have dealt with them reasonably when they came up. Self-driving cars are an incremental step. Think of them more as an above-ground subway, and I think you are closer to the truth of the matter.
Smartphone do have negative affects on society, they allow constant surveillance and due to their efficiency it's harder and harder not to use one.
An incremental step to what? New technology brings with it the potential to cause serious social problems. I think most of the serious potential problems associated with self-driving cars have been overlooked by most people interested in automation. I think that serious consideration should be given to the negative implications of this technology. I don't really think that the potential problems which I have raised have been seriously addressed. Most of the ethical discussions surrounding self-driving cars seem to be concerned with who should get squished. When it seems to me, the questions of "Who should have control over the fleets?" and "What sort of consumer rights acquiescence is warranted?" are far bigger problems. Also, I don't think cell phones are a good example of reasonably dealing with techno-political problems. Today, cell phones are a part of the massive-passive surveillance infrastructure which governments and their corporate partners have been diligently building for the last 20 years. Very little has been done to address that and that has serious implications for stable liberal democracies.
This is not just an unpopular opinion - It's an opinion that actively leads to the death of thousands of people a year worldwide. People just like me. This is the only opinion here that i will actively say "go fuck yourself." to. There's having beliefs that are different from other people, and then there is having beliefs that get other people actively killed, and giving social disadvantage to those who it doesn't kill. Like, what the fuck did I or any other trans person do to you, man? It costs you literally nothing to treat us like we're slightly above dirt, but it's "inconvenient" to call me a woman, or call my friend a man so you just won't do it. All I want is to look in the mirror and not hate myself and what I see, and then be treated with respect like anybody else. I don't see how that is imposing on you too unduly.
There certainly are many victims of the patriarchy, many of them like you, many more of them not. If you think I support that in any way, then you've grossly misunderstood my statement. Your personal attack at merely reading an opinion slightly different from your own is one of the greatest problems in our "liberal" society these days. There's a reason why opinions like this can not be openly shared, even in a safe space like this, at the risk of being attacked.
You don't get it, man. You are attacking a fundamental piece of my identity and expecting me to be "nice" about it, as if parts of myself that I know unequivocally (and that have been backed up by years of scientific studies) are something that you can just debate without consequence. As to why I think you support it, the title of this post is "Shake it up. Offer up one somewhat unpopular opinion that you hold.", emphasis mine, of course. So if you don't hold the opinion that trans women are not women and that trans men aren't men, then why did you say it? Unless you don't understand that my being a "victim of the patriarchy" is a direct result of you holding that opinion, I can't see why you're surprised that I "misunderstood" your statement.
are you trying to argue that trans people try to change their places in society by transitioning? because that's patently false.
Nah. I took linear algebra and got a lot out of it from a 'oh man that was a neat way of thinking' point of view. But I'm never going to use it. Ever. And I really really put a lot of effort into understanding it in the beautiful way. You make it a requirement, and you're going to turn it into statistics.
I had the worst linear algebra professor, and although I did fine on terms of the grade I received in the course, I had no idea why it was studying it or what its power was. Then I learned Dirac notation and it was like I was seeing in color all of a sudden. So while I agree that linear algebra should be learned by everyone, it should be taught by the best instructor in the department so that everyone gets why it's so important. Definitely not just another math class.
Humanities major here. I did have to do Stem courses. Geology was interesting but I got a bad grade because I didn't have enough brain memorization space - i needed it for music.Also, it's only fair for humanities majors to take the same amount of STEM courses as STEMheads are required to take humanities courses to graduate.
So far as I know, any post-secondary institution in Canada requires you to take some courses outside of your major in an effort to create graduates with a "broad education". I have thoughts on that, and whether it works, and whether the system could be improved, but that's another time. Regarding groups talking, I actually thing that the Arts should be part of STEAM (and I'm by no means a new person in arguing for this. Greeks lumped music in with mathematics.) I think the real place where cross-disciplinary stuff needs to happen is between STEAM and places like history and political science. We create, but we need to know the history of the why behind what we create, and we need to think critically about the consequences of what we create. That said, a conversation for another time.
I'd like you to know that you've built a coherent, reasonable point on the subject of taking Maths course. You said "I think everyone should take that course. Would it better, though? I don't know". It's okay to provide your opinion and whatever arguments you hold that support it, and it's okay to admit that yours is an opinion, not a proven fact. I think it's a case of professional myopia. As a linguist and a language person in general, I'd suggest everyone to take at least one foreign language class, because it's better for ya. I can clearly see the benefits, but mostly in people already inclined to enjoy the advantage of language-learning. You, as a person of strong inclination for STEM subjects, broadly speaking, would see similar benefits in people studying what you consider basic Maths (which some of us dread because of how rigorous the studies are). We aren't wrong in suggesting that studying this or that subject could be useful (especially as basic and everyday as mathematics and language, even one's own). I'm not to speak for you, but personally, I've spent too much time around people already inclined towards and enjoying learning foreign languages to see clearly what the situation is like outside this fairly narrow circle. I would suggest doing some research on the matter. Perhaps make a paper on the matter of benefits of learning mathematics among humanities-inclined students. I, for one, would love to read that, but it might also benefit the inter-field communication where fields become highly specialized without developing auxiliary skills that don't pertain to their subjects unless life suddenly prompts them to it. Lastly, as a writer and an aspiring teacher, I'd say the remarks you've gotten on your essays are shallow and incompetent. What they say mean nothing, and so does the teacher signing them. I can empathize with the teachers' workload - if managing your workload is testing, imagine managing that of your whole class - but I can't empathize with bad work. Reading a 5k-word essay is hard, man, especially when it's far from the only one. That is to say: it's not that maths are necessarily so much more understandable. I'm not going to deny the very nature of the matter, which is very precise and tracable, but I'm here to tell you that yours is merely a bad example, not the baseline for the whole field.
Ideally, a human being should be well-versed in a wide array of sciences in the modern world. Practically... I've just finished useless courses of Natural Sciences and IT, the former consisting of history of natural sciences (I'm a linguistics major, so to speak) and the latter - of neat tricks about using MS Office. I killed a week of time and a bucketful of neurons writing the final paper for one of those, and lost energy and sanity on the other. If more people like you - well-intended but unaware-of-differences STEM majors - are going to start promoting Maths et al. to my face, I'm gonna be reaching for the knife.
Everyone should occasionally do points tasks the hard way. Because. If you need justification, say it keeps you grounded, say it builds character if an old guy asks. - Clean the hair and soapscum out of the shower drain yourself even if apartment maintenance will do it for free. A barbed plastic stick only costs ¢75. - If your car tire pressure is a little low, use a Nicole pump. - Do long division on paper once in a while.
I think Star Wars Epsiode 3 is actually the least enjoyable watch of the whole series. There are little to no stakes, because we know which characters will live and which will die because of the later movies. Additionally, I actually like Ep. 1 Anakin more than moody teen Anakin. Sure, the child actor is terrible and badly written, but there's some good hate-watching there. Ep. 3 is just... tedious and unimpressive. (Note: I am an incredibly casual viewer, and am not huge on Star Wars in general, so this opinion has very little weight).
I may get run out of town on a rail... . Having pets is unnatural and strange. . Pot should be legal, but smoking it should not be. . We should have to prove our need for a pickup truck or an engine in a car larger than about 1.6L. . This one isn't mine, but I heard it the other day: if you receive public assistance, you lose the right to vote.
Mortgage interest tax deduction is another big one.
For sure, and that one only applies to upper middle class people. There are too many to name, really, even just looking at the tax code. The list could get exhaustive if we started talking about all the ways in which the government supports businesses that affect consumer prices (that again, mostly rich people benefit from). That number is large enough that the total dollar value of line item tax breaks for specific businesses is larger than the Bush tax cuts on the top income bracket (according to an NPR report from a couple years ago when the rollback of that tax was being debated). "Public assistance" is one of the things that illustrates the dire need we have for tax reform in this country. The one thing I agree with Trump on is that the system is rigged (although I'm not sure we'd agree on prescriptive solutions).
The guy I was talking to was talking about food stamps, section 8 housing, and other forms of cash subsidies to the poor. For some reason he seems to want further disenfranchise the disenfranchised... or something. His main contention was that as the population of people who are entirely reliant on governmental support grows, they will continue to only vote for public officers who commit to spend more on those systems.
Is he familiar with Medicare? How about real estate depreciation? Department of Defense contractors? Recipients of all of these programs routinely vote for candidates that support their continued existence, the difference being that old people, developers, and defense contractors have actual political power.
agreed - like I said - not mine... just one I heard. In fact, he and I got into a discussion because he went on to say "ok, maybe not no vote, but like a fractional vote" which I told him sounded a little like when slaves were counted as some fraction of a "person".
I am a grumpy old man... I can't enjoy a summer afternoon in the park or a cool summer evening in my backyard without smelling weed. I don't think I'm being overly sensitive or prudish. Last night I put up a screen and a projector - my kids had some friends over to watch a movie in our backyard. How fun! until the neighbors started to blaze... I'm not trying to pick on weed necessarily - I don't like smelling cigarette smoke, cow manure, diesel exhaust, sulphur, or other industrial fumes either. It's just annoying that one person's consumption has to inflict discomfort on people in their vicinity. . So please consume marijuana - but just quit smoking it anywhere that affects other people - eat it, tincture it, SOMETHING... but smoke it? smoke? it boggles my mind.Care to elaborate?
I agree that the culture around the illegal use of weed, is largely smoking it. But here in WA, that culture changed overnight. My wife is a weed smoker, and we were with friends the other night who were simply flabbergasted that she SMOKED it! None of them knew anyone who still smoked weed... they all imbibed in other forms. But my wife is an old Deadhead traditionalist, and smokes very little (two tokes, twice a week). So calling her a "smoker" is way overstating her use. But yeah... around here, in my Burner/Deadhead community? People went from smoking to ANY other form of intake almost overnight. And passing the joint? Nobody shares any more. Now that there are so many carefully cultivated and mass-produced strains, everyone has their own particular favorite, and almost never smokes anyone else's stuff. The culture has changed a LOT here. Very quickly.
while this may be true... I kinda don't care what people choose to do to their own bodies... for me, the smoke is a "public" issue. It is very difficult to control smoke. If I'm BBQing, smoking a cigarette, or lighting a joint, people within several meters of me in every direction are going to know about it.
1. Raw onions are gross 2. The Doors are vastly overrated 3. The Kinks are vastly underrated 4. Motorcycles are stupid 5. Helen Hunt is not a good actress nor is she attractive. I find her repellent for some reason. 6. Pepsi is gross 7. Aside from MLB and NHL professional sports in the US suck. 8. People that don't create, in some form or another, are not worth my time
I thought I would catch more hell for the Helen Hunt thing. Apparently, I'm not alone in this.
funny enough - I went through a real Helen Hunt phase... I liked her on Mad About You and a couple other projects... she was kind of... my irrational Hollywood crush... not terribly attractive, not the most amazing actress... but for some reason I was drawn to her. And then for no particular reason, that unknown reason disappeared... and now she's somewhere between "meh" and annoying.
Behold the Jim Morrison Simulatron
:(8. People that don't create, in some form or another, are not worth my time
You create adventures and share them here. You are a creative soul. No doubt about it. There are lots of consumers out there. Consumers and critics. Not of fan of that lot.
Funny, I was about to say The Doors are underrated. It seems like popular opinion has really turned against them in the last few years.
The US is run by a Spook State that operates in parallel to what would otherwise be a good government; a parasite upon the population, generating debt and stealing from our grandchildren while managing the black markets for profit and for the expansion of authoritarianism and perpetual war.
"...run by..." is a cheap cop-out. The military industrial complex makes so much money that it can influence American politics at every single level. Where a new building is built. Research put out by the Heritage Foundation that says Burblanistan is an imminent threat. Military contractors building armor and weapons to fight a war in Burblanistan. And paying for attack ads/support to get their "friendly" legislators elected, who will vote for the military action in Burblanistan... using the military contractor's hardware... built in the building with the tax breaks for 20 years... So yes. The US is run by a Spook State. But those two words - "run by" - masque a large network of commercial interests that can, if we try, be dismantled. But only of we NAME THEM. Don't use cheap epithets. Call them out by name.
who do you suggest makes up the so called spook state?
Here I go: * Rent control causes inefficient usage of real estate and increases homelessness in big cities * Automation will result in a larger economy and more jobs in the long run * The corporate tax rate on profits should be 0% * The main source of government revenue should be a tax on the unimproved land value of all privately owned land
Could you elaborate ? it's a new one for me.* The main source of government revenue should be a tax on the unimproved land value of all privately owned land
It's called a land value tax. It's the only tax that does not decrease economic efficiency. It's progressive. Unlike corporate taxes and other similar taxes, it doesn't get passed on to the consumer (i. e. renter). It's relatively straightforward. It's hard to evade. And it encourages efficient land use. Generally speaking, taxes act as an incentive to decrease whatever is being taxed. Therefore we should probably tax things that we want less of: carbon emissions, use of finite resources like land, etc.
I have a few opinions, but very few. I don't know whether they are popular or unpopular because I am generally against all opinions. 1. My opinion about opinions is that one should only hold opinions in proportion to the evidence available. 2. All dualisms are delusional, including this one. Reject the binary. 3. No matter how strongly you hold any opinion or subscribe to any doctrine, include in your belief the possibility that you could be wrong. I think those are all my opinions. I suspect they are unpopular because people are fond of their opinions. They frequently mistake their own and other people's opinions for evidence. and thenewgreen regarding raw onions: Do you include spanish onions or raw red onions in your doctrine? I have recently begun putting red onions in all my salads. MMMM
I have always felt that running is a lot more fun for me than bicycling. I know a lot of people detest running but I enjoy it. There is just something beautiful of just moving your legs in motion trying to get to a place as fast as you can or trying to endure at a good even pace for a couple of miles. Also I like how running is safer then cycling because it is a lot easier to stop your legs than stopping a bike at a good speed in the street.
Lol boy do i have a large laundry list, But I'll throw out a few. In western countries women have significantly more social privilege than men, especially if you throw out the outliers. "organic" food is significantly more dangerous and harmful than regular fruits and vegetables. Cats are an invasive species and should be managed as such.
they are soft and snuggly. checkmate atheists.
Anyways, we have a number of bird feeders (sorry @rd95) outside of a large window in our kitchen. There are mornings when we will have deer, squirrels, hummingbirds, cardinals etc all out there at the same time. But now... at least once a week I see one of there damned cats out there stalking the animals (not the deer) and often walking away with a chipmunk in their mouths. Like our bird feeders are an all you can eat buffet. I now keep rocks near my front door and throw them at them. Yep, I'm that guy. Outdoor cats suck.Cats are an invasive species and should be managed as such.
I'm with ya here. We have relatively new neighbors across the street. They have three cats. All of them are "outdoor" cats, which means they never come inside. Why? Why would that be an appealing thing to own?
Fuck outdoor cats. We have like 20 in the alley behind our apartment. Our backyard CONSTANTLY smells like piss. Tried everything from putting up fences, spraying cat-repellant and throwing rocks at them. Useless. Some guy in the next street over started mixing cat food with rat poison and leaving it out. Read it in the local news. Not the right way to go at it, but I honestly can't blame him for feeling that way.
cat should not be outdoors/free roaming. it's bad for all parties involved: the cats, the local wildlife, and the community who has to deal with untamed feral colonies.
This one only feels unpopular because I'm around so many Europeans and Australians but I'm all for tipping culture. Party because I benefit from it but mostly because the whole system is fucked and it's one way for the little guy to get ahead without too much skill involved. It's also a decent security net/fallback plan to have.
In my country, tipping is limited to rounding up a few cents to the nearest 20 or 50 crowns. Servers make good salary, they make what they're worth without having to busk. The customer is not expected to directly pay their wages. Servers are good servers because that's their job and they're professionals, not because they're hoping to get extra reward for doing the job they're being paid well for already.
The problem is society as a whole seems more interested in changing tipping culture than things like high tuition. Granted I guess this is because they feel like they have more power to change the former as well as the whole "if I'm stuck in the shithole of minimum wage and debt so are you". Some people here are professional lifetime servers and you can tell. Some are paying off school debt and some are teacher supplementing their crap salary. Watch the news coverage of a teacher strike and tell me society as a whole is passionate about giving them better wages. They protested in Quebec about rising tuition costs and most people said screw you you already pay less than the rest of the country.
Nah, they should get a decent tip out that also takes into consideration the higher wage they get. Most good restaurants do that. Having said that cooks always tell me my job is easy and I can only think of maybe a handful that could actually handle it. The back of house people who can handle expo can serve, everybody else would be so lost. Most I know hate expo. Especially the ones with bad attitudes. They have no idea what it takes to smile and be cheerful towards the end of a 12 hour shift.
I've got a decent security net in Canada and ya you can make a lot of money working in a restaurant. Significantly more than you ever would with minimum wage.The plan is to be a fine dining server and that's honestly the only way I could see myself paying off school in a reasonable amount of time. Make tuition free and then we would be talking. Take away tipping culture without figuring out another way for people to get ahead and even more people are just screwed.
If you want better working conditions, resist technological advancement. If you want technological advancement, start a union. Here's a scenario: a load of workers on a farm demand better pay and living conditions. The owner of the farm introduces farming equipment that means only half as many people need to work as before. Half the employees are consequently laid off. If the remaining employees go on strike now, they can be easily replaced with the unemployed (who are now hungry). Alternative scenarios: all the employees remain but on shorter/irregular hours, or they are replaced with more but less skilled (i.e. easier to replace) workers.
I like Coke Zero. Sorry, that was low effort. A couple more: -Instead of semesters, schools should teach and focus on one subject per month, with a battery of comprehensive exams at the end of the year. -Pieces of flair (pins, patches, ribbons) are cool. -Fountain pens need to make a comeback. -We should pour a lot more resources into space exploration. Like, I'm for up to 5% of the federal budget being used for it. I got more but can't think of them right now for some reason.
Disclaimer: my only experience with the American school system has been as a student. I also don't have any examples or statistics to back up my proposals. Reader beware. Currently most schools I know of teach in quarter or semester format, with multiple subjects being taught at the same time. While this theoretically reduces compartmentalization of subjects, I've found that in practice most teachers don't bother to tie in their subjects with the others that the students learn at the same time. Additionally, the prevailing attitude seems to be (at least among the teachers I studied under) that their subject is the most important. This is understandable, since they are being paid to teach that subject, but when multiple teachers hold that view semesters tend to get laborious. A monthly approach would see students focusing on just one subject at a time for the majority of the day, for that month. Testing would occur at the end of the month, followed by a considerable break (5-day weekend or something similar). Then, next month, classes would rotate and students would begin a new subject. At the end of the year (or perhaps biannually), all subjects that the student had pursued in that time period would be tested using exams that had been designed by the teacher in advance. I recognize that there are several drawbacks to this system, such as holidays, teacher fatigue, class separation, and registration and scheduling difficulties. However, it seems to me that requiring students to focus on a single subject at a time may produce better outcomes, encourage cooperation, and lead to a deeper understanding of that subject. Again, I can't back any of this stuff up with statistics or examples, it's just a thing in my head that I think would be neat.
I've had to learn quite a bit about patent law (for a lay person) in the last couple years. Unfortunately, much of this learning has come the hard way. That is, I and a couple colleagues published some results that had potentially protectable ideas that are now not protectable due to their being in the public domain ("prior art" in IP parlance). The down side of that is that now these discoveries that could very well help brain injury victims will never become medicines, because creating a medicine requires investment that can be hundreds of millions of dollars by the time it receives regulatory approval. There is not a single investor on Earth who will fund a project like that when anyone else can replicate the work once it proves successful. As biomedical researchers, we're sort of trained to believe in the dogma that we do science for its own sake, and that it is wrong (morally) to do it for profit motive. However, there are other concerns beyond profit motive, as illustrated above. If we don't protect our inventions properly, then they might make for a nice paper, but they'll never help anyone. You learn this lesson a couple times, and it becomes clear that any time you discover something that is even potentially helpful as a medicament, then you should look into patenting it. The point of translational research is to help people. If you're spending the government's or a foundation's money and making your best effort at helping people, then you're just wasting resources. That's why it's immoral.
There should be a resource/ maturity floor for having children. Being a parent with the goal of producing a healthy, relatively happy, pro-social, functioning adult might be one of the hardest things a given person will ever do, and the only prerequisite at present is 'have functioning reproductive organs.' We have enough people. We don't need more people. We need wiser people. More caring people.
Yes. 1. Stop recommending following me to new hubskiers, based on my previous genius as a contributor. What have I done lately? It's not that my hubski-love is over. My hubski-love is always throbbing. But when I get a notice that newuser is following me, I shudder. OMG, I cry. What do I have to say today? Can I make steve giggle? Whenever I drive or cycle, I write long letters to hubski in my imagination, but alas, the universe rushes in. Then I'll come across a bit of hubski love: a picture, perhaps, of _refugee_ and blackbootz in Baltimore and, as Matthew Arnold said, Is to their farthest caverns sent; For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent! Now round us spreads the watery plain— Oh might our marges meet again! oh, what was the question? Oh! then a longing like despair
I will not, can not stop recommending you. Even if they only get a glimpse in to the awesomeness that is lil, it will have all been worth while. Keep driving and cycling and writing those letters in your head. One day, we will all be sitting at a great table and the best parts of those letters will come racing to the surface of your mind and you'll share them with us, your hubfamily. Maybe a table in Key West? Maybe a table in San Francisco?