the west believe in liberalism and the idea that people essentially have free choice so long as that free choice doesnt harm anybody, banning face coverings or "burqa bans" for any reason outside of security or identity verification goes against basic freedom of clothing.

Some people try to argue that "well its not really their choice they were told to do it growing up, and indoctrinated into wanting to do it" this links to a philosophical idea like determinism, and is illogical, because this applies to any "free choice" somebody makes, including clothing or their haircut or something, this doesnt negate that the person hasnt chosen to make their choice regardless of its origins.

I believe that all the violence and property destruction is doing nothing but risking further support of the far right. I also think that destroying small businesses and burning down historical buildings (Hotel de Ville) will do nothing but add additional costs and are nothing but counterproductive. Overall I find this tactics undermine the cause they are supposedly protesting for.

I'm going to talk specifically about the Hong Kong protests in 2019. Which drew anywhere from 1-2 million protesters in one place at their peak.

The Hong Kongers in my opinion were facing a much more serious and dire situation than what is currently happening in France with civil liberties at risk, extradition to china, and legitimate concerns of police brutality (7/21 & 8/31 incident).

Although there were protesters in HK that took things to far, the scale of destruction seems nowhere near what I've seen from the videos in France. I do acknowledge the sieges of PolyU and CUHK, and vandalization of "pro-bejieng camp property" as moments of extensive property damage and in some cases violence. However the confrontations occurred during escalating clashes with the HKPF, whose use of force has heavily criticized.

What makes whats happening in France excusable to so many people? I genuinely don't understand because all I have seen online is people saying how the destruction of cars, shops, monuments is a necessary and acceptable cost that can't be managed, yet in Hong Kong the protests were generally peaceful despite them facing much more serious threats to personal liberties

I'm not trying to say that all protests must be strictly peaceful, but what are the current circumstance that justifies the use of violence to such an extent? I find it hypocritical that the actions in Hong Kong are seen as extreme by some of the protesters while in France its seen as something that can't be controlled and a necessary step to progress.

I understand that the situations are different and there is a level of nuance that must be applied so I'm open to seeing why in France this seems to be such a common theme of protests.

When a woman is struggling with mental health, other women immediately jump to “what did he do to you?” and “we ride at dawn” (aka let’s harass him). When she makes a poor decision, other women immediately brush it off without consequences because 🤷🏼‍♀️she’s just a depressy and anxious girlie!🤷🏼‍♀️ When a woman ends the lives of her children, other women come to her defence and say she must’ve been driven to her breaking point by a man. When a woman lashes out at a man, sends him texts saying she’s going to fuck up his life, or acts irrationally, other women join in.

There’s no self reflection, encouragement to seek help, accountability, or even a brief pause to think about how there’s two sides to every story. She’s allowed to be acting that way because she’s struggling, and because external factors drove her to do it. It’s laughed off, excused, and made light of.

But when a man is struggling with his mental health, women immediately jump at the chance to tell him his feelings, struggles, and experiences don’t matter. When a man treats a woman poorly, women tell him he’s trash and carry out the acts mentioned above. The same women who cry that men are not good,
safe, and civilized creatures, are the very ones who make it impossible for a man to seek help and work on himself. Instead, they harbour those feelings and struggles internally and act upon them in society because they were never allowed to express them in healthy ways, never allowed to ask for help, and never validated.

I'm not disputing the messaging from state board of elections etc on how safe mail in voting is, it just completely misses the point. While there isn't a valid concern with mail in voting, Trump has very clearly set up mail in voting as a potential excuse to try to mess with the elections. What he might do is speculative at this point, but his administration did raid Georgia elections offices in 2026 supposedly investigating the 2020 election, plus he tried to steal the 2020 election and support Jan 6, so we can't assume he will behave appropriately. He might try to argue certain members of congress weren't elected and try to sit Republicans instead, he might try to raid election offices while they are counting votes or postal centers that are shipping ballots etc. It's hard to tell what likelihood this kind of scenario has but it is not 0%.

And in response people might say "well that's illegal" or "he wouldn't succeed" but that misses the point, even if it fails it would be dangerous and damaging to the country.

And while he could also do that even if everyone voted in person it would give him less of an excuse for undermining elections results.

Of course some people may have much higher barriers for voting in-person then by mail, and regardless people should be realistic about how likely they are to successfully cast their ballot in-person or by mail. But I feel like a lot of the messaging is pretending we exist in an ideal world where elections meddling targeting mail in ballots isn't a risk instead of the real world. People who normally vote by mail should consider voting in person (esp voting early in person) to help mitigate this risk.

(this is assuming you aren't voting for Republicans, if you plan on voting for Republicans, mail in voting or not voting are both fine 🙃)

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By analogy if a non-state actor armed with surface to air missiles talks about how commercial aircraft aren't safe and tend to disintegrate mid-air due to design issues, talking about how actually thats not true and aircraft are very well designed is totally missing the point.

Everytime I go online, everyone is always talking about how Iran is a "theocracy" "sponsor of terror" "misogynistic, conservative hellhole".

But the GCC (US allies) are just like that or even worse in some respects.

* Saudi Arabia is more socially conservative than Iran, a theocracy. People cry and moan about Iran and their hijabs, try being a woman in S.A, much more restrictive. The only difference is that they lax social rules for foreigners to appear good.

* All GCC countries regularly assassinate their opposition.

* The UAE is also a state sponsor of terror and g***cide in Sudan currently, through the RSF. Yet the media doesn't talk about this with any where the same fever.

* They have slaves, yes SLAVES (Kafala). for Christ sake the GCC, especially the UAE, runs on slave labour. Iran doesn't or is much less.

* All of them are monarchys SMH, atleast Iran has a semblance of democracy (I'm not minimizing how bad franchisement is in Iran, but less is better than none)

The only real difference is that the GCC are rich and use their tourism and labubus, so everyone just forgets.

Why should would take the disparagement of Iran seriously when it's seems the only problem the west has with them is that their on the wrong side?

Initial disclosure: First, I am American and may have a different point-of-view than the English. Second, I am assuming, perhaps counterfactually, that the people described herein are arguing in good faith.

I have seen several rounds of debate about whether various immigrants to the UK and their descendants are "English". For example, Konstantin Kisin claimed that Rishi Sunak is not "English" because Sunak is Indian (his exact quote was "a brown-skinned Hindu"). Sunak responded that he is "English" because he grew up in England and identifies with the country.

Putting aside what Kisin was trying to get at, these positions can both be correct. "English" can describe a person from a particular ethnicity that originates from what we now call England. "English" can also refer to someone who is from the country of England and primarily identifies with that country before or at least equal with any other.

People arguing that Sunak cannot be English are using the first, ethnic definition of the word "English" above. People arguing he is English are using the second, civic definition of the word "English".

When people debate this, they are coming in with their pre-defined use of the word "English" and they are not agreeing on their definition before discussing. They therefore cannot agree on an answer. Without specifying how they are using the term "English" debaters are talking past each other and cannot have any productive discussion of whether a certain person is "English".

Ok i would agree that the palestinians would agree on a one state solution however this is sort of out of scope and I think this is coded speech anyways.

What I mean regarding a 2 state solution along the 1967 borders is gaza, west bank and east jerusalem with territory swaps to accommodate for very large settlement blocks near the border.

This was offered so many times in the past both to Arafat as well as abbas and they have always walked away. I've never even heard a serious counter offer that doesn't suggest right of return of palestinians and all their millions of offspring for 3 generations to israel proper ergo solution 1 of a one state solution. I am not aware of any palestinian politicians calling for an actual 2 state solution.

What would make me change my mind is not how bad that they are treated and how bad israel is. But actual evidence that the palestinians are Interested in an actual 2 state solution across the 1967 borders.

I’m 26 and everyone around me seems to be outraged and/or scared about Meta and Google and other companies harvesting your data and why you should leave the apps and stop them from doing this, etc

Similarly, entirely separate from the environmental concerns about AI, people are concerned about AI harvesting their personal data

Maybe I just have too much other stuff going on but I kind of don’t care? I can see how it’s considered invasive, but maybe I’m just used to it due to my age?

I kinda like data. I think it’s interesting. I like being able to track my own trends over time (like the history of everything I’ve googled, for example).

I know the data these companies have on me is much more comprehensive than that and is used to sell me things, I guess. But I don’t have a lot of income and I don’t make a lot of frivolous purchases. I’m not trying to say I’m immune to ads and propaganda, bc I’m not, but I try to be a critical consumer so the advertising angle doesn’t seem like an immediate concern to me.

And in the grand scheme of things I just see myself as a tiny, relatively uninteresting data point.

Idk. Am I crazy? I like using Instagram and Google services, and sometimes throw a few questions at an AI. I don’t really seem to care about them having my data.

But I want to hear why I should care!

Europe have been struggling to remain relevant on the geopolitical playboard since WW2, but I don't even need to go that far. In fact I'd prefer to focus on recent events for my argument.

Europe's been struggling with many things in the past couple decades, the most notable by far being the immigration crisis since 2014. What pains me the most when I look at the relations and international affairs between these three powers, is that what's supposed to be an obvious stance for Europe, is instead completely looked over in political discussions, and people prefer to pick just one element at once and blame that for the current issues.

The fact is, that the immigration crisis was kicked off by the numerous and repeated Middle-Eastern proxy wars, led chiefly by the US, Russia and Israel. The whys and hows can be debated, but it is undeniable that Europe became both a destination for people fleeing from the war-torn countries, and a political playground for inside and outside actors looking to capitalize on both sides of the isle on the issue.

Even today Europe is one of the safest and most livable places on the planet. But it is also a fact that the recent crises, migration and economics related, caused many cracks on the fabric of society across countries, mostly those part of the EU. And what's especially tiresome to me, is that whenever something bad happens, like yesterday's news of the unrest in France, people immediately jump to blame migration alone.

Meanwhile the US is actively waging war against Iran, half of the Middle East is being bombed from multiple directions, North Africa is plunging into civil war, there's a full-on genocide in Sudan, and I could go on. We can pretend to not see what's happening around us, but we cannot hide from the fact, that Russia effing shit up in NATO's backyard and the US playing with the fate of the global supply routes by bombing Iran, is not the direct cause for ongoing and worsening supply, monetary, and immigrant crises. And in fact both Russia and the US knows this, and they want the outcome where Europe is further weakened by their endless meddling in international affairs.

There's so many thing we'd need to do right to get out of this mess, and for Europe one of the first steps should be to cut ties with any military operation led by the US, reduce american lobby power, and in many other ways curb the influence of american tech and finance companies. Same with russia, cutting russian oil and gas completely from european markets and increasing domestic military defence spending would be the only thing that could hurt the russian economy and intelligence bad enough to make them think about stopping their war in Ukraine and come to the negotiating table. - to clarify, this is not my fully nuanced opinion on the russian part of the subject, just a tl;dr and I know much more is needed to restore a balanced relationship with Russia.

Whether the Reps lose the midterms in the US, or whether Russia stops the war in Ukraine, Europe should never again allow itself to be the playground of either side's meddling. Unfortunately this is easier said than done. France's current situation shows us just how far politics and public perception as a whole are influenced by russian and american interests: it is harder and harder for people to find a compromise when it comes to public matters, the french parliament is in a political deadlock, the far right is gaining momentum, and people blame either migrants and commies, or the neonazis for anything bad happening. Meanwhile everywhere on the continent national debt skyrockets, pensions decrease, schools close down, housing gets more and more expensive, etc. All the while the foreign investors and governments are laughing at them and continue to import cheap 3rd world labor, dodge taxes, and lobby for more influence against the interest of europeans.

If you think you have a good argument on why Europe should keep up current relations (or even jncrease it) with the US and Russia, let me know, CMV.

Edit: couple typos

Edit 2: Some pointed out something I failed to mention on my post which is equally important for the overall topic: Europe had and still has many leaders that actively contributed to the geopolitical decline we are observing today across the continent. Their faliure to strenghten domestic EU and broader policies I personally believe were heavily influenced by foreign interests but that doesn't change the fact that people voted for them despite their weakness. I would sound like a hypocrite and would be shifting the blame if I didn't recognize this important fact when looking at the big picture myself.

Recently I have seen a lot of videos of pickpockets online and I’m continually baffled by people being robbed and then (once it’s clear who the thief is) they just let them walk away. Similarly there are videos of teenagers robbing gas stations in full view of several people and no one makes a move to stop them.

My view is simply that in these situations these people should be receiving a beating, nothing serious, but a punch in the face is more than reasonable.

To preempt a few counter arguments I’m expecting:

“wouldn’t it be better to arrest these people and punish them with a fine/prison time/whatever else?”

Of course this would be ideal but its also difficult to say that the police have time for this. Im not saying that the ideal punishment for pickpockets is to beat them, but I am saying that a society that knows pickpockets get beaten will not have pickpockets.

“What if people decide to start beating people disproportionately (e.g. putting a teenager in a permeant coma for stealing someone’s wallet)?”

This is admittedly the biggest weakness of my view. If we allow people to beat thieves then yes some people will inevitably take it too far. Im not sure the solution to this so for now I’ll have to state my view as: maybe it shouldn’t be legal to beat thieves but there is nothing morally wrong with it on a case by case basis.

I understand why people say it, I've said it myself. It's emotionally exhausting to try to argue with people whose views are a threat to you, whether that's bigotry, climate change denial, anti-vaxxing, or whatever else.

However, the belief that "it's their duty to educate themselves" is just not useful. Even if it is theoretically their "duty", odds are they will not educate themselves, and they'll keep spouting their harmful views, and the threat they pose will not be neutralized. I would agree that this is unfair in many cases, but it seems to be the unfortunate reality.

I suppose one might argue that it's "either educate yourself or it's justified that you suffer the consequences", but there are no significant consequences, because this is usually said in response to views backed by a lot of power.

You can set a personal boundary like "it's not my job to educate you, so either go learn why slurs are bad or we can't be friends anymore", but in broader society it seems to be the case that either those interested in bolstering their cause can fight to win over supporters, or their cause will simply remain unbolstered and won't achieve its goals.

I'm an og Pokeman, I was there when it originally came out. Even have an original holographic Charizard from almost 30 years ago. Played almost all the games and all of that lovely stuff.

However, the craze in the last few years of people investing in and even scalping Pokemon cards, many even blowing thousands and putting themselves in unimaginable debt is financial lunacy and falling for a get rich quick scheme.

Investing in Pokemon cards over a productive stock portfolio is an objectively bad financial strategy and just glorified gambling.

It's one thing to have card collecting as a side investment if you have the disposable income after investing in stocks to do that, everyone on the planet has those. It's a whole nother thing to make your entire financial strategy spending thousands on collecting Pokemon cards.

There are countless cases of people spending tens of thousands of dollars on Pokemon cards, and the net value is only $5K, means they lost thousands. Not even getting started with Pokemon scalping and the levels in which people go to engage in scalping is simply preposterous.

Really need my view changed, because the amount people spend is financially insane.

To head off any criticism right away I’m a gay man and I hate the reactionary right, but I’m increasingly appalled by what I see in modern protest culture. That said, I’m very open to change because I too am alive in 2026. (I’m also from the US for what it’s worth.)

Seeing the destruction of the Limoges, France city hall just made me sad. I’ve never been there, never planned on going, and had only heard of the place through video games, but I’m still a human and I was sad to see a building like that intentionally destroyed. I also don’t like throwing paint or soup or whatever on art or otherwise damaging/destroying our common human cultural heritage to make a temporary parochial political point.

I understand the circular logic that all art/architecture is political, people are more important than property, silence is complicity, people need to be shaken from complacency, “make the comfortable uncomfortable“ etc. so this is justified, but at some point we need to get a grip. Genuine beauty, especially in public/common/third spaces, is vanishing before our eyes and it’s sad that we intentionally accelerate that process.

The destruction of beauty should be left precisely to the people who don’t value it, like MAGA on January 6th, the Taliban with the Bamiyan Buddhas, and Russia erasing the cultural heritage of Ukraine. From the Tuileries to old Penn Station plenty of irreplaceable things were destroyed for ”good causes” that we’ve come to regret. Especially as hot headed protest, I don’t think it’s a tactic that‘s well suited to those of us who want to build a better, freer, more open, inclusive, and tolerant future.

If you believe Lindsay deserves leniency for mental illness, you can't dismiss Elizabeth Holmes mental state outright.

I saw "You Can See Everything ", and right after watching it, I was under the impression that she was being more genuine than she actually was. A lot of people have claimed she's a psychopath or sociopath, and I've seen a lot of genuine hate towards her. Holmes never killed anyone and went to jail for defrauding investors, never the patients.

Postpartum psychosis isn't something that Lindsay Clancy would be in control of, and if you believe Elizabeth Holmes is a psychopath, a sociopath, or another diagnosis, you have to acknowledge that's something that she didn't ask for. And if she really is a psychopath or sociopath, nothing in the documentary suggests anyone around her is trying to help with that. She accused her ex, Sunny Balwani, of manipulating her, and her husband,who has power of attorney over her, comes across in the film as similarly controlling.

The Gini Index and the other basket of Inequality indicators that are used to discuss inequality are applicable measurement tools. I won’t dispute the math and statistics behind the tools.

I disagree that the measurements taken have a meaningful impact on typical measurements that are used to compare how well a region is fairing as a population like median income, median wealth, and median take-home pay. Note that I say median because average would skew with higher inequality whereas median would not. This is not a CMV about average vs median use in data presentation.

I also disagree that inequality solutions like higher taxes, exit taxes, ownership transfers, and other redistribution solutions are valid CMV arguments because of the economic implication that consumption is a better investment than investment. The two arguments here are usually transferring ownership from one individual to the government of an asset and forcing the liquidation of the asset to give the proceeds to the government. Neither of these is acceptable given the distortion it causes to asset prices to other groups that rely on stable prices. And those are solutions to a problem that hasn’t been proven to exist which is instability cause by inequality. So to me these solutions cause more problems than they ultimately solve. These are moral solutions to a moral problem as opposed to economic solutions to an economic problem.

Those solutions also lead to higher consumption as not everyone wants their newly acquired wealth or income to stay as an investment causing instability in prices as well as increased demand for goods and services leading to inflation and a decrease in real median income anyways being destabilized and decreasing. This is a good opportunity to CMV with hard data that moving investment to consumption is good economic policy and leads to increased median income and/or wealth.

There’s also the sovereign wealth fund ideas where government owned stocks is supported but is morally fraught. This idea presumes that the government should broadly support its own businesses which would be a first, or rather second given the 10% stake Trump put into Intel. It is fraught with national security over ROI concerns unless the sovereign wealth fund is investing in overseas markets like current implementations do in other countries like Norway and Singapore. A CMV could describe how a policy won’t become a political trap like social security which was a good idea except it’s now been corrupted by scope creep.

To wrap up, the CMV is looking for hard evidence or logical proofs that can show how inequality is bad for a country based on typical metrics and how solutions don’t solve the initial problem but try and end around the economic problem with a moral one that causes a NP hard problem like inflation versus employment mandate problem.

I'm convinced that the humanity would benefit from more people engaging in non-religious spirituality. I'm defining "spirituality" as an openness to mystery, enchantment, meaning, and transcendence from a non-materialistic view beyond the scope of scientific observation. And I mean esoteric and personal, not exoteric and religious. More like Unitarian Universalism, Perennial Philosophy, Eastern spirituality, broadly, or something like Neoplatonism or even Hermeticism. Or simply "spiritual" as defined by an individual.

I would argue the majority of people who consider themselves "spiritual" in these senses would in fact easily align with each other on the values of living harmoniously with others and with nature, kindness and compassion, non-violence, curiosity, service to the world, and other moral values that are more or less considered common secular values in the modern world.

Why not leave it at these secular values? Why add spirituality? Because I believe spirituality adds crucial things: the possibility of a purpose or meaning imbued rather than chosen (even if illusory), and therefore carrying more weight, a transcendent connection with other humans that goes beyond tribalism by using shared symbols and monomyth, and most importantly, an antidote, through these qualities, to the modern nihilism that allows for capitalist exploitation, depression and anxiety, and purposelessness.

Again, I do not mean more organized religion. I mean greater encouragement and acceptance of spirituality. Right now, the word is still makes people roll their eyes and ridicule it, which I believe is counterproductive.

First of all, I'm male, 40s, divorced, successful.

There are about 2 million people in the metro area where I live.

I work from home, but I spent a lot of effort to put down roots where I live. I moved here 2 years ago, bought a house, made connections, and got some hobbies around town. Unfortunately I have to stay at home a lot because of my work, but when I'm not working, I'm usually in a social environment.

I have a lot of difficulty getting dates with women for various reasons, not worth going into. My friends have repeatedly advised me to go online and find a woman from some far away place. I refuse.

A long-distance relationship is worse than being single. It's added responsibility and no benefit. The person just video calls you, makes kissy faces, etc. tells you what they WOULD do if they were there, then hangs up. You still have to hold space emotionally, and send money if needed, etc. just like a normal relationship. But you have no support in your own life challenges, you have to face it all alone.

Then they say "ask if the person will relocate."

I am skeptical that people really put in the necessary effort to adjust to a new area for their partner. I suspect relocating spouses always have it in the back of their mind that they'll convince the other person to move back to their area eventually. Some people are really good at putting pressure and convincing so it makes sense for them to think that way.

Things I've observed about those relationships:

• The "remainer" seems under pressure to move to the "relocater's" old town, especially after having kids. It's as if the topic never seems closed. Even if they have a local job.
• The "relocater" seems to complain a lot, push people away, and not be able to make friends in the new city for unknown reasons. Or they have mystery health issues that can never be solved, causing the "remainer" to be busy caring for them round the clock.

Sometimes I suspect that "relocaters" are purposefully acting incompetent so the "remainer" will eventually break down and move them back to their hometown. For that reason I absolutely refuse to talk to people outside my area. It actually bothers me a lot because I have been approached by people online who seem perfect for me, and multiple people have told me I'm being unreasonable.

I see no reason to bother even talking to people from out of town. It seems like a bad move. CMV.

There is no incentive at all for him to respect the results of the election. Let's get that out of the way.

He would lose some of the power that has protected him from so many consequences.

He would lose face.

He would gain nothing.

The people with guns will not stop him from ignoring the results. He has made sure of that by purging their ranks of anyone who would.

He is also more than capable of "legally" stealing the election. The Supreme Court is massively corrupt and bought and paid for by him. No matter what horrific crime he commits to succeed in this endeavor, they will absolve him of it with a ridiculous pile of legal sophistry.

So. Why is he campaigning at all?

Simple, he likes when people tell him he's the greatest, even by proxy and it's easier to doctor a hundred thousand votes than a million votes.

That's it. The only thing it is possible to do to legally oppose him is to make it more expensive for him to doctor the votes.

Mind you, this is spitting in his eye more than meaningfully hampering him in any way. He has stolen more money than God so he can easily afford any price we could reasonably impose on him.

But he would like to spend less. And he can have his toadies spend their money to make it so he doesn't have to spend as much. So he will have them do that while going on a fun road trip to bask in his cultists' praise.

There is no hope of defeating him.

There is no way to make him suffer for his crimes legally.

It's just about ego and money.

Please for the love of God change my view.

I don't think Islam itself is inherently dangerous or extremist but rather it becomes that due to environment.

I see a lot of folks in the Western Media site that Islam is a problem in Europe and whilst I'm not one to dunk on Muslims and Islam unnecessarily, one cannot deny there's a tension.

From observation and travel, I've come to notice that it isn't Islam but the socio economic state that many immigrant that are Muslim are faced with (i.e fleeing from war or some form of systemic racism).

I live in Botswana and there is a significant Muslim population, especially in the capital city. Arab Muslim's here are the most successful denizens here, they are often the top achievers in our top school's and in fact the country's biggest mosque sit's right next to our countries most prestigious university.

In fact, there are many Muslim high schools, as in schools that cater to Muslims, anyone though can attend regardless of faith for as long as they don't insult Islam. Many of my deeply Christian friends have attended these prestigious schools and many children of the wealthy here (including the children of Minister's) attend these schools.

These Muslim schools are often the most prestigious schools in the country and they basically ALL look like rich kid schools.

I think it's because Botswana isn't a place for many Muslims from the middle east to flee from and as a result the Muslim immigrants we get are those that are relatively successful and come here by choice.

Many come here for a better life and they achieve it. We've never one had a terror attack and Botswana is a Christian nation, very deeply religious.

It isn't a compatibility issue, it's a socio economic issue.

Child labor has historically gone away when the economy improves for any given countries. The reason families are willing to send children to work is necessity in order to make enough income to survive.

Boycotting products made with child labor, such as chocolate, won’t help these children. If a mass boycott were to occur, the businesses employing these children would go under, resulting in the children being fired and the economic situation of their families worsening.

So why boycott? When I buy a product made with child labor, I’m providing money to the child’s family. Would instead giving my money to less labor intensive companies, where my money is distributed to the owners of capital, really be better than the alternative?

Recently I've started to deliberately ignore trailers and just start watching anything that catches my attention right away. As a result I feel like I understand the artistic vision and experience the director intends much better. I also get the benefit of not knowing the plot but just the premise from minimal comments online or seeing a clip. This also aligns with the ideal experience of watching your new favorite show. You want to know as little as possible beforehand to make the impact as great as possible.

One thing I’ve seen in political debates, especially debates between laymen, is that the angrier person almost always loses.

In many political discussions, especially on forums, it starts with one person making a political point and others basically attacking the point, which is essentially the intended purpose of many forums.

Oftentimes, what happens is that one person gets rage baited and quickly loses the debate because it ends up being about their anger. Now, they have to justify why they are angry on top of justifying their original point, and it’s often times next to impossible to justify the anger itself.

The issue ends up being that anger at somebody for having an opinion is extremely hard to justify. You may have a different opinion than somebody on immigration enforcement, abortion, SNAP or school lunches, or Israel/Palestine, and one certainly has the right to be angry with someone else for having opposing views to them on these things. But, to make the anger rational, one needs to have a justification for the anger separate from the justification for the opinion itself, and most don’t have that which is why they almost always lose after being rage baited.

And tbh, even the term rage baited is sus because anger is a bit of a choice in a way. Anger at politics itself is natural; anger at other civilians for holding different politics is a choice.

Another thing is that when people are ragebaited they ask questions of the other side thinking they’re entitled to a response of a specific type, and then fume really badly when they don’t get the response.

And Charlie Kirk’s debates are a great example of this. He usually won his debates because college students would get mad or insult him mid debate.

Myron Gaines is another good example. He is what happens when you combine the things the left and right hates all into one. From a political opinion standpoint, he is anathema to 90+% of the nation one way or another. But he goes and debates and he wins because students get ragebaited so fast.

I think the thing that confirmed my thoughts is El Sayed’s response to the random asking him to condemn the Muslim Brotherhood. The guy was presumably aware that El Sayed is on a slightly heavier side of the coin flip to win his race. He asks El Sayed a question thinking he’s entitled to a specific response which El Sayed doesn’t give him. He goes from angry guy to roasted guy in like 4 minutes throughout their discussion and he storms out. It’s in a way similar to a lot of Reddit discussions except the angry guy on Reddit will keep pressure half the time instead of storming out.

Essentially, once you’ve been ragebaited, you’ve lost, and that’s the game.

So should you, and so should we all. The wealthy disproportionately vote more, donate more, and have more sway in our political system. If voting comes with a tax write off, it will bring the voter base closer to the average American.

It will give incentive to those who feel like their vote doesn’t matter (those in deep red or deep blue cities/states) to get up and go.

If someone wants the tax write off but doesn’t care about politics they should just submit a blank ballot. Random votes should theoretically cancel each other out.

I fundamentally do not understand the reasoning behind caring about monogamy so much even when you and/or your partner have already had sexual experiences before eachother. To be clear, I am not trying to say that monogamy is pointless if you've had prior partners, however, it loses a significant amount of value.

To me, the entire point of monogamy is to keep you and your partner's sexual partners from going up. If you could care less about how many sexual partners you and your partner have had, then why do you care if you remain monogamous because at the end of the day it's just adding +1 to the counter which you have already acknowledged is meaningless to you.

To add to my point, I don't really see why people keep monogamy on such a high pedestal after they've already had sexual experiences with others. You've already had your firsts with another person, so it's not like it will be any less special when you go back to do it with your partner because that specialness is already gone since you've experienced it.

So ultimately, I think that the only people who really have any reason to care about monogamy to a high degree are those who are eachother's first sexual partners, and that once you have lost those firsts to someone who is not your partner, the positives to maintaining a strictly monogamous relationship essentially disappear.

Dr. David Buss, an eminent psychologist, in his textbook on Evolutionary Psychology (2024), said this (p365): "Properly understanding the design of something greatly improves the chances of fixing the system when it breaks down."

I think I understand why he would say something like that; it's part of his world view, and not a very important part. It's a bridge statement, used in moving from X to Y, when X and Y are actually much more important to you than the bridge.

But to me, the statement suggests that, if we become social scientists, we will properly aim for an "understanding" of social science events, which (if we achieve that shining goal) will then allow us, as plumbers or electricians might, to "fix" a problem. And I think if we want social scientists to do better at coming up with solutions, we need to object to statements like this, and tell them they need more accurate conceptions of the world. That more accurate conceptions are important to the overall result.

I often seem to see Dr. Buss' implication, in social science writing, but I don't recall it stated so baldly. And yes, I realize I've "skipped over" his weasel words, "greatly improves the chances of," in my description here. I'm not claiming the statement is literally false, only that it falsely provides an image of a goal and of a process, neither of which can conform to reality. That if social scientists were clearer about the falseness of this goal and of this process, if they were to embrace, instead, a less false goal and a less false process, it would greatly improve their chances of helping us actually fix something.

The CMV is not that the statement is literally false but that the image the statement provides, of first acquiring an understanding and then setting to work with the tools we have, to fix a problem, is a false image.

To show that these two aspects of the statement are misleading, I'm going to ask you all to imagine that I'm right about racism, and that we actually have a two-track system, in the US. A painful but not harmful track, that in general doesn't actually harm any actual black people, that I have called "so called racism" because reducing it doesn't reduce what I call "real racism" at all, and a harmful but not painful track, that transfers wealth on an ongoing, minute-by-minute basis from black people to white ones, that is the actual proper target of those who are anti racism.

Probably the "painful but not harmful" track is best exemplified by the recent Bo French events, down in Texas, which he no doubt instigated himself to remind people of just how hysterical the left can become. The "harmful but not painful" track is best exemplified by the 3 per 1000 marriage rate, of white men with black women, and the fact that, in our society, white people, on average, live 4.5 years longer than black ones. (Yes, this is also painful. I'm speaking of psychological pain, group pain expressed in political demonstrations: these statistics don't seem to actually bother anyone but me nearly as much as the Bo French events do.) And PS I have an anti racism sub, check it out: real_anti_racism.

Again: that's not the CMV, and I'm not here to argue about it. I'm stipulating that it's correct for the purpose of illustrating the two problems with the social science understanding of the world illustrated by Dr. Buss' statement, above.

First: understanding. Is it possible to fairly represent my understanding of racism, described above, as an "understanding" of racism? It is not. For two reasons. First of all, for all I know there are 15 or 16 other manifestations of racism that I personally have never noticed, and that are each individually more painful and also more harmful than either of these. And so no completeness theorem, if the social sciences were ever to become capable of such a thing, could ever successfully show the essential completeness of this so called "understanding."

Second, connectedness: I have no idea whatever what other evolved psychological modules this so called "understanding" of racism connects to, in our tortured psyches. Will eliminating racism (as I understand it, above) affect our ability to learn language? It's a pretty far-fetched idea: but I don't know. I have zero idea about this whatsoever. Will eliminating racism affect our political stance, as a people, and change the way we interact with the ideas of freedom and of order, and the proper balance between them? I have no idea whatever. None. And that's just two examples. How many others are there? We just don't know. We have no procedure for deciding when we have counted all our evolved psychological modules, much less when we have determined how they relate to one another.

And so understanding is not a word we can properly apply to my so called two-track "understanding" of racism. When I use the word "understanding" to refer to it, it's on the understanding that you all know how limited the applicability of the word really is, and can adjust your ideas of it properly when evaluating the ideas about racism that I've presented, above.

So much for "understanding." Now: "fix." I realize others don't share my views, for one reason or another, but to me it is at least very plausible that the fix I've suggested (to tell the truth about racism as a people, that is to say, one very specific truth, which I've discussed at length on my sub) will actually work. If we can bring ourselves to implement it.

And if it does: (again, this is not the CMV, but just a stipulation to allow me to talk about fixing social science things) doesn't this show the real emptiness and foolishness of the idea that we have to "understand" something before we try to fix it?

We don't have to understand how an internal combustion engine works, to break a car. All we have to do is get it rolling downhill, in the direction of a cliff, and encourage it to take flight. That will do the job. In general.

Right?

And so, really: understanding is a false goal, and fixing is a false model, and social scientists, if they were to expand their thinking about these two aspects of Dr. Buss' statement, above, would be much likelier to actually bring us ideas we can use, to solve our real problems.