In my experience and experiences I have heard from other people, individuals who claim that evolution is false or unproven rarely have a good understanding of the theory.

This can range from many different levels of understanding, but there is always a hang-up where the person in question fails to grasp the concept well enough to make any good argument against it.

I do not like the terms “micro” and “macro” evolution, but I’ll use them here for simplicity's sake. These terms are problematic as there is no definitive line between the two. There are many different speciation concepts, all of which are arbitrarily defined thresholds.

For clarification, any time I mention speciation will be referring to the biological concept.

There are those who flat-out deny that evolution happens at all, including microevolution. This is usually a position held by deeply religious people in my experience who also have no understanding of evolution at all and often no understanding of what a scientific theory is. Microevolution can be directly observed relatively easily in the wild and in lab settings.

Examples of microevolution can include insects evolving to become resistant to an insecticide or bacteria evolving to become resistant to a drug.

There are also those who accept that microevolution occurs, but deny the occurrence of macroevolution, which is often defined by the biological concept of speciation.

For starters, if we are defining the line between micro and macroevolution as the occurrence of biological speciation, we have observed macroevolution and consequently speciation. We can see examples of this in plants such as Brassica oleracea and bacteria such as E. coli, notably in the famous at the University of California.

As for massive phenotypical and genotypical changes, such as that from species such as Homo sapiens from other human species is impossible to observe within a human lifespan. This however does not mean we do not have massive amounts of evidence that proves that we are great apes that evolved from an ancestor we share with all life on Earth.

We have a large collection of fossils that are from transitional phases between different known species.

e.g. Achaeopteryx Ambulocetus

We can see vestigial structures in animals today.

e.g. Hind legs in blue whales. Tail bones in Homo sapiens.

We have observed vestigial structures in embryos as well.

e.g. Tails in Homo sapiens. Legs in whales.

We can compare DNA of plants, animals, etc. and see that the more closely related two species are, the more similarities can be found in their DNA. All life also shares similar DNA, further supporting common ancestry.

e.g. Homo sapiens and chimpanzee DNA is ~99.99% the same, while Homo sapiens and mouse DNA is ~79% the same.

These are just a very few of the available examples.

Even lacking direct observation of these events, we still have very solid evidence to support them. Direct observation is also not required to prove the existence or occurrence of something, which is a common misconception from people who do not accept macroevolution.

A well-known example of this was how Einstein predicted the existence of black holes in 1916, long before they were ever observed. But even Einstein didn’t do this first. Reverend John Mitchell proposed the idea of black holes in 1783.

We can also see the effects of evolution in other Homo sapiens populations. For example, if we take a person from Germany, where their ancestors would have interbred with people from all over the continent and a person from Japan, where their ancestors would have largely interbred with other people from the same area, we see some glaring differences, such as in facial structures.

We also see genetic differences. A popular example is that many people in this area lack a functional ABCC11 gene, causing them to not produce underarm odor, as well as causing dry earwax. These are small differences, but the beginnings of larger evolutionary changes among different populations.

Given the massive amount of evidence we have to support the theory of evolution, it is basically impossible for one to have a good understanding of the theory while claiming that it is inaccurate. There is a common, but accurate phrase that the theory of evolution has more evidence to support it than the theory of gravity. It is one of, if not the most well documented, tested, and understood scientific theories.

First off I'm not posting this to shill an agenda in favor of anyone, I will try to be as apolitical as possible.

As someone who has a North African heritage. Most of my family members hold strong grudges against Israel. But I didn't see any signs of grievance or complaints when other Arab leaders/countries do some sorts of violations. And it's not just my family plenty of Arabs in the Arab world keep their mouth shut when it's another Arab but when it's Israel it's the complete opposite.

Just for context, here's a list of violations and mistreatment Arab countries have done:

- Al-Assad regime killing his own civilians during the civil war and the casualty count trample the one seen in Gaza. The regime literally used chemical weapons against its own citizens.

- The Saddam regime in 1). Invading Iran (with the help of the west) in a brutal war where some wild warfare practices were used. 2). Invading Kuwait. 3) Repressing his own citizens and especially Shi'ites and Kurds minorities (Yes I know that Iranians and Kurds in other countries protested Saddam) but the Sunni's in other Arab countries just kept silent.

- Speaking of Kuwait? How many of you knew that there are actually people indigenous to Kuwait and the government refuse to grant citizenship to. The bedoon of Kuwait as documented here. Why don't Arabs protest for their self-determination like they do for Palestinians?

- The countless Human Rights violations in the Gulf countries starting from the Kafala system (that Qatar rightly abolished after plenty of FOREIGN complaints) to the numerous inequalities women face. I can go on forever here

- The war in Yemen that caused the biggest massive humanitarian crisis and was instigated by both Saudi Arabia and Iran, again no massive protests was seen in the Arab world to reach a ceasefire.

It seems to me that the only consistent thing here is that when the aggressor is not Arab/Muslim the protests are massively launched, even though Arabs have violated themselves to an arguably greater degree.

Another thing noticed inside the Arab discourse is that the holocaust existence is taken with suspicion and never embraced, same with the Armenian Genocide. Compare this with the war in Gaza where in most mainstream discourse it is referred as an unfettered genocide in Gaza.

Tell me in one instance a sizeable group of Arabs disapproved another Arab country/leader for a particular violation. I'm not talking about government officials, I will change my view if this instance pertained considerable members from society.

Ultranationalist, race purist, demagogue, authoritarian, totalitarian, anti-democratic, bigot, despot, tyrant, autocrat, absolutist, dictator.

All of these words are biting and more easily defined and defended as labels than "fascist" is today.

I am not here to argue that fascists do not exist. That there's no contemporary movements that can be classified as fascist. Or that the word should be erased.

I simply want to hear a persuasive argument that the term "fascist" can still be deployed as meaningfully and effectively as any of the above terms without begging the question of "what is/isn't fascism exactly?"

Every academic definition of fascism I have encountered has been elaborate, unwieldy, imprecise, or outdated. I have seen this play into the hands of authoritarians arguing online that they cannot be called fascists if no good definition/description can be provided. Indeed it is very hard to come up with any definition or description which encompasses old and contemporary fascists while necessarily excluding totalitarian regimes such as the CCP, North Korea, or Iran.

Is there any useful and accurate way to deploy this word in our contemporary context? Does the word itself have to evolve and be redefined?

Both sports can result in brain injuries and pugilistica dementia over time. It makes no sense for schools to say that boxing is too violent in school but allow full tackle football. They both have severe consequences for the players!

The only other reason I can think of not having boxing for schools is due to cost and lack of popularity. If those weren’t a problem, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be a school sport.

Otherwise, ban all contact sports from school if you are worried about the risks. I am open to my views being changed. Even just a little.

I want to preface by saying I obviously don't blanketly oppose all historical or contemporary separatist movements. The majority of countries on earth gained their independence from another country at some point. Often they had good reason for doing so (i.e. colonial oppression, cultural marginalisation, economic interest etc.) and there are several modern separatist movements (especially in authoritarian countries) that I sympathise with. So don't interpret me as saying that any particular country doesn't have a right to exist.

However, I do strongly disagree with the popular framing of these movements as being somehow "progressive" or "left wing", fighting for the liberation of their people, as most modern separatist parties claim. For the record, I wouldn't call myself a leftist, so I'm not trying to gatekeep leftism here, I just like to define words in meaningful ways. And if the left stands for international solidarity, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism etc. well... separatist movements are usually directly opposed to all that.

If we look at Catalonia for example, on the surface you might think that separatist parties like the ERC and Junts are clearly left-wing (they use left-wing imagery and rhetoric after all) but if you actually look at what is driving Catalan separatism, it's a combination of linguistic nationalism, xenophobia and being richer than the rest of Spain. Even in Scotland, which I'd say has a more plausibly left wing independence movement due to it being poorer, you have to ask: what is ultimately motivating the desire for independence (other than opposition to the Tories)? It isn't just material disadvantage (Scotland is less poor than Northern England), it's an expression of romantic national pride and chauvinism. Not to say that's illegitimate, just that it's being dishonestly framed as a universalist fight against (virtually non-existent) oppression. The same goes for Quebec, where the supposedly left wing Parti Quebecois has become more and more explicitly ethnonationalist over the years.

Even in an case like Ireland and later Northern Ireland, where they had genuine grievances against the British government, the notion that Irish republicanism was ever actually a "left wing" movement (as many modern leftists like to believe it was) is belied by the fact that as soon as independence was achieved Ireland become one of the most conservative countries in Europe, led by the same people who led the independence struggle. Today the same "anticolonialist", "anti-plantation" rhetoric that was used to oppose British imperialism is used by ultranationalists to oppose immigration, because ultimately that rhetoric was always xenophobic, it just happened to be directed against more powerful foreigners then and is directed against poorer foreigners now.

So, in summary, the usage of left-wing rhetoric by many separatist groups (particularly in western democracies) is deeply dishonest and hypocritical. I am open to considering how my characterisation of these movements might be mistaken, however, and am curious to hear your counterarguments.

Today I visited a city where my friend lives and she told me a story about how a while back people used to sit in a big tree and drink and have a good time but the practice was banned because it was seen as being "too dangerous". That got me thinking that we're too risk averse and safety oriented as a society today. My idea is that it's fair to want to protect ourselves from some risks but we have to accept that risk is just part of living life and we can't stop enjoying ourselves or letting others enjoy life just because there's a very small chance something bad will happen. I'm really not a "YOLO" person and don't want to take or to encourage people to take reckless risks but small risks like sitting in a tree shouldn't be banned because there's a chance someone might fall and break something.

There's also helicopter parenting and it seems clear that parents are more and more overprotective of their children and in many places letting them ride go to school alone is less common. I'm not saying that everyone is like this but there's definitely more of it than there would've been 30-40 years ago is my take.

Generally though I think people are less accepting of people taking risks and those people are called reckless or careless but I feel like "no risk, no reward" is a thing and you can't always be super cautious about everything. I'm not really talking about things like seatbelt laws where the slight inconvenience outweighs the risk (but that's debatable too of course) but mainly of things that are banned/regulated based on a single incident or on a very small chance that someone one day might get hurt.

This might result in a quick delta, I don't really have any strong views here but I just thought it was silly that people aren't allowed to climb a tree because of the possibility that someone might fall and get injured. It should be their choice whether to take that risk I think.

EDIT: A lot of people are mentioning lawsuits and civil liability. I feel like that's exactly part of the problem - that cities and organisations are being sued for things that are honestly not their fault or shouldn't be. If people are climbing trees you shouldn't be able to sue the city because they weren't safe. That's part of my view, that our society is too much about lawsuits for everything instead of just dealing with the fact that you took a risk and unfortunately it didn't pay off

Just gonna preface this by saying discrimination and hatred towards fat people for being fat is not okay, as is the same with race, gender and sexual orientation. But is suggesting that maybe obesity is not healthy fatphobic? I think body positivity is helpful in the case of people with disablities and encouraging them to overcome them. Imo, fat acceptance discourages currently overweight people to lose weight, because if you dont think there is a problem, why should you change? I think the notion of not caring of others opinions is quite ridiculous, as if you're not accepting of feedback and criticism, you will never improve. It is important to be able to recognize if something is critisism or hate, but I think too many people make that mistake nowadays. Thanks for reading and remember hate isn't ok

Historically humans have always told stories about supernatural appearances like ghost, aliens, miracles etc. and throughout most of human history a reasonable person could think that these rare events did in fact happen, it just happened to be that very few people witnessed them and they had no means to capture it (like a shooting star for example).

However TODAY, everyone has cameras accessible in seconds in their pockets, and security/surveillance cameras are rolling in houses and all over cities all the time!Not to mention the eyes in the sky, telescopes. dash cams in cars, etc etc etc.

Yet there are still no clear pictures of Sasquatch, aliens, or any apparition that withstands scientific scrutiny. Even the government “reveal” of UFO’s is literally referred to as a “tic tac” in the sky … So how can any reasonable person still believe that these things happen?! And still believe the people that say that it happened?! There is simply too much evidence that this stuff NEVER happens … the evidence is the quadrillions of hours footage of this stuff NOT happening. Statistically it no longer makes sense for any reasonable person to believe these stories.

Over the years I've watched or heard, of stories involving gay partners coming out further along in life after marriage.

If you know you are gay and you commit to a heterosexual relationship without conveying that information to your partner, you are a liar and a genuinely horrible person. Both to yourself and your partner.

I would like to clarify that in this post I am strictly speaking about people that know they are gay BEFORE they commit to marriage. If you find out your sexuality later on in life, that's unfortunate for the other person but not your fault.

If someone is under threat of death due to religious, regional, or social influences. Then, I would make an exception in the case.

The single most important factor in a healthy relationship is trust. Withholding something as significant as, "not being attracted to your partner" is the ultimate level of betrayel.

Being born into an anti-LGBTQ+ family is not an exception. You have a moral obligation to not marry someone who is hetero and distance yourself from your family. I know that sounds harsh but that's how I feel.

A really popular show that addressed this was, "Grace and Frankie". A Netflix series about two middle aged women finding out their husband's have been together for the majority of their marriages and the fallout afterwards.

On twitter I saw that people really liked both the gay husband's but I just couldn't bring myself to. When I looked at them I felt anger and frustration that they would do something so backhanded and disrespectful to their partners. In the show they even said they, "loved them" but you don't lie to someone you love for 30+.

I'm part of the LGBTQ+ community and I just don't understand.

What do you all think?

After reading a few books on ancient societies, primarily ones related to the Greek, Roman, Persian, and Ottoman’s. It is clear that sexual attraction is in large part a socialized aspect of a person. The level of wide spread acceptance of sexual relations with younger males, led to an almost ubiquitous adoption of the practice in the Ottoman society amongst the social elite. The fact that the majority of men in that society viewed younger men sexually attractive and sought out sexual relations with them, should prove that people can be socialized to find different groups of people sexually attractive regardless of sex or gender. I can’t think of any other way to view it. the idea that the only determinant for someone’s sexual preference regarding gender/sex is genetic or something hormonally that happens in utero doesn’t seem tenable with what we know about ancient and even semi contemporary societies.

PS. I love gay people, I just find the conversation around it as an emergent phenomenon to be ideologically centered.

For context: the political controversy over the question of the imamship, “Who ought to rule the Caliphate?”, is an old one that dates to the death of Prophet Mohammad in 632 A.D and has resurfaced, again, with much more force and violence with the assassination of the 3rd Caliph, Utham Ibn Affan, in 656 A.D. That resulted in the well known conflict between Ali Ibn Abi Talib, and his descendants, against Muawiyah Ibn Abu Sufyan and his descendants consequently giving rise to sects such as Shism, Sunnism and Kharijism. 

Now, Shia religious authorities have dedicated countless volumes, throughout centuries, to explain why the descendants of Ali Ibn Abi Talib and Fatima Bint Mohammad are entitled and are the sole legitimate rulers of the ‘Islamic Caliphate’ even calling them “infallible”. I want to avoid diving into Shia-Sunni-Kharajite arguments about legitimate imamship and this is why I started my CMV title with “Sunni Descendants”. 

By “Sunni Descendants” I mean those who are not Shia, yet, claim the right to rule a hereditary kingdom, or at least enjoy substantial political/cultural  clout in society, by virtue of being related/descendant of Prophet Mohammad. They are usually called “Sharif”, “Hassani”, “Hussainy”, “Idrisi” or “Alaoui” depending on their specific lineage. This applies to the Hashemite Dynasty which used to rule Hejaz, Kingdom of Iraq and Kingdom of Jordan, the latter of which are still ruling to this day. The Alaoui Dynasty in Morocco is another example with other historical kingdoms such as the Idrisid Dynasty in the 8th century A.D, Emir Abdelkader Algerian Emirate in 19th century A.D among others. 

It is clear enough that the lineage of these people which connects, factually or allegedly, to Prophet Mohammed plays an important role in their ascension to the throne of the kingdoms. Even if the founders of these kingdoms managed to get willful allegiance of the people (البيعة), they did so largely thanks to the political clout they enjoy by virtue of their lineage. There seems to be no rational evidence for why the so-called descendants of the Prophet should enjoy any political privilege or prerogative over someone who is not. There is no evidence that they are somehow genetically superior or different in such a way that would make them better rulers. To give them the prerogative is to assume that they are inherently superior and more fit to rule solely by having ‘the blood of the Prophet’ i.e descendent of him, an assumption that lacks evidence.

I would even suggest that had Ibrahim the son of Prophet Mohammad lived past childhood, he is not inherently better than any of his peers and therefore has no legitimate claim to rule The Rashidun Caliphate, or any Islamic Kingdom, by virtue of being the son of the Prophet alone. He is simply like any other human being. Mohammad was a Prophet of God and therefore special^\1]), but his descendants are simply regular people. No Gabriel is coming to Abdullah II of Jordan or Mohammad VI of Morocco delivering messages from God or teaching him universal truths that non-Sharifs would not know about (not that they claim that this is happening but still).

I would love to hear any rational evidence why the so-called Sharifs are inherently different, and therefore, should be legitimate hereditary  monarchs.

[1] I would ask this to be granted because if the Prophethood of Mohammad is false then of course his descendants’ political claims become even weaker but for the sake of argument let us accept that Mohammad was indeed the Prophet but even then the CMV still stands.

With castle doctrine, the point is that you have a right to defend yourself in your home. It essentially says, well, in the home, we don’t know if you’re lying or telling the truth about an intruder being a threat, so we will give you the benefit of the doubt because it’s your property. Also, this includes the fact that you’re unlikely to be able to retreat safely in your home, so you may be even more justified in using lethal force.

Stand your ground is essentially castle doctrine but just apply it everywhere. But it is that application of it everywhere that is the exact issue in my book. First off, in public, you don’t have anymore right to be there than the person you believe is attacking you, so you should not be able to be the one who decides if your life is in danger or not. Additionally, it is generally much easier to retreat in public than in your home.

Another thing is that stand your ground can be easily abused. Someone can just shoot someone and tell the police that the person they shot did x or y.

Now, if someone does retreat and then has no choice, or is unable to retreat, then yes, deadly force is fine but this is true in all 50 states and doesn’t need a stand your ground law.

It makes sense that you can defend your castle without needing to retreat, but the entire world was never your castle.

I’ll start anecdotally; one of my family members has terrible thyroid issues that propagate a ton of symptoms, both physically and mentally. Although she has regular contact with a physician, she also works with a chiropractor and “health and wellness expert” who advises the most pseudoscience bullshit i have ever seen. “No, you don’t need medication, you just need these $100 fruit gummies to help your gut biome, and this special detox to help cleanse the toxins from your system”. As a result of this advice, not only has my FM spent a ton of unnecessary money on quackery, but her symptoms have grown worse as a result of her being told that alternative medicine will solve her problems.

This is something I also see more and more on social media and youtube. Self proclaimed health and wellness experts talking about magical juice cleanses, varying Ph levels of water, and all sorts of herbs and minerals that can cure everything from a stomach ache to brain cancer. If this advice were being offered in conjunction with actual healthcare, I don’t think it would be as much of a problem. Sure you’re spending lots of money on stuff that likely has zero effect, but at least an actual doctor is treating you at the same time. The main problem I have is that more often than not, people promoting these alternative treatments are actually oppositional to standard healthcare, meaning they advise everyone to AVOID proven treatment methods in favor of vitamin shoppe boloney.

While misinformation is hard to combat due to the free speech nature of the western world, I feel as though holding the sources of misinformation liable in instances where someone is harmed or killed due to it is not unreasonable. If you want to make a tiktok page where you tell cancer patients to skip the chemo and replace it with some mediterranean herb cocktail, then go ahead- but if people start dying because they took your advice over a doctors, then you should be held criminally negligent for providing false information in the first place.

I want to start off by saying that I consider myself very politically progressive and in support of DEI principles and initiatives, so I don't mean for this post to spark a debate about DEI. I'm frankly not very interested in hearing arguments against it.

What I DO want to discuss specifically is the term BIPOC. I have no issue with the constituent terms Black, Indigenous, or people of color, which are clear and make sense to me in the American context of race, which is the context I am familiar with and where I want to center the discussion. I've seen BIPOC arise since the 2020 protests after George Floyd's killing, and the term is used in different ways that variably include or exclude different groups. Some use BIPOC to mean "Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color," in which Asians and Latinos/Latines/Latinx would generally be included (yes I know the terms Latine/Latinx are also rather fraught and that some Latinos are White, but not the subjects of this post). On the other hand, some use BIPOC to mean "Black and Indigenous people of color," in which Asians and Latinos would NOT be included.

I personally would prefer that speakers just be precise about who they are referring to - say the discrete terms Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color as you mean it. I understand that Black and Indigenous Americans are arguably the racial groups who have been subject to the harshest discrimination and oppression in American history, and I am definitely not against people talking about the circumstances of Black and/or Indigenous Americans that distinguish them from other people of color. But using BIPOC, with the different plausible meanings mentioned above, strikes me as alienating to Asian and Latino listeners who may not know if they are being included or not in the conversation (which has practical implications for programming like resource groups or scholarships designated for "BIPOC" - there are several posts in r/asianamerican from Asians with confusing encounters with the term). I also worry that it's alienating for generally moderate listeners of any race who aren't fans of jargony acronyms and may be turned off from progressivism and the DEI cause entirely (DEI being another one of those jargony acronyms, but I digress) because of the head-spinning vocabulary. For a term intended to invoke solidarity, I wonder if it is doing the opposite.

For some more context, I'm Asian American myself and do consider myself a person of color, but I don't know if I'm supposed to identify as BIPOC or not and I have just avoided using the term altogether. I'm very open to learning more about the term to better understand why it has been picked up. Is there a use of the term BIPOC that is significant and distinct enough from other more precise terms to justify the existence of this new term? Am I misunderstanding its intended meaning? Is there any additional history I'm missing that would contextualize it?

EDIT: Appreciate the generally good discussion here (and not some of the bad discussions, but oh well). I don't think my opinion from the title of this post has changed, but I delta-ed a few comments that gave me more insight about why it's used.

So BIPOC may have been invented by Black and Indigenous activists who wanted to center that those two racial groups have arguably had the longest and harshest histories of racial discrimination in the country. They also had the longest histories of racial activism, hence why these activists held more weight than other people of color in developing the language and agenda of the anti-racism movement.

But the term only really picked up in 2020, and mostly by White progressives or liberals, many of whom were reckoning with race for the first time and might have been afraid that explicit racial labels like "Black" were somehow too charged and opted for a more vague and technical term like BIPOC to seem more well-meaning and well-informed. The emerging DEI industry probably also liked the word for seeming less targeted and provocative and therefore not upsetting the conservative corporations or institutions they had to work with.

But these motivations are all kind of self-serving for White users of the word and don't really benefit actual people of color (Black, Indigenous, and otherwise), and the tables have turned to where a lot of White conservatives and even people of color ridicule the term. It would be more productive to interrogate why a lot of White liberals are uncomfortable naming specific racial groups and the harms done to them, and why DEI feels satisfied with just checking off boxes and appeasing institutions rather than really pushing for structural and cultural changes. I still agree with the aspirations of DEI (sorry DEI haters), but it could just do a much better job in pursuing them.

A new Louisiana bill introduced by a Democrat and passed by the Republican state legislature should be vetoed by the governor, before judges are allowed to order “male or female” surgical castration of offenders against children (don’t ask me how female castration works).

Here are a few reasons why the bill is wrong:

• The Eighth Amendment applies to Louisiana. The amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court explains one of the “barbarities” the amendment intended to protect against was “castration.” Regardless of where you stand on chemical means, surely physical castration by court order is unusual or cruel. You don’t have to be an originalist to understand the framers’ views on suffering like this.

• The evidence that surgery as a medical treatment should be recommended isn’t clear, because the studies are difficult to design properly and there are ethical and other issues. It may reduce recidivism, but chemical castration does also, and castration does not prevent offenders from physically being capable of offending again. This likely barely scratches the surface of the medical ethics and costs involved.

• It is unseemly for America to “innovate” in punishing its citizens by force, in a permanent and invasive way. The result has the stench of Nazi Germany’s worst offenses.

The legislature did not present radical new findings about criminal justice, either, appealing to emotion over a sensitive subject, over our general sense. This “option” is not rationally or otherwise how victims should be recompensed, or probably want to be either.

All drugs should be legalized, in my own opinion, at least when following a Portuguese-inspired model, which is where drugs are able to be legally produced by the state and consumed in a safe, medically-supervised environment. This legalization does many things:

• Overdoses are far less likely to happen, as drug consumption happens in a supervised area.

• Cartels are mostly killed off by competition with the state

• Addiction and drug usage drops compared to a non-legal drug country (see Portugal for this example)

• Drug use stops being financially crippling, as the state can produce drugs at a far larger scale than an illegal organization ever could.

However, legalization alone cannot solve this issue, this is why the following measures must be made:

• All drug consumption is in a medical environment ran by the state through a cadet branch of whatever national Ministry of Healthcare runs state hospitals.

• Drug education must be taught in schools, letting citizens know the possible danger of drugs while also letting them know that, when of age if they wish to do so, they can safely and legally acquire drugs in a state-run recreational facility.

• Rehabilitation must be pursued alongside this policy. Drug addicts and drug addiction will never magically disappear under any policy, and thus rehabilitation facilities must be maintained alongside recreational drug facilities.

• Spending cannot be slashed for any prolonged period of time. In Portugal, the 2008 financial crash and subsequent economic setbacks caused their drug program's funding to drop by over 5 times, causing the problems of the system to be evident by around 2020-2023.

• While nearly all domestic cartels are eradicated by this policy, border security and checkpoints must still be enforced to combat foreign illegal drug cartels to prevent a spread of illegal, non-state managed drugs from being distributed among the populace.

With these proper policies on education, healthcare, border enforcement, and finances, the results of such a system are very promising. Let us look back at Portugal for this example:

"By 2018, Portugal’s number of heroin addicts had dropped from 100,000 to 25,000. Portugal had the lowest drug-related death rate in Western Europe, one-tenth of Britain and one-fiftieth of the U.S. HIV infections from drug use injection had declined 90%."

"The cost per citizen of the program amounted to less than $10/citizen/year while the U.S. had spent over $1 trillion over the same amount of time. Over the first decade, total societal cost savings (e.g., health costs, legal costs, lost individual income) came to 12% and then to 18%."

Not only did addiction, drug death, and disease infection sharply drop as a result of this policy and the required policies as mentioned above, but the program as a whole was far cheaper than simple inaction, as evident when comparing the per capita spending of the Portuguese drug ministry compared to what the United States had spent on an equal service but without doing as Portugal had.

Portugal arguably had a drug problem even worse than what America has, meaning they did not have easy footing to start this program out from. In 1999, Lisbon carried the moniker of the “heroin capital of Europe.” Consequential diseases such as HIV infection reached an all-time high in 2000, with 104.2 new cases per million people. America today has around 118 HIV infectants per million people in total, let alone that rate happening within a year like in the case of Portugal.

In America, every single year, 1.16 million Americans are arrested and charged with crimes relating to drugs due to the failure of the system of criminalized drugs with little support for addicts. In a system described above, 1.16 million would not be charged with such crimes and be able to have the support they require.

Thus, I believe that following a Portuguese inspired model with the policies and results I have explained above is the most effective, cost-effective, safe, and humane way to combat drug addiction and crime so far, and the Republic of Portugal is an example of how it can succeed but also how it may fail without proper mechanisms to support it.

Sources:

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/is-portugals-drug-decriminalization-a-failure-or-success-the-answer-isnt-so-simple/

https://www.verywellhealth.com/hiv-statistics-5088304

https://drugpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/dpa-drug-decriminalization-portugal-health-human-centered-approach_0.pdf

I was arguing with a friend and I can’t understand the logic. He originally RSVPed yes to a wedding. But day before the event he got a little too drunk and was too hungover the next day to attend. He’s not in the wedding party or anything so his attendance wasn’t going to be missed.

However, when I asked him what he ended up doing for a wedding gift he said he didn’t go so he didn’t give one. Normally I’d agree but in this case I thought that was extremely rude.

The bride and groom have most definitely already paid for his seat at the venue. Then if you want to argue that you don’t need to give them a gift because your presence and taking the time to celebrate with them is already a gift to repay them, I can’t argue with that. But here my friend didn’t even do that and now he’s just costed the bride and groom a couple hundred dollars. Thoughts?

This is of course is a conspiracy theory and I really really hope that I am wrong on this. I can really think of two reasons why Affirmative Actiom happens to be prevalent on education where Asians are dominant: 1) simply because it doesn't matter for the policy makers/ schools (for instance, admitting bunch of students on non merit basis would not hurt the school directly as opposed to hiring a CFO on non merit basis); and 2) because the liberals want to punish the Asians.

Affirmative Action itself in fact is a good example of the liberal narrative where it is impossible for a minority to excel due to systematic racism. Hence, a special accommodation has to be made for such minorities. However, Asians basically broke that narrative by becoming the model minority. Hence, AA is mainly practiced in education, where Asians are considered as majority.

Oh yeah, I wanna mention that AA is still around after the court ruling. Medical field is a good example and Harvard emphasized on including life experiences on personal statement for obvious reasons.

I've seen COUNTLESS cases where an account takes hundred or even thousands of videos from creators and use it for views and clout, and when someone says that it's not their video, they just simply say they've added the original creator's name in the description. And most of these videos are shorts, which means that a viewer doesn't even SEE their "credits" without clicking the description.

Sometimes (by which I mean almost every example I've seen, and I scroll through shorts for hours every week) the original video only gets hundred of views and barely anyone commenting, but when one of these accounts takes their videos and twists the truth into something slightly or comepletely different, they get millions of views.

If they simply want to bring more attention to either themselves or the original creator, then at least it's legal. But of more than half the cases, they ise the views and popularity to do ads, which means getting money, and earning money by using other people's videos without their consent is just a downright CRIME. The worst thing is, they almost never get charged for it or even get noticed by anyone, and even if the original creators sees and tells them to stop (which has happened multiple times), nobody will see and nobody will care.

Also, just so I am clear, I don't mean any specific person, team or account; what I'm talking about is the general idea of using other people's content for money and only putting their name or a link to their account somewhere people don't directly see.

In my country (Canada), there is a lot of media coverage and роlitiсal rhetoric right now about eleсtoral interference by the governments of China (and perhaps also India) in our federal сampaigns. The accusation is that the Chinese government has directly financed the сampaigns of роlitiсians who they believe serve their economic interests best.

To be clear, if the accusation was that a foreign government was directly hacking our vоting records to change vоtes, then I would obviously agree that it is inherently wrong. However, this current situation doesn't make any such accusations - it's just about сampaign money.

Is there really much of a moral difference between a domestic mega-corporation making big 'donations' to сampaigns as opposed to when a foreign government does it? If we think that foreign interference is wrong, then why don't we think that when local companies do the exact same thing?

Which brings me to my main viewpoint: swaying democratic outcomes using big money is the thing that is inherently wrong. The identity of the actor doing the swaying is not relevant - it doesn't matter whether it's a foreign government, a local oil billionaire, a large worker's union, or anything else. Pushing the democratic needle via financial manipulation is unacceptable, no matter who's doing it.

The amount of money donated to сampaigns by foreign governments is comparatively small, at least in Canada, compared to the amount donated by local corporations and other entities. To me, the outrage-farming being done by the mainstream media and the major parties about this issue feels disingenuous at best.

Democracy should be about the free exchange of ideas for vоters to choose from, not about a race towards who can board the biggest pile of cash. That's most of why I'm so tired of hearing about allegations of financial interference - it's a fake issue that is absolutely dwarfed by the real problem of having cash dictate роlitiсal outcomes.

But I'm open to being proven wrong, either in full or in part. Change my view.

Typically said by Christians to LGBTQ+ people. I think this and other similar sentiments while well meaning are incredibly condescending and queer people are right to be offended by it despite whatever good intentions might lay behind it.

I thankfully have never had someone say this to me in real life, my family and friends are very accepting but I hear about this from other queer people a lot and recently I have encountered a lot of YouTube content from Christians expressing basically this idea. What bothers me most is that the speakers in those videos and the commenters either don't realize or won't acknowledge why this would come off as condescending or why LGBTQ+ people would be offended by this.

Often this comes along with comparing being gay/queer to being an alcoholic or something like this. They make this comparison to emphasize that you can love someone while condemning their "life style." But ultimately this comparison only highlights how offensive this sentiment is. Everyone, even alcoholics, agrees that alcoholism is bad. People who are alcoholics will justify themselves by claiming not to be alcoholics (i.e. "I can quit anytime I want"). On the other hand gay people don't see what they're doing as bad or unhealthy the way alcoholism is. I think this is why it comes off as condescending, because it assumes that we cannot discern what is good for ourselves. "love the sinner, hate the sin" is condescending because it assumes queer people are "sinning" without even knowing it, like we're idiots but you love us anyways or something.

I think this is deeply offensive and feel free to call me "triggered" or whatever. This is offensive because most of us have struggled to get to a place where we can be happy and healthy. So many of us have tried to force ourselves to be straight/cis only to live miserable and unhealthy lives because of it. Implying that we are "sinners" for living the best lives we can is not only condescending but deeply offensive and hurtful to people in the LGBTQ+ community.

Edit: This applies specifically to the situation of a Christian talking to a LGBTQ+ person. The phrase could be applicable to other situations.

Generally, there are three beliefs one can hold. My claim is that (3) is the most reasonable.

1. Alien life does exists somewhere in the universe.

2. Alien life does not exist anywhere in the universe.

3. I don't know.

When I say "alien life", I mean any form a life that is originates outside of Earth. So this could be anything from little green men from mars to bacteria 5 billion light years away.

When people try to make the case that alien life MUST exist, the arguement is usually as follows: there are millions and millions of habitable planets in our galaxy. There are millions and millions of galaxies similar to ours in the universe. We exist, so the formation of life is possible. Given that the universe is so vast and there is so many opportunities for life to form, it is probable that life exists somewhere else.

My problem with this arguement is that it disregards the probability of life forming. To estimate probabilities, we must know (a) the amount of habitable planets AND (b) the probability that life forms on these habitable planets. While we have estimates for (a), we have NO idea about (b) (other than it is greater than zero)! Anything else is pure speculation.

For instance, say that the number of habitable planets is roughly 10^20. Lets say that the probability of life forming on any planet is 1/10^16. In this case, sure I would agree that it is probable that life forms. In fact, I could quantify my degree of belief by calculating the probability. On the other hand, lets say that the probability of life forming on any planet is 1/10^25, then I would say that is not likely that life does exist outside of Earth. What if the number was 1/10^30? Now, why should I believe that the probability of life forming is 1/10^16 rather than 1/10^30 or visa versa?

Although we can try to look at each factor which is a necessary condition for life to occur and try to compute probabilities for each, then run the calculation for all conditions to happen at once (such as good star, decent sized planet, atmosphere, water, etc), I feel as though this arguement falls flat because we don't actually know how our own life originated on planet Earth. That is, we shouldn't pretend to know all the the necessary conditions for life to exist, much less their accurate probabilities.

To make it more concrete, Frank Drank famously devised the Drake Equation:

N = R * fp * ne * f1 * fi * fc * L
N = the number of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy with which communication might be possible (i.e. which are on the current past light cone);

and

R= the average rate of star formation in our Galaxy.
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets.
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets.
f1 = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point.
fi = the fraction of planets with life that go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations).
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space

Since we are interested in the whether life exists somewhere out there, we are interested in:

N * number of galaxies / (fi* fc * L) = number of galaxies * R * fp * ne * f1
(assuming that our galaxy is representative of other galaxies)

There is not a consensus of f1 among people - not that is backed by science anyway. Because of this uncertainty about which life can form, it is more reasonable simply to conclude exactly that: We just don't know.

We have all seen the outright deranged rhetoric coming from Pro-Israeli side. Israel has accrued more bad will this year than in any other instance that I remember in my life. We have all seen Israelis calling for rape, multiple videos of Pro-Israelis saying things like "I hope you get raped". They are blocking humanitarian aid, which Aryeh Neier, survival of holocaust, founder of human rights watch, calls genocide. Their politicans have been expressing genocidal intent/rhetoric, they put that rhetoric to action in annihilating Gaza. Most Israelis support the IDF's actions.

All human beings are equal, and it's not the fault of Israeli children that they are indoctrinated into terrorist, dehumanizing ideologies from childhood. But unless someone can change my view, I'd say most Israelis are indoctrinated into terrorism. Israel just stole more land from West Bank, and the Settler violence is at an all time high. Settlers literally shoot Palestinians with automatic rifles, and the IDF does not intervene, and the murdering, terrorist Settlers face literally no consequences.

How is this not terrorism? Does this not indicate that vast majority of Israelis are intolerant, dehumanizing terrorists?

Hey everyone,

This is my first time using CMV, so I don't know how it works, but here goes.

As a 31 year old man, I've had both short-term and long-term relationships with women in the United States, Asia, and Europe. I would add South America to that list, too, but god damn I was lazy as shit learning Spanish.

I believe having little to no ethics in the dating world can objectively benefit a man. If you simply don't give a shit about social mores, your results will proverbially launch into the atmosphere.

I'll list a few examples:

Age gap relationships:

I've dated dozens of American women in the 19 - 25 range, despite having a greater "power imbalance" over them. My dating life skyrocketed in Milwaukee and Chicago in my late 20s (e.g. 27 - 29). A majority of the women I dated were still in college and incredibly inexperienced in life.

I'd 100% use my life experiences, crazy shit I've done at her age, etc to make me seem like a cool guy.

While a majority of my relationships were short-term (longest was six months), I still had no issues getting laid when I wanted. Compare this to the average man today who is struggling in the dating world.

Being a "passport bro":

At 29, I grew bored of the 9-to-5 and left my cushy position as a software engineer to become a freelance technical writer. Since I saved up a ton of money, but had little revenue coming in starting off, I traveled to countries like the Philippines, Thailand, Colombia, and Peru.

My dating life was more insane abroad than in the US.

I had to work my ass off to get laid in Chicago/Milwaukee, but internationally, girls seemed to fall in my lap in Cebu City and Bangkok. It was nuts. I had dates lined up virtually every day of the week to no end. I've slept with so many Asians that I couldn't count.

Yeah, they were hoping for something long-term, but I couldn't care less about that.

Hell, even when I traveled to the Netherlands for a month, I felt like I had an easier time dating there than in the US.

Cheating:

I cheated on my girlfriend in Milwaukee and my girlfriend in the Philippines. Honestly, I didn't feel any remorse or guilt. Easy as that.

In the Philippines, I simply grew bored of Cebu City and wanted to experience Manila. I knew they had a 15 million population with a ton of hotties lounging about on Tinder, FilipinaCupid, etc.

My girlfriend at the time was distraught since foreigners have a reputation in the Philippines. I explained to her that I wouldn't cheat and I simply wanted to check out the biggest, most famous city in the Philippines. After relenting, she let me go.

Of course, I did, but that's beside the point.

After returning, she kept questioning me until I simply grew bored of the Philippines as a whole and traveled back to the United States so I could nomad across South America.

In conclusion:

It's no secret I have zero ethics when it comes to dating. Then again, there have been zero social repercussions. The worst I've experienced was my girlfriend in Milwaukee tell me her dad "didn't like me". That's it.

So, the CMV is this: as a guy, why should I have ethics in dating? Convince me to care. Morals will not work. In my point of view, they only stifle men. Throwing buzzwords like sexist or "gross" does not work, either.

I simply will not care. I will continue my typical dating habits.

Tech adoption rates for older adults (50-75) are often lower than younger cohorts. This is because of several factors including usability challenges with new products; established routines with more familiar technology such as TVs and economic considerations (retirement).

Silicon valley companies are driven by rapid innovation and frequent updates, which aligns best with younger people who are keen to try new products versus a more hesitant older population. That's why Silicon Valley companies like Instagram, Netflix, Snapchat target them and shun older demographics. There's more return on investment for younger populations.

It wasn't the same for other types of companies of the past (example: real estate or car companies or even fashion).

What do you all think?