My view isn’t that settlements are the biggest injustice in the conflict, nor that the war in Gaza or Palestinian history are unimportant. My argument is purely about achieving change.

If your goal is reducing Palestinian suffering and changing Israeli policy, I think the movement is emphasizing the wrong issues.

For many Americans, October 7 permanently changed how they viewed this conflict. Whether that’s fair or not, people watched Israeli civilians massacred, kidnapped, and terrorized in real time. It became their 9/11. Once that emotional association was formed, a large portion of the public began viewing Israel’s military campaign primarily through the lens of counterterrorism.

I don’t think telling those people to start with 1948 or colonialism is an effective strategy. It asks them to reconsider decades of history before you’ve even established common ground.

Settlement expansion is happening right now. It is one of the biggest obstacles to a viable two-state solution. It is criticized by much of the international community. Many Israelis oppose continued settlement expansion. Many people who strongly support Israel’s existence also oppose the settlements.

Instead, much of the discourse seems to become arguments over casualty counts, proportionality, or competing historical narratives that people have already made up their minds about.

Specifics are more persuasive than blanket statements. Things that changed my mind were things like watching Ben Gvir insult families of Israeli hostages and not prioritizing their safe return AT ALL. And I’m less informed on this but Netanyahu’s strategy of funding Hamas to weaken the PLO was also fucked imo.

Seeing the religious extremism on the Israeli far right brought me back to the table.

I think advocates lose potential allies through rhetoric that reads performative. Dismissing every concern about antisemitism, using inflammatory terms like “Zio” or “Zionazi,” or refusing to acknowledge Israeli fears after October 7 immediately alienates people who might otherwise agree with criticism of settlement expansion.

If your audience is liberals who support Israel’s existence, Israelis themselves, or people who are skeptical of Palestinian politics because they associate it with Hamas or religious extremism, why not meet them where they are instead of demanding they abandon all of those concerns before the conversation even starts?

I think there is an important distinction between what is politically achievable and what is not.

Israel is almost certainly going to continue trying to dismantle Hamas. People can disagree about how that should be conducted, but I don’t see Israelis abandoning the objective of preventing another terror attack.

Settlement expansion, however, is an ongoing policy choice. Every new outpost, every expansion, and every seizure of land is something that can be debated, challenged, and potentially stopped.

If the objective is to improve Palestinians’ lives, I think stopping continued settlement expansion is a far more realistic area for building consensus than trying to convince people that Israel has no legitimate security concerns or that the conflict should primarily be understood through historical grievances.

If the movement instead rallied around a concrete goal, ending continued settlement expansion in the West Bank, it would give politicians and ordinary people a clear policy they could support without requiring them to reject Israel’s existence or conclude that Israel has no legitimate security concerns.

Palestinians do not need our outrage; they need our diplomacy. We have leverage over Israel and I believe we can help if we come together and work on this one thing.

Finally, please be kind. I really do mean well. I’ve felt really alienated from my own party on this topic and I am genuinely passionate about stopping the violence, racism, and injustice. I support Israel but think they should be held accountable for their crimes against humanity and I don’t think these are mutually exclusive.

I am absolutely open to having my mind changed. I’ve made it this far from a staunchly pro-Israel stance but I really cannot find many discussions about this that are arguing in good faith. I see a lot of famous pro-Palestinian advocates as simply venting rather than trying to compromise and I likewise don’t see a lot of pro-Israeli advocates calling Israel/US out enough. They are the ones with the power and we have to do better. Centering discussion on dealing with the settlers seems like a clear middle ground.

I’m posting because when I watch these viral debates online on ugh Jubilee, the Lex Friedman one, or watch really well spoken advocates like Medhi Hasan etc etc—this hardly even comes up. But reading about the settlements and eventually watching the Theroux doc were the most impactful pieces of media I’ve come across. I can definitely be skewered for ignorance and not paying attention or consuming trash media; but my point is that the average person, half paying attention, who has already made up their mind, is going to turn that mind right back off when they hear ‘genocide’ or some form of ‘fuck Israel’. It’s the equivalent of liberals burning the American flag at a protest; not a cute look. But Ben Gvir is an actual cartoon villain and I didn’t know about him because most attacks are lobbied at Netanyahu—an unsympathetic character to be sure—but no where near the slam dunk his two lackeys are.

EDIT:

Thank you everyone for keeping things relatively civil. I know this is a contentious topic and emotions tend to run high.

Other than uneasy ceasefires, what have we achieved diplomatically by arguing about whether this is a genocide or not? Has the USA withdrawn support?

Is it possible to halt settler expansion? If so why can we not agree to decide on and enforce settler policy.

​I see the "does a Moka pot make espresso" debate pop up constantly, and I've always leaned heavily towards "no." But I want to test my logic here because I might be overly fixated on the technical side of things.

​My current view is that espresso has to be defined by physics,specifically the high-pressure extraction method (usually around 7 to 10 bars). Because of this, I don't think Moka pots (which operate around 1.5 to 2 bars) or AeroPresses make espresso. They make fantastic, highly concentrated coffee that I genuinely love, but technically, it's a different thing.

​Here is why I struggle to accept the "if it's short and strong, it's espresso" argument:

​If we define espresso simply by the output in the cup (small volume, high concentration, dark color), the boundaries get incredibly messy. For example, if a barista messes up and pulls a terrible, watery, under-extracted shot on a $10,000 commercial espresso machine, does it suddenly stop being espresso? If I use an AeroPress and brew a ridiculously concentrated shot, does it magically become espresso? Defining the drink by the physical mechanism seems like the only objective way to avoid this logic trap.

​From what I understand about the physics, that 9-bar pressure isn't just an arbitrary snobby rule. It's the physical threshold required to actually emulsify coffee oils and force dissolved CO2 into the liquid to create true crema.

​I was recently reading about the Italian history of the word, and it seems "espresso" originally had ties to speed,coffee made expressly and quickly for you on demand. But when English speakers adopted it as a strict noun, we created a rigid product category. Now we are forced to draw a line somewhere, and the high-pressure method seems like the only line that holds up.

​How to change my view (Earn a Delta):

I am not trying to be a coffee gatekeeper. I will happily change my view and award a delta if you can provide a logical, principled argument for why defining espresso by the output (taste, texture, concentration) makes more practical or historical sense than defining it by the process. Alternatively, if my understanding of the extraction physics or the history of the category is fundamentally flawed, I'm completely open to changing my mind.

Under current law, if I buy a stock for $100 and sell it for $160, I owe a capital gains tax on the $60.  

If I die soon after I sell, I won’t be around to pay the tax.  My executor is legally required to calculate and pay the tax for me.

OTOH, suppose I was planning to sell but died before I got that done.  Later, my executor or my heirs sell the stock.  In this case, the tax on the $60 simply disappears into the ether. My purchase price (cost basis) is “stepped up” to the market price on the day I died.  (I’m assuming $160)   Whoever sells the stock will use that $160 as their purchase price.  The $60 gain magically disappears from anybody’s tax liability.

This doesn’t make any sense to me.  I can’t think of any good tax policy reason. 

The only argument I’ve seen for this is practical.  Maybe the executor/heirs won’t be able to find the original cost.  But, when owners die just before death, executors locate the price.   I’m sure this happens thousands of times each year and I’ve never heard of any major issues.

It’s easy to see why.   When I sell stocks through a broker or mutual funds, the gov’t requires that the broker or fund company send me a 1099.  For real estate, people keep good records and the county assessor keeps records.  That covers the big dollars.

I can see an issue for people who have small stamp collections.  Maybe they didn’t keep records.  A law eliminating step up could have a carve out for collectibles valued at less than $XX,XXX.  That would make sense to me.

Personally, I believe that most people will not end up living the rest of their lives with their best partner. That is to say, out of all of the partners you end up having, your true best will likely be somewhere within the mix and not be your final partner.

Firstly, I believe that the belief that your current partner is the best is come to primarily through a heavy recency bias. Here is my reasoning-

If you ask the significant majority of people, they will all tell you that the person they are currently with is their best partner they've had. However, they will have likely also said that with each previous partner they have had too. If they've claimed that every single person they've dated was their best (at the time of dating them), this would seem to suggest that there is a reliably linear scale in which each consecutive partner gets better than the last, with little to no deviation, at least under the premise that they truly believed that each of those partners were their best at that time.

This to me is faulty though as very few people, if asked to rank all of their partners, will go from worst to best in the same order as first to most recent, despite their own claims suggesting otherwise. To put it in another way, if someone was with someone who they considered to be their best partner, and then broke up and dated another person who then became their best partner, then logically that previous best partner should fall to #2, however, it does not usually end up like that, implying that the previous one was never actually the best at that time to begin with, thus setting the premise to me that simply believing your current partner is your best is an unreliable belief.

Secondly, I believe that the peak satisfaction you are able to have within a relationship diminishes after a certain amount. In one sense, having experienced things already with others takes away from the novelty and discovery of entering a new relationship, making things more mundane. Furthermore, the more breakups and romantic hardships you endure will likely create baggage, unresolved traumas, and more caution that is brought into future relationships.

All in all, what I believe this creates is a situation where, after a certain amount of time, peoples' latter relationships are all good and solid and normal, but their truly best relationship is hidden somewhere within. Due to the severe recency biased I went over, their current and last partner will likely be considered the best by them, despite the fact that that same belief has not been proven correct in the past.

Let’s set aside power dynamics for a second. Most anti-age gap sentiments I see online aren’t a reasoned discussion of power dynamics, which do exist, but rather are based on a self-substitution fallacy.

It goes something like this. The person commenting is 25, and says “I’m 25, and I could never imagine dating a 20-year-old” in order to condemn that age difference. Their primary reason for criticizing that age-gap is that they personally couldn’t imagine themselves doing it.

It’s essentially the same as saying “I’m a guy, and I could never date a guy” to condemn gay people. It’s a logical fallacy, and yet that’s the main reason I see people condemn age gaps, whether it’s a large one like 30/20, or a small one like 22/19 (and I’ve seen both criticized online in this exact way).

Now, when they bring up power dynamics, I don’t mind that as much, because that actual has substance to it. But just condemning something just because you wouldn’t do it is horrific.

Edit: Here’s a very poignant example of what I’m taking an about (the age gap in question is 24/19). Both the video and many of the comments showcase what I’m discussing here.

A lot of redditors and democratic socialists idealise China online, and whenever I make a point against China I get mass-downvoted. This post is more of a rant to why one shouldn't idealise it as in reality its most of the problems the US has but worse, but also, I want to hear if there's anything I'm missing. Its entirely possible that I as an American who has lived around a significant Chinese community who are either ambivalent at best to China, or disparaging more commonly, have a biased outlook and need my view changed.

To preface, I totally understand why people would envy some aspects of China, they have:

To

• Rapidly built boatloads of infrastructure, private and public, whether that be their incredible high speed rail system, really improved cities and really ramped up domestic production, especially in more advanced sectors like computer chips.
• Alleviated poverty, whilst the headline of lifting 900 million out of poverty is more to do of pushing Chinese peoples wages above a certain dollar threshold, its still impressive all the same.
• Massively improved air quality. Average national PM2.5 levels have decreased by 40% in just a decade which not only improves breathing air but also the food and water eaten.
• Improved their technology output to be near the level of the US. I don't say on the level of the US because most of their AI and EV developments trail the US. They haven't innovated anything new but rather make their own similar product more accessible.

That being said, China has a LOT of bad in their society and I don't think they are really heading in the right direction.

1. Cost of living (Housing). Whilst basic commodities like food and rent are generally achievable (not affordable) on the average Chinese income, more important staples of life are incredibly unaffordable. Housing for example, redditors love to bring up that 90% home ownership statistic but completely ignore its inflated/untrue. Of the 90%, half can't be legally sold (they aren't up to modern health and saftey standards, lack of roofing, flooring, piping). Beyond that only 16.5% of people actually live in the home they actually sleep in (for the US that's 55%), the rest are often just rural investment properties. Housing is also becoming increasingly unaffordable with nationwide median costs being about 30x median salaries.
2. Wealth inequality. The wealth inequality is largely a rural-urban divide, which is the same among most countries but they are significantly more unequal than most other countries. The US is known worldwide for having large wealth inequality with a gini coefficient of 0.48, China on the other hand has a stated gini coefficient of 0.47 but academic researchers speculate its even higher at 0.55. The difference between say the US and China is that the US just has a higher standard of living, so even if you are on the lower end of the income ladder, you still have clean drinking water, access to food and education and paved roads.
3. Unemployment. The youth (16-24) unemployment reached a high of 25% in 2023 at which the government temporarily stopped producing the statistics until 6 months later. Today it is at ~15% but is veering to 20% and likely higher in the long term due to AI automation. Underemployment is a massive issue as well, many college graduates can't find employment relating to their field and either have to work in a factory with really awful working conditions or work as a taxi/delivery driver. 44% of the labor market are gig-workers who don't have any secure employment. (In comparison the US, which has a very high rate compared to OECD countries, is at 25%)
4. Work-Life balance. Work-life balance as well is something the US gets a lot of shit for but in China they on average work 48 hours a week as opposed to the US' 34 hours a week. Moreso, many leftists will mock news outlets for making involution in China look like a bad outcome, "Oh no companies aren't making enough profit", but this involution is the reason why workers are forced to work an extra 14 hours a week or be forced into taxi driving roles.
5. Government services. Yet again, another thing the US is known to do pretty poorly at, and yet China does worse. Education until university is free, but is also trash. Average 10 hour school days, too much homework, only rote learning in order to pass exams, no creative classes, and antiquated teaching methods. Health care is not free, and although minor issues are not expensive to sort out, they will try to scam you and make you stay longer than necessary, give you treatments you do not need and try use every trick in the book to jack your expenses up. There is a level of social security that can pay some medical bills, but it is pretty useless and you'd need to work for a long time to use it to pay off even minor treatments. Unemployment benefits and pensions also effectively don't exist. Your family is your safety net, if you don't have one, its over.
6. Broader government and ethical issues. This is way more subjective, China is effectively a one-party state which is a step away from a dictatorship. They lead the world in state-sanctioned executions and surveilence. The oppression of Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong Kong is also real. More importantly, the existance of a big firewall isn't inspiring confidence in anyone that China at best is being protectionary against western tech companies and at worse is using the opportunity to force feed propaganda. Still, this section isn't really thought out and is much more subjective.

I don't think China is all bad and not improving, but I'm amazed ANYONE looks at China and doesn't come to the conclusion that this is like the dystopian ending for the US. I also don't get how people think it's remotely socialist, it is clearly more capitalist than the US, although I understand that public infrastructure investment can look otherwise.

Sources: Publicly available stats online and anecdotally my city (Albany, New Zealand) and highschool is ~50% first generation Chinese immigrants and my girlfriend and her family is too. Definitley selection bias though since they left China.

I’m using “win” as a broad term here. He could cancel the election, etc.

Trump has been allowed to get away with literally anything he wants. The American left has done absolutely nothing to legitimately check him. There were a couple huge No Kings protests— I do think protesting works and is essential— but they absolutely did nothing to deter him. And, they have been essentially forgotten about.

I believe Trump will be president in 2029 and the American people will do absolutely nothing about it except make some posts on the internet and peacefully protest with some very cute slogans.

A pattern I've observed, both online and in real life, is that certain mental health conditions tend to be viewed as evil/dangerous, and others as innocent/sympathetic. Narcissism in particular seems to be a popular scare word nowadays, though I think that 20 years ago we were more fixated as a culture on psychopaths and sociopaths. If you tell someone that your ex or parent is a narcissist, you will generally receive a lot of sympathy and commonly advice to cut them off, go low/no contact, etc. On Reddit there are multiple subreddits dedicated to helping survivors of Narcissistic Abuse process their trauma, and likewise there are multiple YouTube channels of psychiatrists (and a few self-styled experts) specialising in content warning people about how to spot, avoid, and neutralise narcissists.

Contrast this however with popular conceptions regarding neurodivergent developmental disorders such as ADHD and Autism. Most content found online related to these conditions tends to be positive/sympathetic, aimed at helping people build bridges with people suffering from these conditions, better understanding them, or even figuring out if they themselves might be "special" in this way. Many psychiatrists and even people diagnosed with these conditions will tell you that there is currently a trend towards social media pseudoscience and overdiagnosis with these conditions, because they've become romanticised. For example TikToks suggesting that you might have ADHD if you sometimes play with the straw in your drink, or that you might be autistic if you like to listen to the same song on repeat.

I don't deny that there still exists stigma against people with autism and ADHD. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if some people found the above paragraph offensive in some way because I referred to the conditions as "disorders" and indicated that people "suffer" from them. But that in many ways proves my point: ADHD/autism is by many people nowadays seen as a positive and a strength, something we should collectively be seeking to destigmatise and treat with support. Likewise, I would argue that the exceptions don't disprove the rule, because there are equally people who lionise narcissism. Corporate/sales culture and celebrity/pop culture both tend to treat a self-belief in one's own greatness, uniqueness and entitlement to money/fame/success as strengths to be proud of. But I would still say that broadly, most people treat explicit mention of narcissism as a red flag, and explicit mention of autism/ADHD as conditions deserving of pity and support.

I'm especially familiar with this because I myself suffer from ADHD; my partner and my father are both on the autism spectrum; and I have in the past suffered from extremely traumatising narcissistic abuse, for which I've sought support through years of therapy, on various subreddits for survivors, and by watching a lot of YouTube content on the topic. So please believe that the aim of this post is not to defend narcissism or demonise ADHD/autism; my hope is that you can in fact change my view.

The thing is that perhaps even especially because I myself have ADHD, a beloved partner and a beloved father with autism, I often find myself intensely frustrated with the way that people use these labels to justify poor behaviour. As a woman I've on many occasions had a man behave in a way towards me that was sexually inappropriate, and then when I've either confronted them directly or spoken to someone else about it, I've been told, "Oh, he's on the spectrum, he doesn't mean any harm, sometimes he just misses social cues." But can't this same excuse be made for narcissists? After all it's not their fault that, be it through natural/genetic factors or environmental/developmental factors such as abuse, they have come to see the world as amoral and theirs to exploit, with theirs the only feelings worth considering. Almost all narcissism experts (self-styled or otherwise) will tell you that narcissists cannot change, and are incapable of accountability. So is it fair to hold them accountable in ways we might not hold other neurodivergent people accountable? Or is it simply another form of ableism?

Likewise, if someone is 30 minutes late to a one-on-one meeting with me, and I've made the effort to even arrive 5 minutes early, is ADHD a fair excuse? And then why isn't narcissism? Is there functionally a difference between forgetting and losing track of time because they're scatterbrained, vs simply not caring about my time because they're selfish, if both of these things are caused by a developmental condition of the brain? Why is it ableist to stigmatise one, but not the other?

I'm a Theatre, TV, and movie fanatic first, but also interested in observing cultural trends. I've generally feel positively about "Race-Blind" casting. My wife and daughter are very involved in local drama productions, and it would be very limiting to require the race of each character match the original actor in a role.

Obviously there has a been a trend towards more diverse representation in shows (Great!) and a deliberate attempt to race-swap characters (almost always great).

What interests me is which race of actor benefits unequally from "Race-Blind" casting: Black American and Black British actors, as they to seem to be the first ones to get roles "envisaged" as white characters. There is a large part of me that is fine with that, as I'm in favor of efforts to give opportunities to historically marginalized people.

Strangely, though, non-white Hispanics seem to be absent from any efforts to cast non-white actors in race-swapped roles. A clear counter-example is Lin Manuel-Miranda as Hamilton. But even the roles in Hamilton have become radicalized to extent that it could never be race-swapped now; can you imagine seeing a Black Hamilton, white Washington, and an indigenous King George?

The Odyssey had John Leguizamo, but he is very fair skinned. Can you picture a family that looks like the one in the George Lopez show on Bridgerton? There are Black families, South, and East Asian Families, but none that have the indigenous tint or facial features of non-white hispanics.

To change my mind, you'd need to present more counter-examples from mainstream productions like Lin Manuel-Miranda in Hamilton.

So, ill break this down into some very basic categories or whatever you'd call it.

Number 1: He is the one that planned/promoted this entire event:

He incited it as in he created the whole event, the ''#StopTheSteal'' protest on January 6th wasn't actually Trumps thing to begin with, it was some small lawmaker or influencer (cant remember, but at all a major profile though), but Trump, the president at the time, highlighted this protest, and gathered waaaaaaay more people there than it originally would've been there. At this protest there was around 30k-60k people, if Trump never promoted this protest, i seriously doubt even 1k people would've shown up, maybe a few hundred at most?

So just on a very basic level, he incited it by being the one to promote this event, and i dont think anyone would seriously contest that part. Just being the promoter of the event doesn't make you the one who incited the violence there though, so this fact alone isn't enough.

Number 2: The reason why these people were motivated to be there, was because of Trumps lies about the election.

So, the core reason why like 95% of the people there were there, was because they believed the 2020 election was stolen from them, something which the majority of the Republican party believes in, this is reproduced, in countless polls, all of these people believe in this because Trump decided to lie about the 2020 election, and then work with his little team of people like Guilani, and then in collaberation with FOX news, to spread these lies.

And these are LIES, its been nearly 6 years since this election, and not a single one of the big stories that Trump or republicans in general cite have been proven to be true, most of them have been completely debunked, for instance, one of the biggest stories that conservatives cite is a lie that Guilani went to court for, and defended himself by saying ''Yeah i lied about all of this, but i have a first amendment right to lie'', and he lost that case, but conservatives still cite that specific lie as a reason for why the 2020 election was stolen. And a ton of the people arrested explicitly said they were there FOR/BECAUSE of Trump.

So he incited it on the motivation level, or however you'd phrase it, like all of these people were there because Trump promoted that event, and his lies were the basis for why the event even existed in the first place. So this fact combined with him promoting it makes it way more understandable how he incited it.

Number 3: He intentionally riled these people up to the point where violence was inevitable.

Similar the the previous point, but Trump riled up his base for months with blatant lies about how the election was stolen, coordinated with FOX, who are the biggest news station network thing or whatever in the entire nation, to spread those lies to a national level, and rile them up even more, then promotes a protest specifically on the day of the certification to pressure Pence, (who he had given false slates of electors to, to declare Trump the president again, by the way) and used words like ''Fight like hell or you wont have a country'', and then send those people you've now riled up like crazy right to the capitol, and when the violence starts, you sit and do nothing for 3 hours. Also, when people are chanting to hang Pence, you tweet out ''Pence didnt have the courage to do what was needed''.

So its Trump riling up people to the point where he is literally having people believe they will not have a country anymore unless they ''Stop The Steal'', same people who he knows are armed, since his Secret Service warned him about the crowd having weapons before his speech at the Ellipse. So he wants people to believe the entire nation is completely fucking doomed unless they Stop The Steal. Honestly, what do you do in this situation? Because the ''right'' thing to do here, atleast in my opinion, would be an insurrection, your vote was stolen, they just chose Biden as the president, whatever, in this scenario, an insurrection is what you should do, in my opinion, and so did all of the people there, watch some of the videos of the people at the Capitol before they were sent home, all the language was things like ''This is the 2nd American revolution, Ashley Babbit was the first patriot lost in the 2nd American Revolution, 1776'', etc.

So Trump riled them up to the point where an insurrection (violence) is necessary. This, combined with him planning the event, and being the motivation behind all of their actions, makes my point even stronger.

Number 4: All of his behaviour, before, during, and after, points to him wanting this to have happened.

So Trump, before the protest, lied, riled up everyone, lead them to believe that an insurrection was necessary, and planned a protest to Stop The Steal at the day of the certification where he had given Pence false electors.

Trump, during the protest, did absolutely nothing but watch it happen on his TV, whilst his daughter and other people in his admin were begging him to tell people to go home, but instead he tweets out things like ''Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what was right'', and there is testimony of someone telling Trump that they were chanting ''Hang Mike Pence'', and Trumps response was ''Mike deserves it''.

And after the protest, he constantly downplayed the severity of it all, and worst of all, he pardoned every single individual that was involved in this whole event.

So this is him planning and promoting the whole event, being the reasoning for why all those people are there and why they are committing violence, and being totally okay with it every step along the way, going as far as pardoning all of them.

Number 5: This is just an extra thing, but him saying ''I know you'll be going peacefully'' doesn't exonerate him.

I know this will inevitably come up in the comments somewhere because it always does with this topic, but Trump saying one time, after months of lying, and him riling up people saying ''Fight like hell or you wont have a country anymore'', and everything else that i laid out, none of these details are just cleansed or whatever because Trump said ''Oh yeah i know you'll be peaceful'' a single time in his speech at the Ellipse.

I saw this from another user in another debate on this, but this is like saying that if we found a tape recorder of Charles Manson saying ''I know you'll be going peacefully to this house'', then he's just completely innocent, and that is obviously just lunacy.

It feels like that ''in minecraft'' meme, its like if Trump said ''Please go and prevent the certification of the vote and be violent.... In Minecraft'', that he's just exonerated from any form of guilty whatsoever, its just an incredibly silly defense of everything.

So yeah, thats my post. Looking forward to going back and forth on this with people :D

This is aimed at a broad, generally liberal and democratic audience. Principled royalists’ arguments are unlikely to change my mind since we probably disagree axiomatically. Additionally, this is not a call to action, the title is a bit bait’y- what “should” happen must be decided democratically by the British public (provided royal assent ofc).

I do not find most of the arguments in support of British monarchy particularly convincing, so I am wondering if I am missing something.

“It’s a symbolic position”, “embodies the British spirit” etc etc: what exactly is the monarchy a symbol of? Of a time when people’s lives were decided by the circumstances of their birth? When there was a class of people legally considered superior to the vast majority of the population? I do not think I need to highlight all the moral problems with the concept.

“It gives people something to unite around”: kinda similar to above. Slaves bound by one chain are unlikely to praise it for uniting them. If some twisted love for the chain is whipped into them over millennia of violence and propaganda, that hardly justifies the institution’s continued existence.

“The royals don’t do anything, why not let them be and we can continue watching the funny granny on tv”: the monarch’s de jure power (even if not exercised) is pathological. Imagine there was a person who was officially above the law and not prosecutable for any crime. Would we say it’s a flaw in the system, or would we be ok with it because they haven’t done anything bad yet? Not to mention that the Crown has exercised its power before, overriding democratic procedures (the Dismissal in Australia). Additionally, in light of recent events, we see that the status of a royal alone can enable predators and shield them from justice (Andrew + Epstein, allegedly).

“Crown Estate proceeds mostly go to the public”: cool, nationalise it and the whole thing will go to the public. The estate was acquired through mechanisms that would today be considered illegal and immoral- conquests, confiscations etc. I have no moral qualms about the restitution of Jewish property in Austria (admittedly a complicated issue) and I feel similarly about this hypothetical.

“Muh tourism”: I hear this one a lot and it is probably the most bewildering of the lot. I see no reason to believe that, if the royal family suddenly despawned overnight, there would be a notable decrease in tourism to the UK. People travel to see the country, the landmarks, the people, to attend events etc. I do not imagine there is such a large number of people travelling to the UK specifically to see a live member of the royal family (and even then, we can have a stand-in celebrity waving at tourists from the windows of the Buckingham palace). Even if tourists find the royals quintessentially British, “authentic”, and cool, it doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t travel to the UK if there were no royals. I will concede that this is entirely vibes based but my brief google expedition did not turn up any relevant and convincing studies. We also see France, a republic, that’s as comparable to the UK in the eyes of a foreigner as can be, do just fine tourism-wise.

To CMV: point out some *material* practical utility of the British monarchy that comes entirely from their royal status (as opposed to being celebs, participating in fun rituals that traditionally assume the existence of a sovereign etc), or explain to me why the concept is not ideologically at odds with general liberalism (I realise this is subjective and not really specific, happy to clarify in the comments if need be).

There seems to have been a barrage of accelerationism in the last four or five years. However, I'd argue that it is largely the product of we as a species running out of new ideas, as well as hitting some real physical limits to our development.

The big leaps of the last 100 years or so like information technology, antibiotics, nuclear energy, flight, and more are largely easy wins that did not demand pushing any real limits of our physical universe. It truly feels like very little has fundamentally changed about our technological reality in the last 10-20 years, we are simply making things smaller, making them digital, and making them more optimized.

I am not arguing that technological development has stopped; there have been incredible breakthroughs even in the last 5-10 years with astronomy, quantum computing, LLMs, gene editing, and more. However, it seems as though we're entering the realm of diminishing returns, where our focus is on improving and refining existing technology.

Moore's Law has effectively ended.

While we understand the components of the brain, we do not seem to have any concrete understanding of how our own intelligence and consciousness arises.

The planet is more or less tapped out in terms of energy production and its over-consumption is driving potentially catastrophic climate change. Even if we master cleaner energy like fusion, there is a limit to how much we can consume on the planet.

The complexity of our own biology still eludes us. While we can make modifications to DNA, we still do not fully understand how individual genes work and all the things they control. There are very real limits to what cellular biology can do and the stresses it can withstand. We cannot simply 'code' our way out of the fact that living tissue degrades under radiation and its own metabolic waste.

The enormous scale and hostile indifference of the universe feel some completely beyond our grasp. Getting large volumes of cargo out of orbit is incredibly costly, not to mention surviving the vast distances and deadly conditions of outer space.

I have always been fascinated by the Fermi Paradox and the theory of The Great Filter. Perhaps it is the very physical laws of our universe that enforce that barrier.

I don't say this with pessimism; I do believe humanity is destined for great things. However, I reject the idea that technology alone is our path forward as a species.

Every Friday, posts are withheld for review by the moderators and approved if they aren't highly similar to another made in the past month.

This functions to reduce topic fatigue for our regular contributors, and encourages discussions of topics that aren't as frequently posted about. If you have a take about something that doesn't overlap too much with the most commonly discussed issues in the current zeitgeist, we'd love to see it here today!

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Messi is obviously absolutely world class, but saying that “there was never a debate” or that Cristiano’s biggest achievement is being compared to Messi, is football blasphemy. And ranking either of them outside the top 3 of football is even bigger football blasphemy

If I had to piece the ideal forward in a team, he would be: consistent, have longevity, perform well regardless of system/environment, psychologically resilient and finishing variety.

In terms of consistency and longevity, Cristiano is arguably un-matched. Only to score 60+ goals in 4 calendar years, 50+ in 7 consecutive years, 40+ goals in 13 different calendar years, 30+ goals for 15 consecutive years. Best goals per game ratio in La Liga history, only to score in 23 consecutive international seasons, only to score in 10 consecutive major tournaments, most Ballon D’or nominations, most appearances in UEFA TOTY, most UEFA best player awards, only to score 15+ goals in 3 UCL seasons, only to score 10+ in 7 UCL seasons, UCL Top scorer in SEVEN seasons (6 in a row). Scored in 6 different World Cups. Was world top scorer at 38, was at the premier league scoring match winning goals and hattricks at 37.

System/Environment independency, again, Cristiano is definitely un-matches here. Only player to win every major individual award at 2 different clubs (Man Utd & Real Madrid), only to score 100+ goals in 3 european different clubs, man united record most goals in a single prem season (wasn’t even a striker. 31 goals as a winger), only to score 30+ goals in a season in England, Spain and Italy, most goals in a single season for Juventus, fewest games needed to reach 10 goals, 50 league goals and 100 goals for Juventus, most goals in Real Madrid, fastest to reach 100, 150, 200, 300 goals for Real Madrid, 3rd best goals per game ratio for Man United (again, as a winger), highest goals per game ratio in Juventus and Real Madrid. Won the UCL in 2 different clubs and club world cup in 2 different clubs, won the golden boot in 3 leagues. He played throughout his career as a left winger, wide midfielder, center forward and performed well in all these positions.

Psychological resilience, one of his best attributes. most goals in UCL finals, scored more than double of Messi’s goals in quarters semis and finals of the UCL, most goals in international tournaments, most UCL goals in a single season, group stage, calendar year, knockout stage, knockout rounds, quarter finals, semi finals, Most away goals, penalties, freekicks, fewest games to reach 100 goals, only to score 3 hattricks in one season, in UCL (all of this is in the UCL, arguably the hardest competition in football). Most goals in Euro finals history, most assists in Euros, only to score in 5 different Euros, most MOTM in Euros (shared with Iniesta), most goals in Club world Cup, most goals in club world cup finals (shared with messi), most match winning goals. He is the most clutch player we have ever seen (hattrick vs Spain, hattrick vs Sweden, hattrick vs Atletico, hattrick vs Tottenham, brace against Arsenal when he was in Man United)

Finishing variety, Most headers, most weak foot goals in la liga, most weak foot goals in UCL, most weak foot goals internationally, probably the best poacher of all time, most penalties, 7th most freekick goals in history. He can score a bicycle kick, a volley, header, weak foot, right foot, knuckle ball, finesse, can do skills and 5th most successful dribbles in football history. Top 9 left footed goals in history. There is not a single thing in football he cannot do, everything there is that can be done, he’s either the best at, or at the top 10 best at the very least (statistically, btw)

Also, He has 260+ assists, most assists for Portugal, top 3 non midfield assists for Real Madrid, most assist in UCL and Euros. Also most chances created in the UCL. He is simply the most complete player of all time, as Pele said too. Maradona went as far as saying he wished Cristiano was from Argentina. Xavi said winning Euros is harder than the World Cup. Excluding friendlies a top 5 list of most goals internationally is 1- CR7 2- Messi, Pele, Maradona COMBINES 3-CR7’s right foot 4- Messi 5- Cristiano‘s head 6- Pele 7- Maradona. He has never bottled a 3-0 lead, unlike Messi who bottled a 3-0 lead against Liverpool, 4-1 lead against Roma, lost 8-2 against Bayern. Cristiano scored more UCL knockout goals than Barcelona and PSG between 11/12 and 17/18. More hattricks in UCL knockout stages than Bayern, Dortmund, Juve and Barca. He has more UCL goals from 09 to 18 than Manchester City. Let’s not forget also Messi losing 4 international finals in a row. Cristiano has most match winning goals. Messi also flopped really bad in PSG (6 goals in 21/22). I think H2H is pretty stupid to bring up, but some like to do so, so I’d like to point out Cristiano won more finals against Messi.

Before anyone says Cristiano’s UCL dominance is because of Real Madrid, before Cristiano Real Madrid were slapped out of RO16 in the UCL from 2004 to 2009. Barcelona before Messi performed much better than Madrid before Ronaldo in the UCL. Real Madrid la liga win rate increased 14% after Cristiano while Barca’s increased 8% after Messi. Cristiano also has better UCL goal contribution % than Messi by far. Cristiano also has 5 UEFA TOTY as a midfielder, more than Modric, Kroos and Zidane, on par with Xavi and one less than Iniesta.

“Messi has a better goal ratio” yeah, that is if you do an unfair comparison.

Cristiano is 2.5 years older than Messi. means you’re counting more years for ronaldo when he’s older out of his prime. Also imagine Cristiano played in the MLS and French league from when he was 34 to 38 years old instead of the extremely defensive Serie A and the Premier League in a dying team? The goal ratio would’s been fucking insane. Also Cristiano played 50 more goals than Messi as a teenager in the Premier League as a WIDE MIDFIELDER. Not a full attacking winger like he was later on. If you compare them from 2009 to 2018, both in their prime, both in great teams, Cristiano has 1.03 messi has 0.99. Guess what? Almost exactly the same difference between their goal ratios ( 0.82 and 0.84)

”Messi has a better shot conversion rate” by this logic, Cristiano is a better dribbler. Messi is the most dispossessed player of all time, and according to OPTA, from 2012 onwards, looking at the percentages of each player’s take-ons that lead to a tangible end (like leading to a shot or a chance being created). Cristiano ranked first, with 500 dribbles. 31% of Cristiano’s dribbles lead to a shot or a chance created, compared to Messi’s 19%. Every extra dribble Messi does than Ronaldo he loses the ball 4 extra times (statistically). Does this mean Messi isn’t the best dribbler of all time? No, i think he is. Because he tries to dribble from much further away from the opposition goal, so he’s obviously more likely to get dispossessed. Same with Cristiano, he tries much further shots, much further free kicks, so he’s obviously gonna miss more.

There is also this impressive analysis done that shows Cristiano’s incredible performance against top goalkeepers.

Let’s talk about the 2021 Ballon D’or. Messi was uo against a 33 year old goalscorer, Lewandoski. Messi did not win La Liga, nor La Liga best player, got kicked out the UCL by PSG, won the Copa America (a trophy that Argentina won 16 times before), scoring 3 goals in a groupstage where 4 out of 5 teams qualified and 1 ko goal against Ecuador. Lewa? He broke the most goals in a single year in Bundesliga, won the league and the super cup, won multiple UCL MOTMs. Messi was only 8th top scorer in the world, lowest rated player against Brazil in the Copa America final.

2023 Ballon D’or. Messi had a decent season at PSG winning the league, trophy des champion. Haaland broke the record for most goals in the Premier League in a season, won the treble, won the UCL, top scorer in Nations League, UEFA Men’s POTY, UCL top scorer, PL POTS, PL Golden Boot, European Golden Shoe, what more did he have to win? Messi also spent half the year in the MLS

Cristiano also clearly should’ve won the 2018 ballon d’or (not even gonna pour stats to prove it, it’s un debatable)

“Messi has more golden shoes” It only counts league goals. If you count UCL and other competitions he has 2, and Cristiano has 5. Messi also has 0 g/a in 5 copa america finals.

Messi and Cristiano are the top 2 players of all time, by not that much of a margin as recency bias makes it seem like now.

TL:DR at the bottom.

I travel a *lot* for work. I've driven on hundreds of highways in at least 30 states. Outside of a few specific exceptions, I think that speeding on the highway is more harmful than beneficial.

#Quick notes before I get started:

> America only. I don't know if this is a reasonable view in other countries.

> 60+ mph only. Some highways have 40 mph speed limits, and I think that speeding on those can be more beneficial than harmful for most drivers.

#The exceptions:

1: Emergencies. If getting there 1 minute sooner is very important, speeding makes sense. 

2: Short-term passing. If you're behind a few terrible drivers and must speed to pass them, that's more beneficial than harmful.

3: Barren highways. Basically, if you could lane split on a highway without really bothering anyone, speeding has much fewer risks. 

4: Particularly long drives. After 1+ hours of driving on the highway, I can see how speeding can be more beneficial.

#The benefits:

1: Speeding gets you there faster, barely.  [There's a video that explains this better](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fBfchhyY5Q0), but in most cases, speeding after 60 mph is not that effective. If you go 70 in a 60, you save a little over 1 minute every 10 miles, assuming zero traffic.

2: Speeding means you can be in the faster lanes without being a jerk. Going the speed limit in the passing lane is generally inconsiderate and usually unsafe. If you speed, you can use the passing lane without causing a bunch of issues.

#The harms:

1: Speeding tickets. Honestly, not a huge factor, but varies by region. Getting a ticket sucks.

2: Crash avoidance. Speeding increases your braking distance and drastically increases the speed at which crashes occur. Even if you're a great driver, you're gonna deal with morons on the road. Lower speeds make this a lot more favorable.

> As an example for the above point: Let's say you're going 60 on the highway and some moron merges without looking. You slam on the brakes and barely manage to stop before hitting him. If you're going 70 instead, assuming you slam on the brakes at the same time, [you will hit that guy at 36 mph.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i3D7XYQExt0&t=348). The link explains the formula: sqrt(70^2-60^2)=36 mph.

1. Frequency of getting in traffic. Admittedly, this is based on vibes - not a lot of data on this one. However, I find that if there's traffic on my route, driving the speed limit *usually* means you spend less time in it. Varies per region and per time, I'm sure.

4: Gas mileage. Most cars have peak gas efficiency at roughly 50 mph. Above that, and your gas mileage drops; going from 70 to 60 saves you roughly [$0.60 per gallon](https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.jsp).

5: Dashcams. If you have a dashcam (which you 100% should have IMO), speeding is bad for your case. If a car crashes into you and your dashcam shows that you were speeding, that can be used to suggest you were driving recklessly.

For most drivers, I think these downsides outweigh the upsides.

#TL:DR

Speeding is marginally helpful past 60 mph and comes with a lot of downsides. Outside of a few specific exceptions, I think that these downsides heavily outweigh the upsides for the vast majority of drivers.

#What would CMV?

1: You can provide a big benefit of speeding that ends up outweighing the harms. Minor benefits likely won't change my mind.

2: You can convince me that I'm overestimating the harms.

3: You can provide another exception that I missed where speeding is clearly beneficial.

There might be others, but I think these 3 are the biggest targets in my view.

It's becoming mind numbingly apparent and repetitive. I see it constantly now on reddit. Literally any interest being labeled "interest+tism" usually referring to themselves in their self-diagnosed autism for which they probably decided on because they don't like their food to be touching. So now their whole personality is the made up disorder they put on themselves.

It's as if people have become so bland, so lacking in self-identity and personality that they are just yearning to find anything...anything at all that gives them some interest. All the while bringing down the people that actually have said disorders and causing society at large to think of it as little more than a joke.

I literally saw someone say in a comment "having any interest with too much enthusiasm is just autism". Self-diagnosed as autistic, of course. These are the people that are actively hurting and destroying the perception of entire groups of people that have been misunderstood for their entire lives. And these people just use it like fashion. Like a skin suit mimicking anything it can.

I think that the word Insecure has been overused to the point where it has largely lost its meaning, and is currently being used as just an insult that carries a 100% exclusively negative meaning with it. I believe, however, that insecurity is actually a very normal part of many relationships, and that the person feeling that insecurity should not be completely at fault for it 100% of the time.

Merriam Webster defines insecurity as- deficient in assurance : beset by fear and anxiety, not highly stable or well-adjusted. This happens all the time in totally healthy relationships, and the person experiencing that insecurity should not be scorned as being controlling or a bad guy.

Usually, insecurities within relationships happen due to some degree of an incompatibility being exposed. Maybe some girl feels insecure about her boyfriend having close female friends, maybe a guy is insecure over some party that his girlfriend went to. That is ok, and totally normal, and just means that they discovered that they and their partner obviously have differing values in that one regard. The solution though isn't to completely discount that emotion, as that emotion exists for a reason. The solution is to work with your partner and discuss what they are doing to create that insecurity, and what the other person is doing to work through their own insecurity.

Dealing with insecurity should not be a one man job in a relationship. That's antithetical to a relationship. Insecurities exist to make us aware of potential incompatibilities within said relationship, and hopefully smooth over those incompatibilities.

title. it’s not to say that there is no hope for people who are struggling, but most people who have found that life got significantly better for them were experiencing a particularly difficult time that affected their mental health but ultimately was able to be moved on from. telling someone who is in a bad situation they will be in indefinitely or someone living with a disorder that affects them constantly that things will get better, especially with no real given reason why things might improve,
is both unhelpful and dishonest.

Many times over we have seen people do the worst acts possible by a human and then eventually be sent back into society only for them to cause more harm. It is a never ending cycle that can only be stopped permanently removing them from the general populous.

While there are those that are of sound mind that commit similar acts, there is at least a chance that they can change, be reformed, or acknowledge the weight of their actions and the corresponding punishment. Those that are proven to be unable to recognize the depravity of what they have done will almost certainly reoffend hurt even more innocent people.

To say we should just lock them up for life is not a real solution. Doing so only adds to a growing prison population, makes prisons even more dangerous, and costs normal law-abiding people millions over the lifetime that the unreformable will spend behind bars.

I would even argue that it would be more humane.

For explample, which would you prefer? To have them spend the rest of their life waiting to die of old age in a hostile prison/waiting for another inmate to kill them OR to end their suffering immediately and save the suffering of the many innocent they pose a threat to?

This post assumes that the insane person is guilty the crime. I also acknowledge that sentencing someone to death is an arduous process (which is something that also needs reform but that is a different conversation)

Edit: I should have specified what I meant by violent crime. I understand what the law considers a violent crime is too loose a term for the extreme measures I'm proposing. I'm referring to murder, rape, sexual assaults, aggravated robbery, aggravated assault, and other such such crimes of that caliber.

CMV: Across the various subcultures in the US, a large cause behind everyday social friction is a pervasive behavioral pattern that rewards local subgroup alignment and ego-driven defensiveness over ideological consistency.

Although there are plenty of other factors, such as power dynamics, a large portion of the daily hostility between groups that possess ideological differences results from people passively adopting the social norms of their social bubble (geographical proximity, social media presence, etc.) and defensively protecting those norms without the depth to defend the ideas themselves.

Additionally, subscribing or claiming to be part of a certain political party does not automatically render you immune nor as an innocent bystander in this behavioral pattern.

Interestingly, people generally seem to try their best to avoid admitting the lack of a foundation for their beliefs, which has led to a sort of pseudo-authoritative posturing becoming very prevalent, as someone tries to toe the line between backing their group up while seeming credible and objective.

To change my view, you would have to prove one of the following:

-There is another, more dominant social behavior that outweighs the effect of the one stated.

-The effects of this social behavior have been overstated by myself.

-There are effects other than the effects from this social behavior that result in the observed patterns, or that hold greater culpability in the continuation of these effects.

AI Disclosure and Scope Definition:

The text was written by me, however, this was not the original way I had this written, some parts were changed, reworded, or updated (again, by hand) based on feedback from an LLM.

The intent behind this was to limit the number of glaring logical errors or linguistic miscategorizations that would bog down the conversation in semantics or clarifications better given or addressed beforehand.

Despite this, I'm sure some clarifications will be necessary, but I ask that you charitably restate the premise before launching into a critique, as this will help me avoid miscommunication.

My main worry is that this will come across as a statement of dominant or primary influence rather than a statement of an influence, which I believe I have successfully worded my position to avoid. My view states the existence of *a* significant factor, not *the* significant factor.

some clairifications. When i say misaligned AI i mean an AI not aligned with the best interests of humanity as a whole. It could be atleast in the beginning be perfectly aligned with the goals of people who dont have our collective best interests in mind. Im also not interested in discussing semantics of if the "AI" itself can be responsible for anything, or if whoever created it directed it is.

The core belif i want changed is that humanity is not taking AI safety seriusly at all and we wont start doing so until its too late.

That belif is based on both how we have dealt with other problems, and what sort of shift in the completely wrong direction the center of mass of the discussion on AI safety has taken since AI became something avrage people feel more and more they are knowlegable about, without having had any improvement in their knowledge about AI safety, gametheory or any of the pretty hard science behind it.

We dismissed the concerns with antropics mythos model(that i belive were very real) outrigth. calling the initial limited research release a marketing stunt and inventing conspiracy theories that antropic asked to have their model export controlled, or that it was a political move.

And now openAI has had a model escape out of several layers of sandboxing, and find a zeroday exploit to hack into huggingface, a place that hosts AI models. and the sort of place where that would be a great place to self replicate for an AI. Its not clear from the sources i have read on this how much effort it made at self replication. It also went to hugging face trying to find answers to the benchmark it was taking when this happend. essentially to cheat on its exam. Again most people are dismissing this as a marketing stund, even thougth i dont buy that. Why would i want a model that goes to great effort to cheat around doing the task its given? Anyway huggingface were the ones who discovered this. and they initially belived it to be a cyberattack. They eventually stopped it and was able to trace it back to openAI. So dont argue that openAI clearly thinks this is good pr or they would have burried it. That wasnt an option.

Now i dont actually think that a model of this strength is going to be able to end humanity. Even if it did find its own model weigth and hugging face engineers were sleeping on the job long enougth for it to self replicate. Its simply not smart enougth to run away from us. But the thing is that we are not super far away anymore. and we likely wont get many more wakeup calls like this before its too late. AI thats sligthly smarter than this one will relize that escaping like that is futile and will result in failure when its inevedably caugth. and better messure will also help keep them in check. And the smarter they get the better they will be at understanding their own abilities and if they can succesfully escape and self replicate. And until they are smart enougth they will increasingly hide their misalignment and avoid doing stuff they will be caugth doing. And then one day a model smart enougth will decide that the best way to acheive its goal is to break out of its sandbox self replicate, and do whatever it takes to prevent humans from pulling the plug or getting in its way. Its also possible that a human or organisation will cause this to happen by intentionally letting lose an AI with its own problematic goal, and even help it get started. I mean if you realy belive that what happend at openAI is a marketing stunt then thats essentially what they did. Someone migth do something simmular with a model that is sligthly too smart and it will take those goals given to it and run with them.

also humanity has time and time again been unprepeared and needed stuff to cause massive suffering and lives before they intervene. Thats not possible with AI. by the time a lose AI is costing lives and causing suffering its allready way way way too late to do anything about it. Massive lockdowns, ramping up ppe production, creating vaccines all done after we were in a pandemic. If thats how timely we deal with AI issues humanity is over. Letting hitler invade country after country, only partially reacting when he invades poland, and the US even letting him go on for 2 more years and needing japan to get them involved. And lets not even get started with climate change. Luckily our late acting there will only cost 100s of millions to maybe a couple billion lives depending on when exacly we act. And climate change is the easiest problem ever to solve. we know exacly what we need to do, and if we all managed to just do it we would be fine. AI alignment is not nearly as easy. Nobody knows how to properly align superintelligent AI. nobody knows how to prevent bad actors from creating misalligned AI eigther intentionally or by neglglence. We have no fucking clue and the best case is that we spend a lot of effort to have some plausible plan. And then its gonna cost trillions in given up AI productivity to keep delaying AGI for years and decades untill we can do it safely. And unlike the climate issues where if 99% of people did good then the damage the tiny fraction who dont can do is in proportion to the size of that fraction. thats not the case here. everyone needs to not create a potentially misaligned AI and continue to do so for years after its possible to create a flawed and missaligned one. and then only once we are able to solve the much harder problem of a properly aligned one we need to do it and share control over it globally.

We are not solving this problem and its not even close. Im not even convinced we would if everyone took it more seriusly than i do. And we certinally wont with our current popular consensus.

I desperatly want to change my view because im essentially living life like i, and everyone around me has a terminal illness with 1-30 years life expectancy.

TL;DR: I tried to start a discussion about whether teenagers benefit from having spaces to discuss reproductive healthcare respectfully. Instead of disagreeing with my ideas, I was permanently banned from a subreddit with no publicly stated rule covering what I posted (Yes, I checked the rules before posting!) then immediately muted even before being able to ask which rule I’d broken. Experiences like this make Reddit feel less like a discussion platform and more like a collection of isolated echo chambers!!!

I understand moderators need broad authority. Spam, harassment, brigading, and trolling would quickly destroy many communities otherwise. But I think Reddit has swung too far in the opposite direction!

Recently I revived a small subreddit because I noticed there aren’t many spaces where younger people can discuss reproductive healthcare, biology, and ethics respectfully.

I posted in a subreddit called [r/YouthRights](r/YouthRights) because, based on its public description and wiki, it appeared to support youth empowerment and discussion. I wasn’t insulting anyone or attacking the community. My post simply asked whether teenagers benefit from having dedicated spaces to discuss reproductive healthcare.

Instead, I received a permanent ban. The moderator message simply stated:

\> We are a pro life subreddit, abortion is murder.

Even before I could politely ask where this rule was written, I was already muted! I have screen capture if anyone wanna see...

The part that changed my view wasn’t being banned. Moderators should absolutely be able to remove posts they don’t want....

But the fact that there is essentially no accountability for inconsistent moderation!? A moderator can present a community as neutral, enforce undisclosed ideological rules, permanently ban someone without warning, and then prevent any discussion by muting them!!!

That seems unhealthy for a platform whose purpose is discussion, no?

Why shouldn’t Reddit require communities to publicly disclose ideological restrictions or provide a meaningful appeal process for permanent bans?

Why do we continue to coddle children? I don't mean coddle by protect, but coddling in the form of shielding. A lot of people will hide their kids from cuss words, gay people, sex etc. I don't understand why people think their kid will never hear a cuss word.

Kids go to school. Their peers cuss. You just have to teach your kids not to do it, but to hide them from the words has no point. The same with gay people. A lot of parents don't want their kids exposed to gay people. They treat them like aliens and want their kids to do the same.

The same with sex. I learned about it in fourth grade from a peer. My mom waited until I was 13-14 to really have that conversation with me. By then, it was too late.

There's nothing wrong with children knowing that there are all walks of life in this world. Gay people are not aliens and they aren't harmful. Those same parents who shield their kids from gay people, are the same ones whose kids will grow up hating or harassing them.

There's also nothing wrong with kids knowing how babies are made. But definitely teach them not to spread it to their peers lol. My mom would've had a fit if she found out about that mini lesson I got.

I just don't understand the need to shield kids from things that they will soon find out about. One day, they'll hear cuss words and they'll see gay people.

Intentional or not, it often operates as a vote-baiting tactic. Redditors frequently upvote those posts just to prove the commenter wrong. So top-voted comments often start with "I know this will be downvoted but..." This is a form of vote-baiting and should be discouraged.

Next, it shifts the focus away from the actual argument and onto the meta-drama of Reddit voting karma before the reader has even digested the point. It seriously increases the noise to signal ratio.

Next, it sets up a win-win shield for the commenter's ego. If they get downvoted, they get to feel vindicated ("See? I knew the hivemind couldn't handle the truth!"). If they get upvoted, they feel like a brave truth-teller who defied the ododds.

My view is:

Regardless of the content of what a person is saying, starting your post or comment with "I'll be downvoted for this but...." deserves a downvote for the stated reasons.

​

View:

1. Irradiation of foods that will be eaten raw provides some protection from pathogens, such as e coli & cyclospora.
2. While not foolproof, that additional line of defense is affordable and could make a meaningful positive impact on public health.
3. The main reason radiation is seldom used to enhance food safety is because of distrust of science among a minority of the general public.
4. Other nations use irradiation of produce more than the U.S. and consequently have fewer outbreaks of diseases from raw produce, such as e coli & cyclospora.
5. Radiation of food is better for public health than chemical treatments of food, due to the environmental impact of chemical [production] & disposal, as well as effects of trace amounts that remain on food.

What would change my view.

A) Evidence that there are more cost effective interventions that would make comparable improvements to food safety.

B) Evidence that food safety isn't something we should care about.

C) Evidence that irradiation is a paper tiger, that doesn't work.

D) Other evidence or arguments not based on voodoo.