Please keep it civil.
We’re the healthiest and smartest generation in the last hundred or so years on average per person, yet due to a variety of systemic factors we’re all totally handicapped to producing positive changes towards helping one another let alone many, and it’s largely down to our systems being completely shit.
Companies want people to be healthy and smart to do work. But they also want people to be divided to smaller groups (e.g. bullshit rule about not telling your salary to coworkers). And companies pay as less as people can withstand so we will want to work more. And by working more we are more closed minded and angry and don’t have a time to be kinder.
Idk if that’s makes sense, but I’m just sad because of inequality and people (poor, short sighted people) willing to defend it.
Citation needed. The smartest and healthiest generation might have been GenX instead, GenZlers have seen overall decline in health, live expectancy and mental health.
Pineapple on pizza is okay.
(I have my 9mm beretta, an uzi, a kalishnakov machine gun I picked up in the Congo, 6 grenades, a machete and and broad sword and I’m going up on that hill over there so you come and take me down. C’mon all you motherfuckers try and say otherwise, pizza purist pussies!)
Pineapple fresh jalapenos and pepperoni. Fucking. snaps.
I was against this for many years but lately I have developed a taste for good pineapple on good pizzas. So there’s that.
This is the way.
Disgusting, but I admire your grit.
Velcro is fine. It shouldn’t just be for kids shoes: shoelaces are like ties: a pointless time waster we should have ditched as soon as we invented velcro.
Based but velcro stops working after a while while laces thend to take more time.
I got the velcro on my motorbike boots replaced at a shoe repair shop, a whole €12 to get another couple of years use out of them seemed likes bargain. New boots like them are €150 at least
Laces wear out over time too. Also, nicer velcro is sold, though I have no idea if it lasts longer.
Not that it doesnt but it takes way more time. And velcro usually stops wirking due to fur and dust getting suck on the spiky side and its easyer to replace laces. But i still like velcro since its easyer to whear.
Laces do stop working after a while, and that’s why you can buy replacements.
I see zero reason you can’t have strong mountpoints for the velcro, and have replaceable velcro ‘laces’
Not that they dont, but thend to take way more time. And velcro usually stops working due to fur and dust getting suck on the spiky side of it and its easyer to replace laces. But i still like velcro since its easyer to wear.
Velcro doesn’t do well with pulling forces over a long period of time, and it doesn’t do well with dirt and dust. We would all be adjusting our velcro all the time. Also shoelaces are easier to replace, and can be used to apply pressure to multiple parts of a shoe much easier than velcro. Think about shoes like converse or docs where they need to be held upwards and along the foot and leg shape, it would be very hard and annoying for velcro to do the same.
That the mental health system in the US is fundamentally broken due to the general attitude toward suicidality. As I understand it, the general and medical view of suicidality is that suicide cannot be allowed under any circumstances. Anyone acting in ways that seem like they could realistically lead to suicide must be stopped, by force if necessary. To this end, not only is it considered morally correct to report suicidal people to the proper authorities, but it is actually mandated in many cases.
This seems perfectly reasonable from the perspective of most people - suicide wreaks terrible havoc on the lives of the people around the victim, after all, on top of the general loss of life. This holds especially true because most suicide attempts are spur-of-the-moment decisions that have not been thought through, and these cases have a very good chance of recovery if they are talked down. As far as I am aware, the majority of people who have been brought back from suicide attempts are grateful for the second chance.
But this leaves a rather large class of people behind, who are in such anguish for one reason or another that suicide seems like the only option. These are not people who kill themselves on a whim - they are people who have considered the ramifications of such an action for sometimes decades. If one of these people determines that suicide is the right choice, this essentially traps them in a space where they can no longer be helped. They cannot reach out to literally anyone, because everyone from their therapist to their friends to their relatives are likely to call in an intervention and involuntarily imprison them in a psychiatric ward. And even worse - these people do this in a genuine attempt to help, completely unaware of the paradox this creates.
To someone of this mindset, evoking an intervention of that nature is simply not an option. If one is in such pain that suicide seems like the only escape, then removing that escape is by definition worse than a death sentence. It seems a special kind of cruelty, the last remaining thing the world can do to ensure you feel every last second of this pain it has in store for you. To these people, their autonomy is often the very last thing they have left, and it is incredibly precious.
And so, the only route left is to suffer in silence, slowly regressing until the day they actually kill themselves. After a certain threshold where speaking about their mental state risks imprisonment, they are effectively already lost - because even if something could still be done to help them, the perceived risk is too high to ever reach for it.
I was in such a state for many years, and was lucky enough to be able to return on my own to a level where I feel ‘eligible for mental help’ again. However, I feel as if most people who reach that level are not so fortunate, and it twists my heart to know what we are inadvertently inflicting upon these poor, invisible people. There has to be a better way to approach this.
Just look at Canada’s scandals around MAID and you’ll see why allowing it can lead to severe problems including inconvenient people being pressured into choosing suicide.
Granted, I fully acknowledge that. I don’t think having state-sponsored suicide is the answer either, just that people need to be able to discuss their feelings freely somehow.
You are so spot on. Unfortunately I do not know a better solution. If most suicides are spur of the moment and can be stopped by immediate intervention, then the policy makes sense. How can we handle those edge cases that ruminate and are stuck with suicidal thoughts?
Sometimes victim blaming is valid. We as people can take mitigating actions to avoid trouble. And a lot of people just don’t.
E.g. people who don’t look before crossing a road at crosswalks. It’s the vehicles fault for hitting you. But you could have easily prevented it by having a modicum of self-preservation
Yeah I mostly agree with this. Like, sometimes a victim can cause something to happen without deserving the outcome. Nobody deserves to be mauled by a lion, but jumping into a lion cage will cause that to happen, and I won’t feel bad for you.
Representative Democracies have failed (are failing) like all other political ruling systems have failed so far. Some failed just faster than others that failed more catastrophically while some fail silently (agonizing). In the end all systems failed.
Is your argument only that democratic republics will fail? Are you arguing that it would be better to implement democracy in a different way, or that it should be foregone altogether? I imagine most people would agree that they inevitably fail, but not that there is a better option.
I intentionally wrote: representative democracies. I’m not aware of any ongoing implementation of complete direct democracy, not even in Switzerland so I can’t tell for those.
Because they they generally don’t work well. 51% will always vote to take the resources of the other 49%. Groups are highly susceptible to group think, pitch fork raids. They just destabilize faster than republics. You also can’t have everyone literally equal because everyone can’t stop everyone else to call a vote. 1 guy every day asking everyone to stop what they are doing to vote to make chicken sandwiches free for all truck drivers for example. People would stop voting and then stupid stuff would pass. There is no way to make it work.
I don’t think it’s representative democracy that is the problem per se. That said i would take your hypothetical 51% taking from the 49% over the current practical reality of the 1% voting to take from the 99%
The thing is, the 1% have a vested interest in keeping the 99% happy. Right? Because we could just eat them if we ran out of food. When you get 51 vs 49 you get into bigger problems. Like full scale wars. Just use your imagination.
the 1% have a vested interest in keeping the 99% happy.
My brother, gestures broadly at the world behind him i cannot fathom where you are getting this idea.
But i do agree that I’m getting very hungry
The current system persists because most people are happy enough not to complain. And the current wave of democratic backsliding is arguably caused by people becoming unhappier, and trying to fix that by voting for far-right candidates/parties.
Remember Brexit? 51% vote for one thing, suddenly the entire economic situation goes to shit, without consulting experts, union leaders, economists, diplomats, anyone. Just “yea sounds good let’s leave this shit”. That is what direct democracy is.
What representative democracy seeks to do is the exact opposite: the agonizingly slow parliamentary processes, coalition politics, political pandering, social dialogue, and general unwillingness to do anything rash is the entire point. It makes democracies stable. That’s their whole job. To provide a stable, predictable political environment in which people and businesses can thrive.
Autocracies scare businesses away because every time a ruler dies or is deposed, there is a high likelihood of deep political troubles. Even during the ruler’s lifetime, there is a higher likelihood that he will do something rash (say, invade Ukraine) and then refuse to acknowledge mistakes because an autocratic political apparatus just doesn’t tend to reward honesty. Democracies can make mistakes as well, but every election cycle gives everyone an opportunity to change direction without losing face. And the balance of powers ensures that, if a mistake is made, it probably isn’t a catastrophic one.Now democracies can be too slow to change sometimes. They may be too meek to appropriately deal with an expansionist autocratic state (see: WWII). Some (e.g. France, the US) have “fixed” this issue by giving a lot more power and flexibility to the Executive branch of power. It’s a hard balancing act, because while the advantages to “reactivity” are obvious, it also concentrates power in a way that makes it easier for a wannabe autocrat to hijack.
Furthermore reality isn’t so black&white. There are as many democratic systems as there are democracies. Switzerland has some direct democracy. Some countries (Germany, the Netherlands) are way more parliamentary than others (the US). Lots of Democratic countries have strong social safety nets to ensure that, literally, people don’t go hungry (if your idea of a “socialist” country is Canada, know that Canada is a mere starting point for social-democracy). Voting systems greatly affect democratic outcomes (ranked choice FTW). Unions and citizen involvement makes social democracies work. Many democracies are experimenting with modern methods of citizen involvement, for instance I personally like the idea randomly selecting a diverse section of the population to study a subject, consult experts, and draft propositions to be voted on; it removes a lot of the “useless” aspects of ministerial politics.
So what’s the alternative then? Representative democracies devolve into shit shows given sufficient amount of time. Dictatorships are horrible, council-led states (Sowjet) don’t work either… So what’s left?
Anarchy doesn’t work either…
I believe we must replace leadership with A.I.
The only AI we have currently is taught by what we already do.
Encourage families and strong men to participate in their republic so it can last longer. Point out corruption where you see it. Know bad things will happen and take steps to protect yourself.
That hasn’t worked for North America, it’s not working in the EU and if I look at South America… no I won’t.
America invented the computer , the telephone, the light bulb, the car, the airplane, went to the moon, effectively eliminated starvation. Yes America will devolve and die as did the Roman empire. As will the next empire. But we made progress.
Wow, that is unpopular. I’ve been campaigning against republics for a long time, but I’ve never seen anyone agree.
Nowadays you can cause riots by saying: Humans come in XY and XX chromosomes by genetic program, the correct expression of this genetic program leads to male or female genitalia and there’s currently no medical or surgical procedure to change that, no matter how much you insist. So that was one notch less controversial.
You can’t cause riots by saying that. Obviously you can’t literally change your dna. No one is trying to do that. What people are saying, is that gender, while related to sex, isn’t the same thing as sex. The meaning of the word is basically category, and if you look at other cultures, they often have more than 2 genders, and they are not related to or are only partially related to sex. That’s what people mean when they say gender is a social construct. Trans people are truly changing genders, not sexes. That’s why the term “transgender” is used.
Sounds to me like they are recognizing the issue that gender is a construct, and making the issue worse by enforcing more made up social boxes to stuff things into, instead of recognizing and accepting the realities of sex and disrespecting gender as the oppressive tool it is. Just like how non-binary people who submit to their specific place in the trans story are enforcing the idea of two main boxes they fit between. I think the misstep in most languages development that pushed sex information/assumptions into pronouns has made it harder to think of things logically now. Someones genetic configuration have no relevance to the vast majority of communications. Unfortunately, I think this has cause bad people to enforce oppression and impacted peo people to create more fantasy that modifies the issue but doesn’t help it. I personally think the biggest danger in trans led communications is a lack of focus on looking to accept yourself as a physical being and disrespect what people expect from that, as a first step anyways. I think more steps beyond that are certainly good for some people. I think that sounds of the things trans people are advocating for is great for humans, but only because they’re the quickest way to get a slightly better quality of life using fantasy. I don’t know if eradicating the social constrains built into our very languages is as easy as creating fantasy social constraints that give more people more peace. It’s a difficult topic in my opinion.
I don’t know if eradicating the social constrains built into our very languages is as easy as creating fantasy social constraints that give more people more peace.
It would be essentially impossible to convince people to just stop using gendered pronouns. Some languages already do this, like Turkish, but it introduces more problems. It becomes much more difficult to differentiate between people in conversation if you use the same pronouns for everyone. People who natively speak Turkish, and other languages like it, learn to structure their sentences in ways that make it clear who they are talking about without the use of gendered pronouns. So not only do you have to convince people to stop using those pronouns, you have to change the way they speak entirely.
I think its a much better idea to have more than 2 genders, maybe 3 or 4, and randomly assign them at birth regardless of sex. This way you could differentiate between people even more effectively as well as remove the social constraints. This would also be extremely difficult and probably impossible to make happen, but I think its ideal.
I’m not sure about that. People are conflating sex and gender all the time and this looks even intentional to me just to create more confusion and potential for drama.
If you check pre-millennial definition of gender you see that it was widely used synonymously. The distinction between sex and gender is just a form of newspeak.
The current mainstream teaches that gender expression is constructed and gender typical roles are assigned at birth and by society during infancy. This is utter nonsense, has been debunked over and over again and is still based on John Moneys gender experiments with the Reimer twins.
Gender and sex were used synonymously in this culture because they were effectively synonymous. But, as I have said, other cultures do not necessarily treat them as the same thing.
“The current mainstream teaches that gender expression is constructed and gender typical roles are assigned at birth and by society during infancy. This is utter nonsense”. This isn’t completely accurate, but it isn’t nonsense. Do you think a girl is born with the idea that she should wear dresses and like the color pink? Those aspects of gender are entirely dictated by society.
Science does believe that a perceived gender develops in a child’s brain, but as far as I know, its unclear when or how it develops. It could be before birth, or years after. It could be genetic, or come from external influences, or both. What science does know is that if your perceived gender is incongruent with your sex, it can cause gender dysphoria. The way to treat it is to transition to your perceived gender.
Science does believe that a perceived gender develops in a child’s brain, but as far as I know, its unclear when or how it develops. It could be before birth, or years after.
No, science does not believe that. Sociologists with questionable record regarding the validity of their studies believe that, however they do completed forget that humans are not isolated and decoupled from animals.
Males and females are vastly different and there’s nothing constructed about this.
What science does know is that if your perceived gender is incongruent with your sex, it can cause gender dysphoria.
Science does not know this. It’s a mainstream belief now but not backed up by good data. All we know is that transition does not remediate high suicide rates, despite greater societal acceptance of transgender in general. Some studies even show higher suicide rates after transition, however the datasets are too small and the studies are all biased on way or another. We don’t know!
The way to treat it is to transition to your perceived gender.
That’s one hypothesis. The other one is not to treat it and just wait because a good number of those affected by gender dysphoria turn out to be just gay and very unsure about their sexual orientation. Again: We don’t know because data is insufficient.
Based on an unproven hypothesis you want people to transition despite this potentially having devastating results? I would be less sure about this, I have doubts.
No, science does not believe that. Sociologists with questionable record regarding the validity of their studies believe that
What sociologists with a questionable record? Also sociology is a kind of science.
Males and females are vastly different and there’s nothing constructed about this.
Of course they are, I made no argument they aren’t. My point is that many aspects of gender are determined by society. That’s why I mentioned dresses and the color pink.
All we know is that transition does not remediate high suicide rates,
Since when did we know this? In fact I recall it being the exact opposite. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10027312/
edit: I should have mentioned the paper I linked is not definitive by any means, but it strongly suggests a reduction in suicidality following gender affirming healthcare
I sure wouldn’t prevent anyone from transitioning, if that is the decision they’ve made. To many conservatives in my country want to control how people live their lives.
That the human brain hardware has not evolved in the past 2000 years, and classical religions are by far not the only means to induce entire populations (spanning multiple nations and continents) into believing false things. Modern advertising symbolism is often the new religion that motivates the mind, and people do not demonstrate nearly enough self-awareness of the side-effects of peer pressure induced by modern marketing/advertising. We are in an increasing race to the bottom of the flaws of the human brain that was never prepared for recording and unlimited playback of images, sounds, motion video, etc. All of humanity is under threat, and Carl Sagan’s 1995 book calls this out, among others, such as Neil Postman’s 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. Trickle Down Economics may be a bullshit deception, but Trickle Down Memes and Symbols are very real, and we are entering another Dark Ages, this time planet-wide.
“Finnegans Wake is the greatest guidebook to media study ever fashioned by man.” - Marshall McLuhan, Newsweek Magazine, page 56, February 28, 1966.
You mean Carl Sagan’s masterwork a demon haunted world? I picked that up again earlier this year and had a good laugh at how correct he was. It did keep pointing out that engagement/understanding is needed with the other sides. 10/10 would recommend it before cosmos or pale blue dot. He does such a good job trying to communicate his points in a nice and compassionate way. Sadly when I recommend it people assume it’s the atheist manifesto or something?
You mean Carl Sagan’s masterwork a demon haunted world?
yep.
It did keep pointing out that engagement/understanding is needed with the other sides.
“The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is in its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you’re sensible, you’ll listen to us; and if not, you’re beyond redemption. This is unconstructive… Whereas, a compassionate approach that from the beginning acknowledges the human roots of pseudoscience and superstition might be much more widely accepted. If we understand this, then of course we feel the uncertainty and pain of the abductees, or those who dare not leave home without consulting their horoscopes, or those who pin their hopes on crystals from Atlantis.” - Sagan
Everyone is mocking an out-group or the other since 2014, it’s reached saturation… inescapable. Echo chamber thinking has become routine, exactly opposite of Pale Blue Dot thinking.
Have you read Nausea by Sartre? I think you might enjoy it.
“People. You must love people. Men are admirable. I want to vomit—and suddenly, there it is: the Nausea”
On Lemmy it’s definitely that China is a shitty example of socialist statecraft.
Why only on Lemmy, and what good examples are there?
It’s not an unpopular opinion outside of a few instances here.
Before the reddit exodus, it was a more unpopular opinion here.
We currently live in a thriving bully culture. Every stupid fucking political issue were focused on is either preventing bullying or encouraging bullying. I think its about time we recognized that a huge percent of humans get a dopamine/feel good boost when they shit on other people. This counts for things as vague and superficial as someones appearance, up to whether or not someone should have rights.
Society & civilizations are formed & developed to bring us to a state beyond mere survival, and the extent to which a society/civilization fails to uplift & provide for those within it to live fuller lives not preoccupied with surviving is a deep mark against its sociability and civility.
Worse still are those that do not merely fail to do so, but those that actively resist doing so, with some twisted notion of the virtues of survival amid society (see: social Darwinism & related misanthropic ideologies).
The biggest issue humanity is facing currently is corruption of governments and corporations.
Is the controversial part of this opinion the fact that it’s not controversial at all so that it will create a discussion based on its controversy?
It’s controversial merely because he said biggest. I l, and most likely many others, would argue that the bigger problem is the fact that we have introduced so much greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere that life as we are now will be impossible a hundred years from now
Very controversial. I applaud your bravery.
I think the bigger issue is how to maximize individual freedom while preventing school shootings, dictators and potential oppressors from taking control of systems
You think gun control policy is the biggest issue we face?
No I don’t, I think every country has a host of issues, you tell me chief, what do YOU think are the biggest issues?
It was a genuine question.
I’m not sure if I had to pick one issue what that issue would be. Probably either pending climate disaster or the increasing centralization of wealth and power.
They aren’t corrupt, they are working perfectly, as designed. To keep the rich rich, and the workers surpressed.
A.I. should replace world leaders and it should administer our resources and the fact that we are not working towards that goal is worrying since the future and survival of humankind probably hinges on solving problems that the current leadership wont solve due to them being greedy short term obsessed pigs and just replacing them with other humans its just gonna keep the corruption cycle going.
other than a few Nazis and etc, most of these opinions don’t seem that controversial.
That’s because actual controversial opinions get downvoted. And people are afraid of that for some reason.
Using toilet paper instead of a bidet of some sort is absolutely disgusting and anyone who uses exclusively toilet paper is pretty gross.
Once you step through you can never go back lmao. Doesn’t matter if its wet wipes, bidet or full shower
Full shower after each toilet session? You make Greta cry!
I can agree with wet wipes, bidet or these japanese toilets with bidet features.
I felt ike a caveman wipin with paper after getting to use one of those singing bidets with the programmable jets. We can’t be the greatest country in the world until we have a bidet in every bathroom
That gender abolition is the best way forward for society. Really gets both sides all pissy
I agree that its ideal, but how would you even do that? Its so engrained into peoples’ brains that I doubt it could even happen unless the vast majority of people agreed to not teach the concept to their children.
Same way any social progress is made: gradually change people’s opinions
I don’t think you understand how difficult it would be to coordinate that. Is it even possible for a person to unlearn gender entirely? If so, would they even want to? Maybe you could succeed in convincing people its a good idea, but could you convince them to actually do it? If this were to happen it would have to span multiple generations. How do you convince someone not to teach their child something so integral to being a productive member of this society? People struggle to use the correct pronouns for people already, do you really think they could live with the abolishment of gendered pronouns as a whole? Gendered pronouns help differentiate between people in a conversation without having to say their name. “George and Sally raced but she was faster than him.” This sentence doesn’t make sense without gendered pronouns. “George and Sally raced but they were faster than them.” This is a monumental change to how the entire world works. It will not happen by simply changing people’s opinions. A good middle ground might be severing the connection gender has with sex, and simply using gender as a way to differentiate people. Although, it’s not like this would be easy either.
What is gender abolition, the abolition of any distinctions between male and female?
No, that would be quack genetic modification. Not my area of expertise. Eliminating the social categorization of gender as a whole.
No need to call anybody a quack. I’m just trying to understand your controversial opinion.
Social categorization is incredibly vague, so it’s still not clear to me what you feel should be abolished.
I think he is trying to say everyone should become a they/them and he wants to abolish he/she genders?
I’d be surprised if his most controversial opinion is related to grammar.
In an extremely blunt way, it’s correct. It obviously extends beyond grammar, and I have an entirely different stance on how 3rd person pronouns should be handled in English that described, but the premise is solid. Take where you would typically use gender, and, like, don’t. Obviously you would still have biological sex for things like medical records, but it wouldn’t be tied to who you are as a person, it would just be a letter on a paper somewhere.
Can you be more verbose? I’m still really confused what you are trying to say and why it makes both sides mad? Could you throw in some examples of dialogue?
Okay, thanks for explaining.
If I understand correctly, you’re saying that a person’s sex should only be referenced when it is relevant, which is only in a narrow set of situations. Any reference in speech to a person should not invoke his sex.
