Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
Most human males should be castrated.
Men commit almost all rape and murder, but no one seems to think this is a problem we need to do anything about. If any other group committed 90% of serious crimes – let’s say immigrants – people would be calling for them to be rounded up and exiled. But when it’s men, that’s just the way things are, nothing to be done about it.
But we know exactly what to do about it when we’re talking about other species. We castrate male cattle because bulls are dangerous and steer aren’t. Violent criminals typically have elevated testosterone levels. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that putting men on testosterone-blockers is going to make them less dangerous.
What will be the other effects?
- Men will be be weaker—Meh, physical strength is less useful now than it was in the past.
- They’ll have less hair on their bodies and more on their heads—Awesome.
- They’ll won’t be able to get hard—That’s what viagra is for.
- They’ll lose fertility—They can go off blockers while they’re trying to have a child. Or you could just have a small number of uncastrated sperm donors.
I’m an anarchist, so I don’t want to force this on anyone. But if I believed in prisons or police, I would also believe in mandatory castration.
Look… I belive this is wrong because:
- It is blindly saying that all men are bad, which can’t be proven and also would be unfair to the men that are “good” human beings.
- It can cause mass population drop since there won’t be enough men to sustain the numbers we have now.
- Testosterone can’t be the only factor that would push a man to do something like murder or rape. Humans can reason except if they have some sort of psychological issue. The person must have other motives to do it, it is not “hormone bad” and therefore get rid of the hormone. Women are also guilty of murder and rape, this will solve nothing. This answer is speculative as per the demographics but… at the end of the day… Please don’t go with the guilty until proven inocent mindset. It is very unfair to just people.
Are u human male?
I’m a trans woman, so I would be castrated under this policy but would have wanted to be anyway.
Okay. That might explain why you have a strong oppinion on gender specific topics.
I won’t judge if you let me keep my ding-dong. I think during my lifetime I grew kind of fond of it. I’d certainly miss it.
Props for having an unpopular opinion. I think its interesting a self proclaimed anarchist has such an incredibly totalitarian belief. Also one that sounds rooted in a deeply right wing/bigoted style of thinking. “Men are inherently violent so we need to castrate them against their will to fit our view” wouldnt the much more logical conclusion be to try and change culture to one that discourages toxic masculinity? Rather than believing in a massive violation of human rights
I don’t think we should castrate men against their will, although I would if I weren’t an anarchist. As it is, I think it would be a good social norm for men to take testosterone blockers.
I’m not sure what “men are inherently violent” means. I think that testosterone makes people more aggressive. Adult men with typical levels of testosterone are more likely to be violent than people with lower testosterone levels. Men with very low testosterone levels are not particularly likely to be aggressive. Aggression is not inherent to being a man, but it is caused by a chemical that’s found in larger amounts in men than in women.
I do think we should discourage toxic masculinity, and I do think it’s responsible for some of the difference in aggression in men and women. However, I think that testosterone also plays a major role.
“Hey everyone, here are some serious and pressing issues. Should we address these issues in a comprehensive, sane manner?”
No, that sounds difficult: let’s unironically suggest a bat-shit, monstrous thing instead.
Ppl put a lot of thought in their rage bait these days
I’m an anarchist
I somehow don’t believe that.
Men commit almost all rape and murder, but no one seems to think this is a problem we need to do anything about.
There’s a feminist movement. One of the major theses of the feminist movement is the rape and murder overwhelmingly committed by men. I’d like it if a lot more people were feminists, but it’s not correct to say that no one cares.
If any other group committed 90% of serious crimes – let’s say immigrants – people would be calling for them to be rounded up and exiled.
And that would still be an insane reaction to that fact even if it was true, which no self-identified anarchist should support. Rehabilitation must still be the goal of any justice system.
But when it’s men, that’s just the way things are, nothing to be done about it.
Okay, that’s reasonable. However, that doesn’t mean that we should accept absolutely any solution to eliminate misogyny no matter the cost. There are wildly more creative and practical ways to go about this.
But we know exactly what to do about it when we’re talking about other species. We castrate male cattle because bulls are dangerous and steer aren’t.
Spicy hot take: we shouldn’t be castrating bulls. Technically you would probably achieve your goal of taming a bull by castrating it, but at the disproportionate expense of the bull’s personality, health, and bodily autonomy. Now we’re not bulls or trained in bovine social cues so we don’t miss the minds of castrated bulls, hence why there’s no controversy; it’s not obvious. However, men are
Violent criminals typically have elevated testosterone levels. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that putting men on testosterone-blockers is going to make them less dangerous.
Correlation ≠ causation!
What will be the other effects?
The other effect is that men will have their bodily autonomy violated. Women have been suffering a related torment from patriarchal governments banning their access to abortion. Generally, women’s bodily autonomy has been systematically disregarded, and they have suffered through bizarre mutilations and “treatments” aimed at making them more palatable to men.
I gotta be blunt with you: I typically let stuff like this slide. I understand that a lot of women and other vagina-owners have been put through a tremendous amount of pain by men, so I’m usually willing to give you space to vent. And if it’s worth anything to you, I’m sorry that this stuff still happens, and we need to take concrete action to prevent rape and femicide.
But you wrote a really detailed paragraph defending sex-based eugenics. The thing about eugenics is that it never really went away. Seriously, go scroll through Reddit and see how long it takes before some “bleeding heart liberal” goes on a tirade about how people they don’t like need to be castrated. The world is absolutely flooded with eugenicists ready to torture and murder people, and there’s no telling what suffering they’ll impart on humanity if we don’t challenge them wherever they pop up.
It is especially irritating to see someone who claims to be a comrade express views like this. It makes me less confident to call myself an anarchist when my views are associated with eugenics. We already have a tremendous amount of ill will generated by “anarcho”-capitalists and “anarcho”-primitivists; we really do not need more bad takes.
Now I would prefer it if you dropped the eugenics, but if you really can’t drop the eugenics then at least stop dragging anarchists through the mud. I’m sorry if I’ve been harsh…but just know that I’ll be equally as harsh in your defense when the eugenicists come to neuter you.
I somehow don’t believe that [you’re an anarchist].
Since everyone seems to have focused on the thing I said I would believe if I weren’t an anarchist (mandatory castration), I guess I should clarify what the anarchist version of this belief is. When I say “most males should be castrated,” I mean it in the same way as “most children should go to school.” I don’t think that parents or any other authority should force children to go to school if they really don’t want to. However, I think it’s good for children to go to school, I would personally encourage them to, and I think it should be a social norm. I feel the same way about men taking T-blockers. If I got to design society, I would make the norm that when boys reach the age where they get the talk about puberty, they would be given T-blockers and told that taking them will make them less likely to want to hurt people. They wouldn’t be forced to take them, but I think many would choose to if it were seen as a normal and safe way to be a man.
I don’t think there’s any conceivable way we could make this a social norm, so this is just a pipe dream of mine. Nevertheless, it’s a good fit for a “really unpopular opinion” thread.
And [rounding up and exiling immigrants] would still be an insane reaction to [immigrants committing 90% of serious crimes] even if it was true, which no self-identified anarchist should support. Rehabilitation must still be the goal of any justice system.
I agree. My point was to show that there is a double standard in how mainstream society treats men committing a lot of crime compared with any other group committing a lot of crime. I was not trying to say that attitudes towards immigrants, etc. committing crime are correct.
There’s a feminist movement. One of the major theses of the feminist movement is the rape and murder overwhelmingly committed by men.
Point taken, although I’d say that only a small proportion of feminists take male violence as seriously as you would expect people to if it were any other group committing almost all crime.
There are wildly more creative and practical ways to go about [preventing violence by men].
That’s true. I don’t think this idea is practical at all, although I don’t think any practical idea would be as effective in preventing violence as this one.
Spicy hot take: we shouldn’t be castrating bulls.
I actually agree. Humans should not use animals for food or labor, so really the only place we should interact with cattle is in zoos, and I think trained professionals should be able to handle uncastrated bulls.
Correlation [between criminal behavior and high testosterone] ≠ causation!
True, but come on. When we remove the source of testosterone in other mammals, they become less aggressive. About half of all humans have high T levels starting in adolescence, and it’s exactly at that age when their crime rates shoot way up. And some of the most violent people in society also have the highest T levels. Do you really think that’s all just a coincidence? Can you think of a another non-tortured explanation for these observations?
The other effect is that men will have their bodily autonomy violated.
Right, I don’t think we should violate people’s bodily autonomy to prevent crime, which is why I think castrating men should be a norm, not a mandate. However, a lot of people are fine with violating people’s bodily autonomy if it stops serious crimes. They want the state to crack down on people putting heroin in their bodies and becoming violent as a result. Well, I don’t see why they logically shouldn’t also want the state to crack down on people having testosterone in their bodies and becoming violent as a result.
But you wrote a really detailed paragraph defending sex-based eugenics. The thing about eugenics is that it never really went away.
I proposed two methods of reproduction in a world where most men were chemically castrated: (1) men would go off T-blockers while trying for a baby, or (2) people would rely on a small number of uncastrated sperm donors. Of those, (1) is not eugenics, but (2) could be, depending on how the donors were selected. Obviously eugenics is not compatible with anarchism, but as you said, there are a lot of people who still believe in eugenics. My argument is that people who think that the state should limit who gets to reproduce to make society safer should also want it to limit the number of people with high testosterone to make society safer.
It is especially irritating to see someone who claims to be a comrade express views like this. It makes me less confident to call myself an anarchist when my views are associated with eugenics. We already have a tremendous amount of ill will generated by “anarcho”-capitalists and “anarcho”-primitivists; we really do not need more bad takes.
This is the type of take I give when people ask for “really unpopular opinions.” It’s not something that I talk about when I’m trying to advocate for anarchism. And I mean… I don’t think you have much to worry about people associating anarchism with this idea. The only person other than me I’ve ever heard expressing an opinion like it was a weird blogger 10 years ago who was definitely not an anarchist.
Yeah, as a male sexual assault victim, this made my skin crawl honestly.
Well, men are also most of the victims of serious crime and do most of all dangerous jobs. These are all consequences of taking more risks.
Men commit almost all rape and murder, but no one seems to think this is a problem we need to do anything about.
Really? No one?
But we know exactly what to do about it when we’re talking about other species. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that putting men on testosterone-blockers is going to make them less dangerous.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that, it takes a fool, because it’s not necessarily true. It may make them less aggressive, but what else would happen? You’re giving an easy answer to an extremely hard problem.
YES, there are many people thinking about this. What about we make society less toxic first, for example? But I commend you for posting an actual unpopular opinion.
Well, men are also most of the victims of serious crime and do most of all dangerous jobs. These are all consequences of taking more risks.
That’s true. I don’t see what it has to do with my argument, though. I’m pretty sure that testosterone increases risk-tolerance, and that’s part of why it correlates with aggression. Are you suggesting that men have elevated risk-tolerance for reasons other than testosterone, and that risk-tolerance is responsible for aggression instead of testosterone? Or are you saying that risk-taking is important so it’s worth keeping men the way they are even if it causes most serious crime?
No one? YES, there are many people thinking about this.
Most people see violent crime as a problem, but few see it as a problem with men. When people discuss crime, I never hear them frame the problem as “there’s something causing men to commit 10 times as much rape and murder as women: what is it and how do we stop it?” Even feminists who talk about male violence generally don’t frame it that way.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that, it takes a fool, because it’s not necessarily true.
No empirical data can lead us to accept something as “necessarily true,” but it stretches credulity to think that castration would reduce aggression in pretty much every kind of male mammal we try it on except humans and further that the most aggressive humans coincidentally have elevated testosterone levels. I don’t think that you actually believe that, since you said:
It may make them less aggressive, but what else would happen?
I specifically listed the other effects I could think of. If you think something else bad might happen, just say what it is. If your objection is that we should be cautious because there might be unexpected effects… well sure, that’s true, but it’s also a general-purpose objection to any suggestion to change anything ever. You can’t really have any interesting opinions if you accept that reasoning.
What about we make society less toxic first, for example?
I’m in favor of that. But I think there’s a limit to how much you can improve society via culture alone. You could probably design a culture where people would be a lot less selfish than they are today, for example. But I don’t think you could get people to never be selfish at all, because some amount of selfishness is part of human nature. I think the same is true for aggression, and that the minimum amount of aggression you could get from people is in large part of function of testosterone levels.
Furthermore, “make society less toxic” is a goal, not a policy. A policy to reduce violence by making society less toxic could be something like teaching children to play cooperative games instead of competitive ones. That would probably have a small effect in a few decades. But I think chemically castrating men would have a bigger effect in a shorter amount of time than just about any other policy you could think of, and those effects would be in addition to anything else you did.
I don’t see what it has to do with my argument, though.
You’re proposing an extremely harmful measure to remediate a problem that men cause without citing that we’re also the main victims of said problem. You’re framing it as if we only cause suffering and do not experience it.
Or are you saying that risk-taking is important so it’s worth keeping men the way they are even if it causes most serious crime?
Risk-taking is one example of effect of testosterone other than violence. It does not justify serious crime, it shows that if you get rid of testosterone you also get rid of other caracteristics.
Most people see violent crime as a problem, but few see it as a problem with men. When people discuss crime, I never hear them frame the problem as “there’s something causing men to commit 10 times as much rape and murder as women: what is it and how do we stop it?” Even feminists who talk about male violence generally don’t frame it that way.
Telling that a group very concerned with gender equality don’t frame it that way, isn’t it? Reasonable people will never suggest that racialized groups should learn western European values by norm to solve their high criminality rate.
No empirical data can lead us to accept something as “necessarily true,” but it stretches credulity to think that castration would reduce aggression in pretty much every kind of male mammal we try it on
Again, it doesn’t. People are orders of magnitude more complex than any other animal and, even then, we haven’t castrated that many animals. You’re thinking of domesticated animals, and we’ve done a lot of other things to remove undesired traits in them, like selective breeding. Do you think that eugenics is a reasonable solution to violence amongst men too?
that the most aggressive humans coincidentally have elevated testosterone levels.
So we already have a much more reasonable, though still very unethical, measure: bring down testosterone levels of violent individuals so that they’re closer to the average. Miles ahead and still in the same line of thought.
I don’t think that you actually believe that, since you said:
It may make them less aggressive, but what else would happen?
I specifically listed the other effects I could think of. If you think something else bad might happen, just say what it is. If your objection is that we should be cautious because there might be unexpected effects… well sure, that’s true, but it’s also a general-purpose objection to any suggestion to change anything ever.
I don’t have an specific effect in mind and your examples are bad. Let’s quickly analyze the third one:
- They’ll won’t be able to get hard—That’s what viagra is for
Is solving hormone-caused impotence that straight-forward? What are the side effect of using Viagra? For how long can you take Viagra and how frequently?
I don’t think we could enumerate the problems that would arise from screwing with people’s endocrine systems. The issue isn’t that solutions also bring problems, the issue is that your “solution” brings so many problems that it is very hard to believe that you actually want to solve anything.
Furthermore, “make society less toxic” is a goal, not a policy.
Yeah, sure, and castrating men is a “policy”.
But I think chemically castrating men would have a bigger effect in a shorter amount of time than just about any other policy you could think of, and those effects would be in addition to anything else you did.
Wow, and the things you can think of are so spectacular, while you can’t even spot your own prejudices. Your “fax and logic” facade does not fool anyone other than yourself that you want to help society instead of externalizing your prejudices.
They’ll won’t be able to get hard—That’s what viagra is for.
They also won’t ever want sex, their penises will never grow to adult size, and their voices will always sound like that of a little boy.
Now, maybe you’re lesbian or asexual or something, and you’re fine with all that, but I imagine some women would not be pleased.
They also won’t ever want sex
This is not true. Historically, “Many castrati lived rather promiscuous lives. Because their unions could produce no embarrassing offspring to explain, women saw them not only as beautiful, ethereal celebrities of the opera stage, but as prime candidates for affairs.”
their penises will never grow to adult size
I bottomed for a trans women with a highly atrophied penis and had a great time. Tbh I don’t know why anyone cares about penis size.
their voices will always sound like that of a little boy.
Their larynx won’t drop, but they won’t sound like little boys. Only some features of adult male voices are caused by biological puberty—there are a lot of other vocal characteristics that distinguish adults from children and men from women. I’ve known trans men who hadn’t gone on testosterone who still had masc-leaning voices. And adult women sound different from little girls even though their voices don’t drop during puberty.
Now, maybe you’re lesbian or asexual or something, and you’re fine with all that, but I imagine some women would not be pleased.
I’m bisexual, and I’d be totally down to date a guy who looked like this. As pointed out above, castrati were highly sought-after by women in the past. Obviously contraceptives negate the appeal of their infertility, but still, they must have been otherwise sexually appealing enough for women to want to sleep with them in the first place. Sure, it would be a loss for those who only like super-manly men, but that seems like an acceptable trade-off to me.
For you, yes, but not all women are like you. That’s the problem.
The vast majority of people who call themselves transgender aren’t. Most have been gaslit by online cults who insist that if anyone has any interests or behaviours that in any way don’t fit in with traditional gender roles that must mean they’re trans. It doesn’t.
Also, nobody under the age of at least 18 should be put on any sort of transitional hormone therapy, puberty blockers have a massive effect on young developing minds and bodies and those who give transition hormones to children deserve to be shot.
There are now children under 10 years old who are being paraded around as being “transgender” by their narcissistic mothers (its always the mothers) these kids are gonna be fucked up for the rest of their lives.
In general, the whole trans-mania fad that the west is going through right now is gonna lead to a lot and I mean a LOT of permanently fucked up people I’m the coming years and I predict that as today’s “trans kids” grow up we’ll be hearing a lot of testimonies of rampant sexual abuse and gaslighting in the lgbt+ community that these kids are falling victim to today.
A lot of trans people are fucked up, because they were denied the ability to express their gender like cis people. What’s changing is that trans people are finally able to open up about their experiences. The las time this happened was right before World War II.
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While i do believe it is possible that there maybe Trans people in existence that knew since a young age that they would want to transition
Most children know their gender by age 3.
The second fact is, children simply cannot make an informed decision let alone give informed consent to any hormones, pills, “binding” or transitionary intervention.
Here some facts about puberty blockers.
Here are some facts about what age a person can get HRT.
Here are some facts about binding and also packing and tucking.
Here is more on binding specifically.
It is possible for a person to learn about these topics. It is also possible for people of the appropriate ages, in some cases kids depending on what we are talking about, for example puberty blockers, to give informed consent.
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Thanks for sharing your stories and experiences. I’ll tell you a bit about myself. I am a single trans woman. I do not have kids. I have not undergone any surgery or used any medicine in order to transition. I knew I was a girl when I was three years old. I am sure your friends knew their genders at a young age as well.
Hormone blockers are a safe and effective way to delay puberty. It is completely reversible because a person can stop taking the medication at any time to begin puberty. This is something that a child of the ages ten to eleven can understand and consent to. Hormone blockers are not equivalent to sex which is something only adults can consent to. None of the medical treatments prescribed to trans people are forced on anyone. And only people with a history of gender dysphoria are given access to these treatments.
If you don’t like Mayo Clinic, I can give you another source with the same information.
https://www.medicinenet.com/at_what_age_does_gender_identity_develop/article.htm
https://www.stlouischildrens.org/conditions-treatments/transgender-center/puberty-blockers
It seem like the health and well being of young people is important to you. I would recommend reading this article on gender-affirming care. I think it will address many of your concerns. For some trans people, medical transition is not even necessary.
https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/gender-affirming-care-saves-lives
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Trans is something we made up.
Gender non-conformity is a real thing and happens across all cultures. Our approach to understanding it is culturally specific, and kinda fucked up.
Gender dysphoria is a real condition people experience. It was not “made up”. It is not culturally specific in the way that the article claims.
Also there is a scientific basis for transgender people. Here is one such study.
Gene variants provide insight into brain, body incongruence in transgender
Here is an article on the scientific basis for transgender people.
How Does Science Explain Transgenderism?
What is different between our culture in the West and other societies is that, in the US at least, we stigmatize people who identify with a gender that is different than the one they were assigned at birth. This is stigmatization is what is made up. The gender dysphoria this causes is very real. The reason people in cultures that lack this stigmatization do not experience gender dysphoria is that they are free to explore their gender the way they see fit.
The article, Trans is something we made up, is a constant stream of gas lighting, claiming gender dysphoria is driven by a cultural diagnosis, and a causal disregard for science, ignoring the evidence that explains the scientific basis for transgender people. Trans people in the West aren’t experiencing gender dysphoria because someone told them that’s how they should feel. That’s what any human person feels when they are denied their gender, whether that person is cis or trans. It’s just that, in the West, it is common practice to deny trans people their gender.
Here is an example of a case where a cis person was forced to be the opposite sex. They ended up experiencing gender dysphoria, and a bunch of other crazy situations as well. Gender dysphoria is real and not somehow subconsciously culturally conformed to by trans people. The reason it is not universal is that the stigmatization of trans people is not universal. On a related note though, from what I’ve read on the internet, stigmatization of lgbtq+ people, including trans people, is quite wide spread. It seems pretty universal to me, I’ve read about instances of discrimination in the US, the UK, Africa, the Middle East, India, and China but I suppose there are probably lucky exceptions everywhere.
John Money Gender Experiment: Reimer Twins
Medical treatments for trans people have been shown to be safe and effective. They are not forced on anyone. The people who seek these treatments are doing so as a way to affirm their gender. That is no different than what any culture that accepts gender non-conforming, which includes trans people, allows those people to do. The only thing that is different is we now have medicine and technology to help trans people.
Anyone who wants to make a culture of acceptance for gender non-conforming people should allow those people to make their own health care decisions.
Eugenics sounds really cool. Not the mandatory sterilisation style, but breeding superhumans? Don’t pretend that wouldn’t be cool.
“Superhuman” at what? I can’t think of anything dumber than trying to breed “desirable” traits into humans - for every “desirable trait” you put in you are ignoring a plethora of traits that allowed our asses to survive for the last 2 million years.
I don’t know, the more arbitrary the better. Foot hands, maybe.
Or sausage fingers?
It would never be that though. It would be some sort of EA games style- “for 50,000 bucks we will move the class C genes that cause bleeding asshole syndrome and ingrown nails, but Parkinsons falls in the $100,000 class B tier, and cancers fall in class AA tiers, which is only $140,000 (save 14% during the 9/11 sale!)”
And then years later, you’ll find out that some wealthy family paid $30 and a hand job for the AAA+ Diamond Supreme+ tier, which is why they are cancer resistant, HIV resistant, have a 19 inch penis, and live for 140 years even though their grandfather was dumber than a box of rocks and made all his money ripping off contractors for his failing casinos and bad property deals.
And those tiers? Each one only costs $20 to manufacture the medicines for, but that EA company has a patent that they change juuuuuust enough to renew every 20 years.
Personally, with the advent of gene editing I think breeding “superhumans” will inevitably become the way of the future.
It will likely only be available to those who can afford it and will create an even deeper rift between the “haves” and “have nots” than is already in place.
CRISPR is a really recent development, and I don’t think people truly realize how earth-shattering this new technology will be. Natural evolution is dead for all intents and purposes and we stand at the brink of a new era where the reigns to our own evolution have been thrust directly in our hands. Shit’s gonna be wild.
One thing that makes me think otherwise is how amazingly inexpensive CRISPR is! You can get hold of some for about $150 and do your own eugenics at home! And it isn’t that difficult to learn to do either. Shit, all three of my kids are basically little Bashirs… but don’t tell the government that!
The problem is, you and me wouldn’t be superhuman. Being a broken-ass, second-rate, classic-style human in a world of superhumans would absolutely not be cool.
Not if we are breeding super humans for meat
I already feel that way, but yeah I’m sure it would go terribly wrong.
I can absolutely guarantee you that it would be the (supposedly) “superhumans” who would turn out second-rate… have you seen what eugenics have done to dogs lately?
The counter argument to that would be “why not just fund better schools?” We absolutely know how to make the population more intelligent, and it’s a bit weird that countries like UK and US are actively doing the opposite.
I’m talking about big fucking übermenschen with two hearts, don’t misrepresent me. Who needs book smarts when you’ve got kangaroo tendons?
but then we get a gattaca situation down the line
Of course in reality, if you don’t save anything for the swim back you just drown. You really must save some for the swim back.
sure but you wouldn’t like being told who to have kids with just make gmo babies if you want superhumans, much faster and cheaper some dude in China did it already
While companies are bad, that doesn’t automatically make things a company produces bad even if the company is trying to price-gouge or otherwise make the most profit out of it. You can oppose the latter while not pushing bullshit about the former.
In this regard, I’m referring to things that people generally try to push anti-science views on and use “company bad” as their purposefully bad argument to conflate the two things.
So, medicine and pharmaceuticals are not bad, even if the companies are bad.
Same goes with vaccines, obviously.
Biotech crops are not bad (and people really need to learn about how all crop cultivars have patents, including heirloom and organic cultivars).
It’s pretty well established that GMOs ultimately cause a measurable and significant loss of biodiversity…which is bad for many reasons. I think in this case the companies and the product are both bad.
I’ve got no complaints with your other arguments, though.
They don’t inherently do so. Unless you have some biological claim to that effect?
The only reason they encourage monocropping is because the seeds are just that much better than the alternatives, so farmers are less likely to want to grow other options. A similar effect happened when F1 hybrid seeds were introduced, leading to the Green Revolution.
In that regard, having a broader variety of GMO cultivars with many kinds of crops would help diversify farmer usage.
But also it’s so fucking dumb when people say ‘some people are against GMO for bad reasons so I’ll fight against them and say all GMO is great’ because the theory ‘make better crops’ is good but better for who and in what way? Better in that they can withstand more patented Monsanto weedkiller? Most people who support GMO have no idea that the genetic changes being made are often just to allow farmers to use more pesticides which then run off into water tables and pollute everything…
There are other reasons to be against certain implementations of them too, in Africa they’re making it impossible for traditional farming methods meaning the giant corporations are just taking over everything.
No one wants a nuanced opinion anymore they want to hate the other side for being dumb and to defeat them at all costs
I’m assuming US, is that correct? If so, wouldn’t it be cheaper to move to Europe?
Don’t even get me started on the people who claim those with diabetes or asthma can get better with willpower and shouldn’t be taking medicine.
Invisible disabilities suck. People just underestimate stuff like that all the time. “It’s just like a bad cough, isn’t it?”
No, it flipping isn’t.
Good and useful crops encourage monocropping because why would farmers want to grow inferior options that will produce less overall and be less desired by consumers?
So monocropping is the natural result of consumer demand and the agricultural improvement of seeds.
That doesn’t make monocropping not a problem, but it doesn’t mean purposefully using worse seeds is the solution.
A lot of consumer’s buying habits for products with inelastic demand is driven by cost. If companies weren’t driven by ever increasing profits then there might be more of an incentive to offer a wider variety of crops to consumers. Certain crops are already subsidized by the government to make it profitable for farmers. If other crops were subsidized then perhaps farmers would be more encouraged to grow them and if people see these at normal prices they might also be more interested in buying them. Of course, this would rely on multiple parts of farming being overhauled. For example, there’s a lot of cost sinks, one I can think of is the locked down maintenance of farming equipment (once again driven by the need for increasing profits via fiduciary duty). Eliminating these and other overheads would not only lead to more cost efficient farming, but also cheaper crops and increased variety offered to consumers.
Crop types are subsidized, like corn in the midwest, but that doesn’t have any special connection to biotech seeds. Outside of you’re more likely to get research done on and biotech seeds made for the more popular crop types than others.
Purposefully using “worse” (different) seed is a solution as crop rotation, cover crops, and allowing land to go fallow helps with soil health (and reduced erosion and runoff and waterway pollution…)
Maximizing yields through subsidized monocropping and biotech seeds is unsustainable resource extraction.
I love these posts where we’re hoping for downvotes. I think I’m better at those and i kind of wish all of lemmy was like that.
Child beauty contests are completely harmless. Their negative impact is in no way greater than anything competitive sports does to children. People, however, need to do tons of virtue signalling, so they scream about the terrible “sexualization” going on there, when it is in fact just some kids playing dress up, one of the most natural games children play.
Speaking as a psychologist, you really need to be squinting to think like this. Consider motivations for entering into such a contest and who they’re held by.
You’re deflecting because you can’t argue anything on the merits.
It’s definitely an unpopular opinion, but it’s also a fucking stupid one.
Do you have any substance? and real argument?
or just vacuous insults is enough for you?
What do we need arguments for, mate? It’s been talked about a thousand times. It’s bad, it HAS horrible psychological effects on kids and it IS sexualizing them. You’re wrong just to be contrarian. It’s annoying. It’s not Kids playing dress up, it’s that while they are getting rated (eeew) by adult people.
You’re just repeating the stupid shit that everybody wants to believe.
Why not provide some evidence?
Oh, you can’t. because there is none. Hmmmmmm.
I am repeating what is true.
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Romeo-and-Juliet laws are the solution to this problem. Under such a law, it is legal to have sex with someone if your age is close enough to theirs, or if both of you are adults.
We don’t need more pronouns. We need less of them.
In my native language there is no even he/she pronouns. The word is “hän” and it’s gender neutral. You can be male, female, FTM, MTF, non-binary or what ever and you’re still called “hän”. You can identify as anything you like and “hän” already includes you.
That sounds like a solution that should make everyone happy. However, the crowd arguing against more pronouns would also argue against this, just because they’re impossible to appease.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the (mostly) political right that seems all these new pronouns as stupid would also ironically be against giving up on their own gender specific pronoun for a gender neutral one.
100%
Had me for a second there lol
I’ll go one further: I get (and respect) the utility of they/them pronouns for a singular entity, but it IS clunky and confusing. English is ever evolving but when I hear a “they” it is still very much more abstract and plural than a more specific he or she.
Whatever: it’s my shit and I’ll gladly deal with a nanosecond of confusion and adjust if it allows people to maintain their dignity. Point is, by insisting that there’s nothing confusing about they/them in reference to a single entity feels disingenuous. I know moderate people who are otherwise live and let live as well as receptive to basic human dignity who are turned off by the confusing abstraction, switching tenses, etc.
They/them isn’t the elegant, seamless drop in that people say it is and it hurts the messaging. I get that being rigid and forceful is necessary with the rampant transphobia and “i’m just asking (bad faith) questions” going on, but I still fuck up semantics and tenses like whoa
I don’t think they/them is the ideal word to replace he/she with either. It probably needs to be a whole new word. They/them exists in my language too and it’s used when you’re talking about multiple people. It’s confusing to say “they did something” when you’re speaking of a single person.
Thank you.
It’s not people using the neutral that bothers me, it’s the fact that the neutral is both singular and plural while the non neutrals are only singular/plural.
and the plural part also alters the entire sentence structure to plural.
“He is over there” - Singular and easy to understand
“They is over there” - Just sounds wrong.
“They are over there” - Both singular and plural. Is it a person of unspecified nature or multiple people of mixed ones?
English could use a popularization of a strictly singular neutral that doesn’t carry implications of being an object rather than a being (“It is over there”)
This argument has never made sense simply because of the fact that singular they/them has been in use for literally centuries. It’s even reasonable to say it’s always been in use considering singular they/them was in use in the 14th century and modern English formed around 14-17th. I can guarantee you have never batted an eye when you heard something like “someone called but they didn’t leave a message”.
There are only two differences with recent usage: people are less likely to assume genders so use they/them more freely; and people identifying specifically as they/them. The words themselves haven’t really changed, they’re just more common now. Opposition to singular they/them is almost entirely political.
True, but singular they is undeniably clunky. Unfortunately it’s the best we have, so we will have to get used to it. Opposition to the natural evolution of language has never worked.
Their argument has a lot to do with people not establishing context upfront unlike your example with “someone called”. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a conversation with someone talking about a non-binary person, only to realize five minutes in they weren’t talking about a group of people. It’s super jarring when it happens.
singular they/them has been in use for literally centuries
Even if has been in use since forever, a more appropriate word can be introduced now.
Sure, but that’s a separate argument.
Are you speaking about that english, which has the same word for “you” and, ehm “you”?
And we’ve nowadays taken it even further, in spoken Finnish we’ve even got rid of the “hän” and mostly use “se”, which is the Finnish word for “it”. The same pronoun is used for people in all forms, animals, items, institutions and so on, and in practice the only case for “hän” is people trying to remind others they consider their pets human.
Context will tell which one it is.
My language is the exact opposite, everything is gendered in a binary way, and there’s no way to talk in a neutral or non-binary way, at least not in a super awkward way.
Spanish, perhaps?
Yeah, it bothers English speakers to no end that tables and pens are female and cars and pencils are male 🤣
We should remove the gender information from ID and other documents unrelated to the gender
(Maybe kept the XX or XY mark on medical papers though, may be useful to avoid death from medical poisoning, but even your gender and sexual preferences have nothing to do here, so no gender mark neither)
I just like the thought of removing genders.
You are what you are and what you want to be.
The only difference is you over there have a vagina and you over there have a penis.
However I don’t see why genders are necessary. We are all unique human beings and there’s no need to label everyone to a specific gender.
And if many people (specially, even if not exclusively, in a certain country whose name I’ll avoid mentioning) didn’t have as their favorite passtime “kill the freak”, where “freak” is anyone not belonging to their narrow definition of acceptability, difference would truly be unremarkable. However, reality doesn’t seem to be working well for those folks, and they need a way to identify each other to provide community and to feel less alone and, maybe, to defend each other.
I think a little bit it’s just that people typically like labels. They want to fit neatly into their little labeled box and the more labels they have, the more unique and/or complete they feel.
I really rejected labels as a teen, I hated the idea of it. Now I realize they can be useful for some things, and you know, if my trans brother feels better because his label is now male, that’s fine it doesn’t hurt me any to call him what makes him feel good.
the more labels they have, the more unique and/or complete they feel.
That sounds completely bonkers to me but you might be right.
if my trans brother feels better because his label is now male, that’s fine
No, of course if you don’t like the body you have and you want to change your “gender-defining” features, you should. It’s a bit like changing your haircut - although more impactful. You didn’t like your looks/body before, so you changed it and now you feel better so that’s perfect!
Before I learned about the LGBTQ community, I thought of gender as something you were born with and that described your body type: masculine or feminine. Aside from that, I don’t and never believed that it defines what kind of person you are, it only defines a part of your looks.
Now with the community there are people who describe themselves as non-binary or agender and again, I’ll totally respect that. However when I tried to think about what my gender really was, I started to realize that the whole concept of gender didn’t really make sense to me. What does it really mean to be non-binary? Heck, what does it even mean to be male or female? If it’s not just your body-type then what is it? Why do we need it? Isn’t it easier to not assign any genders at all? Just be who you want to be and love who you want to love!
If it’s not just your body-type then what is it? Why do we need it? Isn’t it easier to not assign any genders at all? Just be who you want to be and love who you want to love!
That would be lovely if they weren’t a lot of heavily armed persons willing to kill you or make you suffer if you act that way.
I think a little bit it’s just that people typically like labels
It’s not just a question of liking. Human minds work setting categories.
No. I need to feel special.
/s
Ignorant fuck, I am obese, 180cm tall at 100kg i eat healthy but I can only burn so many calories a day working from home and I can’t do cardio due to a birth defect that puts my vo2max at 30, since you are ignorant that means I got the fitness of a 70yo.
Do you think people like me just woke up and said o shit I want to star putting my pants laying down in bed and be hot at room temperature.
FELLOW FINNISH PERSON
Teenagers Are Adults
(not sure this is an opinion. it’s biological fact. but peeps get VERY Angry when I write it)
They are not mature enough adults though…
Edit: What I mean is that we should talk to them like they are adults so that adulthood sets in more smoothly. I do not think they should have the same rights as consent and stuff like that. They should learn about this stuff but not be able to do them and participate since they are not mature enough to make these descisions. For example, they can take sex ed classes but not consent to actual sex.
Everybody has tons of opinions on what they are mature enough for or not mature enough for
but as a matter of simple fact, they are adults.
I am scared as to how consent is being implied here… I don’t think they have the life experience and maturity to consent to sex and maybe drinking alcohol.
If you lock people out of adult society they gain no life experience.
Strictly keeping youth out of bars because they have no “life experience” means they’ll never get the “life experience” you think they need to be considered adults and allowed into bars. It’s a system for maintaining child status permanently.
So, based on your post history, the age of consent is too high, teens are more mature than what society believes, and we should let children into bars? Bro. You are a pedo. You are trying to justify your bullshit. I will follow you. I will continue to call you on your bullshit. Everywhere you go on the fediverse, I will reveal your nature.
In my opinion, some adults aren’t even adults, let alone teenagers.
Physically yes (at least in late teens), mentally no. Their brains have not finished developing.
From a less biological standpoint, they’re also still (typically) living with their parents and attending school, largely insulated from the real world.
But it’s really the brain development that kills the argument. Any argument about whether a teenager is an adult is almost guaranteed to revolve more around the mental/emotional aspects of adulthood than the physical.
Let’s stick to unpopular opinions, not incorrect facts.
“finished developing” is a stupid red herring. Our bodies and brains never stop changing. There is literally no point of “finished developing”
Our brains are largest around age 13. We get adult brains along with our adult bodies during puberty. This is a well-known scientific fact.
If anyone is “insulated from the real world” that was a choice society made. Was it the intentional infantilization of young adults? Keeping them locked out of adult society means they stay mentally children. We created this problem. We can remove it.
Parts of our brains don’t finish cooking until your early to mid twenties. By the time you are 18 19 you are mostly cooked but a 16 year old still has a lot of developing to go
Brains don’t “finish cooking”… they change continuously throughout our lives (just like our bodies do)
and even if there was some magical point of “finish cooking” that wouldn’t make people below that age mentally incompetent.
you are jumping thru tons of illogical hoops in order to justify demeaning and degrading young adults. Stop it.
I think the point is that things like impulse control improve as we get older. This continues to evolve.
‘Mature impulse control’ would be when the majority of people have reached a level that is acceptable for them to behave ‘responsibly’.
I’d argue there are teenagers that have already reached this level, and that there are many 30 year olds left to reach the level, but a best-fit age needs to be decided upon to avoid many with low impulse control being given too much responsibility.
I think I see your point, but I do feel there are aspects that stop this one from being true.
Never before in human history have teenagers been as intensely infantilized as they are in the USA right now.
Look at pre-literate societies too.
The idea that we are children until some time in our early twenties is brand new. Nobody ever considered such ridiculous bullshit until about 20 years ago. Now there are huge numbers of Americans thoroughly convinced of this obviously false, vile, bigoted dogma.
Okay. Let’s calm down. You can make your argument without calling it emotional words like ‘bullshit’. Talking emotionally makes others less likely to listen to your point. Funnily enough it also makes you appear less mentally mature 😉
Just because it’s a new idea doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
I’d also wager that the 'point of maturity ’ is a little high in the US, but not that all teenagers are mature enough to be called ‘adults’.
arguing semantics to win an argument must make you great at parties and nothing I said was illogical. Just because you feel you are right doesn’t automatically make other points illogical.
Simply put your “constantly changing” is as much a hand wave over complex topics as my cooking metaphor and allows for significant development of cognition and decision making.
frontal and parietal cortices aren’t developed until mid to late teens with maturation continuing for another decade. Maturation is an important part to consider because just because it’s developed doesn’t mean you are capable of using it effectively.
The frontal lobe is generally where higher executive functions including emotional regulation, planning, reasoning and problem solving occur.
How does your brain being biggest at 13 prove adulthood? I think it would better prove the opposite: brains are biggest at that age because they need the space to restructure things.
So a 13 year old person is an adult? I can see how that opinion is unpopular because it’s just wrong.
Many 13 year olds are still pubescent. None are children. Nature turns children into adults. There is lots of individual variation.
What turns a kitten into an adult cat? Puberty. What turns a puppy into an adult dog? Puberty. What turns a child into an adult human? Puberty. This is not difficult.That’s not how any of this works.
That’s exactly how all of this works. It is in fact #BasicBiology
You can do all the #ScienceDenial you like. Won’t change the facts.
I guess its not practical to define a 14 year old as an adult when most people dont feel like an adult until they are like 30 or something.
People tend to use school and university vs jobs and mortgages for example as a barrier to adulthood.
I think it makes more sense to go with what people believe in general rather than to bog ourselves down with technicalities.
There are clear obvious scientific facts at work here. They are not technicalities.
How I feel does not make reality real. If I feel like a dog, I am still human.
Nature makes us adults. The process is called puberty. There are several visible objective secondary sexual characteristics which make pretty damned clear who is where in the process.
How I feel does not make reality real.
Nice Freudian slip you’ve got there. How you feel, indeed, does not make your reality real. You keep claiming it’s a scientific fact while rambling about something no professional in the field would ever agree on.
At one point you’ve learned about one aspect of measuring (purely physical) development - the tanner scale - and decided to forever discard everything else. Keep rest assured this is not how the world or science actually works.
Whenever people like you go this “its just biology/science!” route they always conveniently forget that the animals you’re comparing us to aren’t sapient and don’t require the time for mental development that humans do. a sixth month old dog might be physically and mentally an adult but human psychological development doesn’t end until about 23-25, our level of intelligence requires a longer incubation time.
You pretend biology is on your side by ignoring psychology entirely.
This and puberty takes time. It isn’t ‘puberty not started’ or ‘puberty done’. There’s also 'puberty on going ’ which takes a long time in most mammals.
re: “human psychological development doesn’t end until about 23-25”
This is an urban myth. It has been thoroughly debunked.
re: “our level of intelligence requires a longer incubation time”
Your example was dogs. They reach adulthood in around 1 year. We take longer, yes, about 14 years.
Why do you want 14 yos to be adult so badly?
It has been thoroughly debunked.
It has not. Greetings, a psychologist.
Doesn’t matter how many #hashtags you use you are still a #pedophile
I wrote “Teenagers Are Adults” and you respond by moving the goalposts to make a strawman. I never wrote “All of the youngest teenagers are always adults” You made that up so you could knock it down.
The vast majority of teenagers are adults. That’s just science. The median age of reaching Tanner 5, adulthood, is 14 now. So most of us are fully adult before our 15th birthdays.
So now you are trying to use the Tanner scale to determine if somebody is an adult? There is no strawman here, you are writing those ridiculous comments yourself.
The Tanner Scale is the only determinant :-)
It seems he wants to fuck some children. It’s disgusting.
That’s not unpopular that’s just gross unless you’re a teen yourself. Then it’s like whatever because of course you think you’re grown. There’s no acceptable reason for an adult wanting a teenager to be considered an adult.
Except recognizing basic scientific facts :-D
Most people don’t reach full brain maturity until around the age of 25.
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentID=3051&ContentTypeID=1
LOL
That has been completely debunked :-D
I like circus peanuts. And banana laffy taffy. Anything old banana flavored is 👌
A year ago i would have agreed. Then i had to clean up a vomitted banana shake. Still love the circus peanuts, banana laffy taffy, and those pink-brown-white coconut candies that everyone’s grandma used to buy.
This doesn’t answer the question… but it’s my 1,001st comment on Lemmy, what the hell.
This thread exemplifies why I love Lemmy so much. It’s because we have so many original, free thinkers. We don’t always get along, but you can be sure you’ll find plenty of brand new ideas when you scroll through these threads.
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Also at least 3 are by one person: teenagers are adults, child pagents are cool, and statutory rape is also cool.
So add “sus as fuck” to your list of attributes these comments hold.
And that person also moderates and probably created a community called “controversial views”
And that is why they are unpopular…
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Religion is nothing more then social engineering on a grand scale.
Cult + time = religion.
In which fundamentalist hell hole is that an unpopular idea?
It’s not. OTOH it’s nonsense. The social engineering came late. First it was a primitive attempt to explain the unknown and give meaning to the meaningless.
We should. It’s not likely to happen any time soon, though.
America sadly lol
I agree and have a follow up opinion. It’s not a bad thing. Religion was created to share and make people believe that certain things are bad because those things used to hurt or kill people. It’s social engineering to essentially try to make people better at living longer and happier lives. Sadly, a lot of religion broke out into more and more bad actors that used it for greed and personal gain.
Most conservatives, however deeply red, are not intentionally hateful and are usually open to rational discussion. People just don’t know how to have rational discussions nowadays and the few times they do, they don’t know how to think like somebody else and put things in a way they can understand.
People nowadays think because a point convinced them, it should convince everybody else and anybody who’s not convinced by it is just being willfully ignorant. The truth is we all process things differently and some people need to hear totally different arguments to understand, often put in ways that wouldn’t convince you if you heard it.
It’s hard to understand other people and I feel like the majority of people have given up trying in favor of assuming everybody who disagrees with you knows their wrong and refuses to admit it.
It is very hard to have rational disccussion when people disagree on the basic observable facts, ignore the “rules” of debate, and are struggling with critical thinking. You can meet difficult people on all the political spectrum, but certain idealogy attract more difficult people, and certain stuff mainstream conservatives believe right now has absolutely no basis in reality.
If it wasn’t for their response to the pandemic, I might be inclined to agree with you.
And their response to LGBT+ issues, and their response to Trump’s crimes, and…
Yeah, no. Republicans have had more than enough opportunities to redeem themselves. There is no remaining doubt to give them the benefit of.
Except half od them are QAnon believers.
much less than half
Maybe in the past, but nowadays there’s no rational discussion to be had with someone who doesn’t think you should legally be allowed to exist…
You’re not outright wrong, but it’s really hard to have the rational discussion skills to cut through decades of propaganda. For the many deep in the right-ring bubble, brainwashing is a better term than mere propaganda.
I can agree with that. I’ve been part of a cult before (was born into it) and I can recognize a lot of what I went through there in far right people. I guess I’m just a little sensitive to people calling these people idiots and hateful people due to seeing myself in them. Like, to me, they’re (usually) just good people being manipulated into thinking the awful things they say and do are good, and they need a rational and caring person to pull them slowly out of it, the same way I did.
Obviously, it takes more than just talking usually to pull somebody out of a cult, but I think it’s still a big part of it. They’ve been fooled into thinking that things that are rational aren’t, and unless they’re confronted with the actual truth and the facts to back them up, they’re not going to even start to question their beliefs.
I’m also not suggesting that every person needs to debate every republican about every issue they bring up. If you can’t or even just don’t want to debate somebody, you don’t have any obligation to, but I don’t think insulting them over it is almost ever the right response.
There’s also the angle of how every cult teaches you that you’re going to be persecuted for your beliefs, and brainwashes you into thinking that should reaffirm you that you must be correct. That is one major reason I think labeling all conservatives as irrational and hopeless is dangerous. When somebody who’s been taught that the world is going to hate them for being “right” finds that the world does not, in fact, hate them, but instead just displays genuine concern, that’s when you fully start to question everything.
I don’t think every right winger is going to fling left when presented with this view. In fact, I think the vast majority won’t, but it will make them a little more understanding, and a little more understanding over the course of many years and generations adds up.
I was going to post my rant about conservatives as a top level comment, but I didn’t think it was unpopular enough.
I agree with your central premise that there is a disconnect of understanding and perception between progressives and conservatives.
However, it’s not that conservatives haven’t heard a convincing argument, or something that accounts for their perspective. This is part of the fundamental disconnect, and you’re an excellent example of why people don’t know how to put things in a way others will understand.
Conservativism is not a principled ideology. It is the political justification of narcissism in every form. Conservatives like being conservative because it gives them a free pass to be selfish and egocentric in their political beliefs. There is no foundational value system or policy that is inherently conservative.
The conservative ideology defines the self and the other. Nothing else is fixed. Whatever is good for the self is good, and whatever is bad for the self is bad.
That’s it, that explains every conservative position ever held by any conservative since the invention of conservativism in the 1800s. From Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand wanting to roll back many of the reforms of the French Revolution, to Donald Trump becoming the Messiah, conservatives identify the self, and then do anything to benefit the self. Granted, Francois-Rene was a much better writer, but he was no less inconsistent in his desire to promote ideologies that benefitted himself and his peers.
Conservatives will couch their positions as staunch defense of tradition, and general opposition to change for the sake of change, but that’s window dressing. They don’t believe in stoicism or absolutism or really anything they claim to believe. And that’s why you cannot have a rational debate with a conservative. That’s why you won’t ever convince them to change their minds on a subject simply by pointing out flaws in their logic or perception.
The only method that has ever worked at getting a conservative to shift or compromise is by showing them how it will benefit them. Why is this policy good for the self? What value will they receive in exchange for easing up on their intransigence? If you can convince a conservative to abandon an ideological position, you can be sure it’s because they believe the new position is better for them.
Look at any conservative leader in history, any political pundit, any legislator or writer or conservative iconoclast. Viewed through the lens of narcissism, their intentions, their hypocrisies, their inconsistencies, they are all laid bare. There is no deeper meaning, no mystery to why they have had sudden changes or seemingly flip flopped on an issue. It’s not that complicated.
So no, it’s not that people don’t know how to have rational discussions these days. It’s that conservativism is anathema to rational thought, and it always has been. It’s a license to be as hateful or ignorant or selfish as you want to be, and you needn’t worry about defending your positions from things like facts, or realty, or reason, because those are tools of the other. If the other opposes you, they are evil and their reality, their facts, their reason is equally evil. They don’t need to be refuted, they need to be destroyed by any means necessary. The self is good, therefore anything the self needs to do to win is good. Lies, deception, personal attacks, intimidation, threats, violence, all of them are justified by the belief in the righteous self. There is no bar too low to be stooped under, no treachery too vile to be considered, no accusation too false to be levied. A conservative with scruples is a conservative unchallenged.
are usually open to rational discussion
Are they believers? If they are, your assertion is false.
I have had plenty of conversations with people irl. Most of the them with people who are to the right of me on the political spectrum. What I found in the conversations that were fruitful, was that our disagreement on larger issues, such as economics or personal freedoms, tended to stem from disagreements on smaller issues. To paraphrase my friend, “We are using the same words, but they all mean different things.” It seems to me that there are some elementary differences between progressives and conservatives that change how we rationalize the larger issues. That’s how the two groups can, based on the same information, come to two different conclusions.
That being said though, I think Fox News and other conservative news channels have created information silos. Not everyone who is conservative has necessarily had access to the same body of facts and evidence that progressives have. I think a good portion of people who are stuck in those silos would change their views if they had a more balanced news diet.
research subjects who considered themselves conservative tended to have larger amygdala, the section of the brain in the temporal lobes that plays a major role in the processing of emotions. Self-defined liberals, meanwhile, generally had a larger volume of gray matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain associated with coping with uncertainty and handling conflicting information.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/are-your-political-beliefs-hardwired-108090437/
Political neuroscience is an interesting field. I remember hearing about similar studies years ago on podcasts. A quick google revealed the field has had numerous studies done in the last year alone.
I don’t feel that this section inherently contradicts what I am trying to say and perhaps is intended to be supporting evidence. The fact that the differences between conservatives and liberals can be measured means that the disagreements stem from a real place. However, the article mentions that this does not mean agreement is impossible. It means that the two groups need to be approached differently with the same information.
Andrea Kuszewski, a researcher who has written about political neuroscience, would rather put a positive spin on what it could mean for politics. She says this kind of knowledge could help open up communication, or at least ease hostility between the country’s two major political parties.
“Each side is going to have to recognize that not everyone thinks like them, processes information like them, or values the same types of things,” she wrote last week. “With the state our country is in right now, I don’t think we have any choice but to cowboy up and do whatever needs to be done in order to reach some common ground.”
Do you mind elaborating on the intention of sharing the quoted section of the linked article? I don’t want to assume and I want to engage with what you mean.
Yeah except for the fact that they are causing very real damage to POC and LGBTQ people. So let’s be very clear here. Conservatives are not intentionally hateful and can be nice and kind if you are a straight white Christian. If you aren’t in the in group though they can and will turn on you even if they tolerate you. Because conservative ideology is one fundamentally founded on hate and oppression.
Too many people conflate the evils of corporatism and corruption with the general concept of “capitalism”/a market economy.
Now, I’m hardly an advocate of laissez-faire economics. But I’m not a full-on socialist either. I think the majority of problems people attribute to modern market economies can be corrected with aggressive anti-trust and pro-consumer regulation.
(The keyword here is majority. I’m sure it makes sense to socialize some things, but those details are best left to people smarter than me.)
At least according to my All feed, this is unpopular on Lemmy.
Nah… I think they are way to corrupt to think like this. I do agree with the original comment though.
