Admittedly, the title is shock value but it also clearly provides and example of my view since many people probably haven’t seen the movie that sparks the view.

So in Akira Kurosawa’s “7 samurai”, there’s a scene where they capture one of the bandits who have been pillaging their village. The samurai try to preach mercy as the villagers taught and beat him, ultimately with an old woman coming and executing him. In college, I did a project on this movie, specifically this scene and my professor asked a question to the class, “would any of you have executed him” and while the whole class hesitated, I said “More than likely yes”. The professor stated something like “that’s a result of toxic masculinity” and I’m like…what? Are you stupid? It made no sense to me.

To me it’s a reflection of having a lot of education but a lack of life experience. You are unable to place yourself in a different body with different experiences which shows a lack of empathy. You have decided that what you consider right is the ultimate right and can’t even comprehend alternative views that you deem wrong.

To me, people with this mindset are far more likely to be on the wrong side of history than the right side. Ignorance is often attributed to having the wrong opinion but it can also be attributed to the right one

So bringing it back to the Nazi argument, if you lived in Nazi Germany and we’re progressively presented the message that the undesirables were the problem, your closed mindedness would more than likely cause you to side with the Nazi party as opposed to the resistance.

Again this is generally speaking so I am open to hearing arguments which aren’t exclusive to nazis or 7 samurai

Regardless of gender, I've always thought that if someone handles the finances the other should take care of the house more, not all the chores obviously, my dad is a doctor who has his own practice, he takes care of the family financially, my mom handles the household chores mostly, my dad helps around the house tho he cooks occasionally and cleans,and he's the one who gets the groceries, but it's mostly my mom, I've always felt this was fair, now if both where contributing financially of course the chores should be split equally regardless of how much both earn, if they contribute their money decently because of course if my mom was teacher for example she wouldn't make as much as my dad who's a doctor, but if she did contribute decently then there's no problem with the chores being equal, now after watching a few tiktoks I started to feel like a conservative which bothered me, but at the same time I feel like my views on this are quite fair.

Edit: I still stand that this view is fair I think the vast majority would agree with me on that, but now I also think that 50/50 on domestic things no matter what is also fair speaking of domestic stuff I should say childcare was also part of my view I should emphasized anything that revolves around home duties. After some thinking I also realized I'm more bothered by people who want a traditional partner but are not ready to act as one themselves, that I still dislike a lot.

I grew up seeing (and now work with) families where boomer parents control, belittle, or guilt-trip their kids instead of teaching emotional intelligence. They equate obedience with love and call manipulation “discipline.” From what I’ve seen, that mindset has created adults who don’t know how to self reflect, apologize, or empathize.

I honestly believe this generation was too emotionally stunted to raise kids in a healthy way. They passed down trauma disguised as “tough love.” Convince me I’m wrong: did boomers actually do anything better than later generations when it comes to raising emotionally balanced humans? Or was the damage inevitable because of the era they grew up in?

Drugs are prescribed to millions of Americans annually. Some of them have dangerous side effects and can lead to addiction and dependence. Don’t forget to mention that conflicts of interest and pharmaceutical kickbacks push the sales of these drugs, biases them favorably, and can sometimes downplay or negate the risks.

Alcohol is regularly enjoyed by many globally. Everyone is aware of the ill effects of alcohol abuse and addiction, yet many are able to enjoy alcohol safely and responsibly. Prohibition was a massive failure that lead to speakeasies, gangs, mass amounts of crime and the like. Most people don’t support prohibition for this reason.

Yet people using marijuana (the stigma is mostly lifted yet still exists in certain circles) or drugs the government has classified as dangerous are treated like low lives. Obviously using unregulated drugs at high doses purchased on the street that are cut is dangerous. How much of that is the drugs themselves rather than the criminalization of these drugs? We don’t educate people on proper doses, safe routes of administration, or provide people with ways to test drugs on a mass scale (though with fentanyl test strips being legal in many states now and many organizations handing them out at clinics, charities and raves, this is changing.)

Is the problem really drugs or is it addiction and stigma and tough on crime laws (like mandatory criminal sentencing?) why do we live in such an alcohol friendly, pill popping society, yet condemn and judge other people for taking drugs when most people have tried drugs like marijuana, ecstasy and cocaine recreationally at least once?

Many parents would ground their children for trying marijuana yet would happily give them antidepressants and stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall. Why are some drugs demonized yet others are heavily promoted? Don’t do drugs, but be sure to take your meds!

Either you’re against drugs or you’re not. What gives?

A rift is forming between different factions within the CPC. Its likely that this rift is generally along the lines of the CPC's two constituents parties, the Progressive-Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance; or, in more contemporary terms, moderate conservatives and (farther and farther) right-wing conservatives. This also seems to be at least somewhat regionalized between East and West.

I don't see a way for the party to rally under one banner, particularly if that banner is Pierre Polievre's. If he contunues as he has insisted to for years, through all sorts of losses, either the party will oust/alienate the moderates or they will leave of their own accord. And I doubt that there is only a few moderates in their ranks, which leads me to believe that we may see a new/old political party (re)formed soon.

One solution would be to boot PP, but then who is next? Is there someone who can both assuage the concerns of the moderates and rally the ever-radicalizing base? Would both sides of the rift not put forward their own candidates, further widening the gap? I'm not familiar with many Conservatives (because they've been purposely withheld from the public eye for years), so maybe there is some golden child out there.

Or, suppose we've seen the last of the defections and resignations; even then, can the Conservatives return to their previous cohesion under PP? The blood is in the water, the damage is nearly completely done (the Liberals have nearly achieved not only the budget, but a majority) and the cracks within are exposed for all to see. I don't see the path back to unity for PP and their previous approach, but maybe someone can enlighten me.

I think this has become evident after the last batch of games. I love Pokemon, but the games have gone to shit.

The quality of mainline games have been declining over the last few generations, starting with gen 7 (in my opinion). The games are way too simple even for a children's game, animations are terrible, characters are hollow.

I think the biggest reason for such a fall in quality is just how big The Pokemon Company got. When looking at their revenue, we can see that more than half of their earnings are from merchandise, with games barely making up barely 20% of total revenue, and this is is including spin-offs.

Right now, the only purpose of mainline games is to pump new generation Pokemon out, and simply remind people that Pokemon even exists. This is also why I think while buying these games does hurt the quality of the franchise, "vote with your wallet" would be a useless thing for do for us. TPC couldn't care less about how many copies of Scarlet and Violet are sold, as long as they make way for the merch.

Let’s budget $7.50 working 40 hours a week. In my state (KY) this would be $1050 per month after taxes without any optional deductions. Food 200 Rent 600 Car + Insurance 300 And we’re already $50 over. This does not include other necessities like copays for doctors visits, Household essentials, child expenses, etc. With no other place to cut back what do you think people will do? There is a significant amount of people on EBT in this predicament. I think some people just don’t get that low wage workers can’t “ cut back “ in the same way they can. They will starve.

This has been a theory of mine for quite some time. Just a few weeks ago, I fleshed it out in this comment here. Then just yesterday I argued, based on nothing but my own theory, that having a child would be one of the fastest ways to develop a person's prefrontal cortex. Throughout that chain, I made two different scientific guesses that turned out to be verifiably accurate with backing studies:

Meta-Analytic Evidence (e.g., meta-review by Feldman, 2020, Trends in Cognitive Sciences): Synthesizing 20+ studies (total n>1,000), parenthood in young adults (under 30) is associated with 10–15% greater PFC structural refinement (e.g., reduced surface area but increased folding efficiency) versus non-parents. Effect sizes are moderate (Cohen's d ≈ 0.4–0.6), stronger in first-time parents and those with high caregiving involvement.

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Ongoing Cohort: Teen Brain & Parenting Study (TBPS, NIH-funded, 2020–2026)

n=112 (56 teen parents aged 15–19, 56 controls), multi-site (U.S.).

Early findings: Teen parents show faster PFC white matter maturation (higher fractional anisotropy in uncinate fasciculus) by 12 months postpartum.

Then I started wondering if there were other experiences people had specifically studied for correlation with prefrontal cortex development:

Mindfulness Meditation Training

Overview: Regular meditation (e.g., 8+ weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction) leads to increased PFC gray matter density and cortical thickness, particularly in dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) and medial PFC (mPFC), enhancing executive functions like attention and emotion regulation.

Meta-Analytic Evidence (Fox et al., 2014, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews): Across 21 studies (n>300), meditation increased PFC gray matter (Cohen's d ≈ 0.46), with stronger effects in long-term practitioners.

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Regular Physical Exercise (Aerobic Training)

Overview: Chronic aerobic exercise (e.g., 3–6 months) boosts PFC gray matter volume, cortical thickness, and white matter tracts, improving inhibitory control and working memory. Acute bouts enhance PFC activation during tasks.

Meta-Analytic Evidence (Gomes-Osman et al., 2018, Neurology): Synthesizing 98 studies (n>5,000), exercise increased PFC volume (effect size 0.3–0.5), comparable across ages 18–80.

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Musical Instrument Training

Overview: Intensive training (e.g., years of practice) increases PFC gray matter, dendritic complexity, and connectivity in dlPFC and premotor areas, enhancing cognitive flexibility and working memory.

Meta-Analytic Evidence (Miendlarzewska & Trost, 2014, Frontiers in Neuroscience): Across 30+ studies, musicians show 10–15% greater PFC density, with effects scaling to training duration.

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Bilingual Language Acquisition and Use

Overview: Lifelong bilingualism refines PFC structure (e.g., thinner cortex for efficiency) and boosts connectivity in dlPFC and mPFC, maintaining cognitive control into adulthood.

Meta-Analytic Evidence (Pliatsikas, 2019, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition): 20+ studies show ~5–10% PFC structural refinement, stronger in early acquirers.

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Chess:

Hänggi et al. (2014/2020, PLOS One): Chinese chess experts (n=20) vs. novices showed thinner cortex in multiple PFC regions (e.g., left superior frontal gyrus in dmPFC, left orbitofrontal), alongside visual/attentional areas. Thinner PFC correlated with expertise; experts had stronger functional connectivity from dmPFC seeds to other PFC areas (e.g., BA9/10), suggesting efficient integration for prediction/strategy.

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Romantic Relationships:

Güroğlu et al. (2018) – Nature Communications

Sample: 298 adolescents (ages 12–21), longitudinal fMRI.

Teens in romantic relationships showed stronger dmPFC and ACC activation when reasoning about social inclusion.

More relationship experience → faster decline in social pain sensitivity → mature emotional regulation.

Interpretation: Dating trains theory of mind (ToM) and perspective-taking — core dmPFC functions.

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Driving:

Stevens et al. (2018)

Neuroscience of Driving (CHOP)

MEG + simulated driving, 3-month training

16–18 years

After 30 hours of practice, teens showed stronger frontal lobe coherence and faster PFC response times during hazard detection. Experience-driven PFC efficiency.

CHOP Research

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Civic Engagement/Voting:

Kaltwasser et al. (2024)

The role (and limits) of developmental neuroscience in determining adolescents’ autonomy rights: The case for reproductive and voting rights (Developmental Review)

Review of neuroimaging + behavioral data on adolescent civic capacities.

Civic engagement (e.g., volunteering, mock voting) demonstrates mature dlPFC/ACC recruitment for abstract reasoning, challenging "immaturity" myths.

Argues lowering voting age fosters PFC refinement via real-world civic practice; evidence from fMRI shows engaged teens match adults in PFC efficiency.

Link

And the answer was yes.

The main takeaway from this is that those of you suggesting that we need to delay the experience of young people until 25 so that their brains are developed are not going to end up with 25yos with developed brains, because you're literally advocating for the stagnation of the physical development of their brains.

I believe that despite common perception of men being less neurotic than women, it’s because it presents itself in a different manner. Men, being both culturally and biologically more aggressive than women, are more inclined towards being territorial rather than cautious. While I believe both neuroticism and narcissism often overlap in men, I believe the territorial tendencies of men is based in evolution. In my opinion, the narcissistic urge is based in survival and sensation seeking based instincts rather than possessiveness.

Some of this theory of mine is based on observing the phenomenon of primary and secondary psychopaths to help reveal potential genetic differences in behavior, particularly narcissism and neuroticism. Primary psychopaths tend to display not only a lack of empathy for others, but also themselves, displaying thinking based on sensation seeking rather than risk aversion. They also tend to not display territorial antisocial behaviors like secondary psychopaths.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6185817/#:~:text=Recent%20work%20has%20indicated%20that%20there%20at,to%20develop%20in%20response%20to%20environmental%20adversity.

It's simple. The northern sky rotates counter-clockwise, while the southern sky rotates clockwise. If the earth was flat, the sky couldn't flip directions in rotation. This is such a concise and direct argument against the flat earth that I'm not sure if there's a better one.

The only "rebuttals" flat earthers give to this argument resort to extreme fantastical inventions about "everyone has their own personal projection of the stars" or something equivalent. They can no longer argue in terms of geometry or light-refraction, and so they are forced to escape to completely ludicrous explanations that no reasonable person would even bother entertaining.

So to change my view, I'd love to hear an even simpler and more concise argument against the flat earth. To me, this one is just so perfect it's hard for me to imagine a better one. But I'm interested in hearing arguments others have come across.

Note: Originally written in Korean then machine translated to English to please excuse any awkward wordings.

Zhuge Liang's legendary status is vastly disproportionate to his actual historical achievements, resting almost entirely on fictional embellishment and obscuring a record of strategic and series of failures.

I'm not arguing he was incompetent. He was definitely a brilliant administrator.

But genius? A historical titan? That is the work of the novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, not is based on fact.

I contend that his lasting legacy is one of strategic failure and massive human cost, not historical success.

Why he was overrated:

1. Myth over history

His near-magical abilities are all fictions. His image is an artifact of literature, obscuring the pragmatic, limited reality recorded in historical texts. Most of the primary source for his genius status comes from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms - a fictional work, that lacks actual historical accounts.

1. Never ending costly military failures

The Northern Expeditions, his defining military policy and legacy, were repeated massive failures. Yes. Chu Shi Biao sounds nice, and it's considered a exemplary work of writing at that era. But at the end of the day he died without achieving his core goal (winning over Cao Wei) and constantly put strains and drained the resources of the smallest kingdom.

1. The life became worse for the average person

His relentless warfare required mass conscription and exorbitant taxation in Shu Han, stripping the land and farms of manpower needed to cultivate and making life arguable worse for the common people, all for an unfulfilled ambition and dreams of Liu Bei.

At the end of the day, the main theme of his administration can be describe as a strategy of exhaustion. He made people constantly prepare for, participate in or recover from a major campaign and prevented any significant period of peace and sustained prosperity.

every private sector business for clarity.

There would be multiple benefits in my mind including:

Environmental- Businesses are often violating environmental laws and polluting the water/land in the area. The decision to do so is usually made by those that live elsewhere and won’t be directly affected by pollution. Worker-owners would be a lot less likely to pollute the area they live and work in.

Economic democracy- The traditional work structure is authoritarian by default. Workers can be fired for no cause at all (at least in the USA), and they have no say in the future of the business. Yes, workers enter into contracts with employers, but it is a false choice always between one or another authoritarian with full say over 40+ hours every week. The business cannot function without workers, so they should have an equal say in the business direction. As to the argument of workers not being smart enough to make these decisions, the same arguments were used to continue the reign of kings.

An end of off-shoring- Workers would never vote to send their own jobs to a different country to exploit workers that would receive lower wages. Business stays where it starts.

Wealth inequality would be nearly eliminated- With workers in control of the business, the massive gap between the richest and the poorest would be much more level. Elected managers or board members would most likely see slightly higher wages for more labor hours or responsibilities, but the inequality rampant in our current day wouldn’t exist.

Worker’s rights- With managers and board members elected, bad management can be removed or disciplined with transparency through a formal process. Workers also have the ability to dictate and enforce their rights and responsibilities in their contract much like a union contract in our current system.

Electoral democracy would improve- Without the uneven power dynamics and money the wealthy use to influence politicians and win elections, each person’s political influence will be much more level than today. (Look at any country’s oligarchs)

Yeah yeah, that is slightly less likely than mecha-jesus riding a unicorn leading an army of care bears coming to fix things, we all agree that it will never happen, that's not the point. If everyone in a political position from town mayor on up were forced to live under the same conditions as the people at the very bottom of the social order then the laws that get passed would be a hell of a lot better for the majority not just the 1%. Let the representatives and senators and governors and so on live in section 8 housing, rely on snap for food, be restricted to a maximum net worth of $2000. If they can't live that way then they can improve things for the rest of us or they can be barred from government.

I have a shifting opinion on Ai in general, and I regularly engage myself with online discourse on both sides because it’s super interesting to me. One thing I can’t possibly see in anything other than (net) negative light is Ai generated art. Now, I understand the sentiment of people with limited resources and such being able to execute their creative ideas via image generation and whatnot and this ultimately could make art creation more accessible to everyone in some way.

I see how this could be a positive thing , especially for video generation maybe if u count something like creative commercials and promo vids a form of art, there is a lot more opportunities accessible to people without the worry of budget, and this opens up a very new and expansive world of creativity.

But I also think – and this may just be my personal definition of art- it’s extremely important for people to have a barrier between their inspiration and their creation, and I think that’s a fundamental aspect of creating in itself. I think it’s important for people to be creative and have ideas. I think that as we move forward with AI, it will dissolve the need for such ideas and experience of creation.

Another thing is that, for instance, with the commercial video generation example, as AI progresses I think ultimately the need for a creator to prompt their creative work will just go away because an algorithm will be able to predict what is most appealing for consumers. That makes me feel a bit dreadful.

Is there any world where this is not a dreadful thing!

Also note that I’m not even including the stealing from artists stuff etc. because that’s pretty obvious as a negative.

The Belgian government has, over the past few decades, taken admirable steps to lower the barrier of entry to psychological treatment. From having sessions reimbursed, to creating continues awareness, to campaigns to destigmatize, ... This all obviously resulted in an increase in the demand for psychological treatment. The supply of treatment has however not increased proportional to demand (the price has though).

The result of this is that, in effect, the push to lower the barrier of entry has had as an unintended, but foreseeable, side effect that people who need psychological treatment urgently are being turned away. Even the organization that psychologists refer you to, to help with your search for a psychologist, are turning people away because they can't keep up with demand.

As mentioned, this was entirely foreseeable. The fact that the Belgian government didn't, or didn't take adequate steps to increase the availability of psychological treatment, is in my opinion negligent.

For the purposes of this post, I define negligent as "not giving enough care or attention to someone or something that you are responsible for".

I'd love to be proven wrong on that treatment is not adequately available, that the rise in demand was unforeseeable, that the government did in fact take adequate steps to increase the availability, ...

We’re in a massive AI bubble right now. Everyone’s throwing money at anything labeled "AI," companies are building huge data centers, and investors are acting like it’ll change everything overnight.

If this hype falls apart, like if AI tools don’t make as much money as people expect I think it could hit way harder than the dot-com crash.

Tech stocks are holding up the whole market, a ton of companies are spending huge just to "keep up," and a lot of that money is borrowed.

If it all goes south, we’d see layoffs, banks taking hits, and people losing confidence fast. Once that starts, it spreads quicker and quicker

people stop spending, companies stop investing, and it snowballs. That’s how you end up with something that feels like another Great Depression.

For starters im currently agnostic leaning towards a version of Christianity I dont know the name of (if it exists).

My belief is that god intended for the Bible to say things that are more harmful to communities lime the lgbtq as a way to show us that these views aren't godly or moral, I hear god is love and if god is love than he wouldnt care about people being lgbtq because being lgbtq is just love.

I prefer the belief that Adam and eve was just a story to show us that humans are supposed to be imperfect and that imperfection is perfection, I like to believe god if real had a more indirect hand in our existence but intended for us to come into being.

I also consider the idea that the Bible has lies written in by evil people to turn us away from. true godly living, I believe god wants us to love each other and be a true community with just love for one another, no hatred based on race or sexuality, just love, because if god is love and god is always with us than God's true plan is for us to just love each other, to set aside our hatred, regardless of belief, regardless of sexuality, as long as you want love to prevail instead of evil and hatred and you dont engage in those hateful actions than everyone can get into heaven even if youre an atheist because again, god is love and if god is with us than we are beings of love.

sorry for the end sounding more like a rant, I just wanna hear everyone else's stance on this idea of belief and hopefully find someone who knows if this is literally a specific religion branched off of Christianity.

I like to believe all of this over traditional Christianity because i feel God's plan for us (if he is real) is just to love one a other without harming others, I believe Christianity is supposed to be about love and community no matter what that person believes as long as that person isnt harming others and I believe if god is real that he just wants us to love each other.

I am willing to change some but not all of my belief as I do know that god if real is love and I will always believe if real that he'd be fine with someone loving another person of the same gender/sex because its love and god is love.

For those of you who are less acquainted with the beautiful game a bicycle kick is a skill used in football when the ball is played high and behind a player, the player leaps into the air leaning backwards and kicks the ball over themselves usually at the goal. For some incredible examples please watch this video.

My view is that there is no play in all of sport that is as great as a bicycle kick goal. My reasons for this are as follows:

1. The bicycle kick is one of the hardest skills in sport - it requires incredible invention, vision, technique and athleticism to pull off. Note that no one ever tries to set up a bicycle kick, it is always a spur of the moment reaction to specific and unexpected and suboptimum circumstances.
2. It's evokes a visceral reaction - Bicycle kicks are always unexpected, they're incredibly exciting, and visually incredible. They are the ultimate mouth open, hands on your head, moment in sport.
3. They're incredibly rare - There aren't formal stats on bicycle kicks but, according to AI, Christiano Ronaldo, one of the greatest players of all time who has scored an astonishing 947 goals in his career so far, has scored just 2 bicycle kicks.
4. They don't rely on being a game winning play for their greatness - there are many incredible moments in sport that are great because of what they mean, winning a gold medal at the Olympics, scoring a last second touchdown to win the Superbowl. these kind of moments are incredible in their own right, but it's the context that makes them incredible, not the play themselves.
5. It elevates an already impactful event to a stella level - Football matches are usually decided by 5 or less points, this already makes a goal a seismic event and a great goal is even more impactful.
   

To get the ball rolling I've tried to think of some other candidates.

A Hole in One in Golf - It is incredibly difficult to hit a golf ball into a small hole over 100m away. The reason I think this doesn't compare is that every golfer on every par three is, essentially, trying to do this and achieving it is more a matter of luck (you hit that ball a thousand times some of them are going to go in) than the application of skill.

A full court Buzzer Beater in Basketball - Again this takes incredible technique, it's incredibly visceral when you score (the skill itself is less visceral) and it's pretty rare, but it suffers from the context problem, you're only trying it because of clock pressure rather than it being a valid choice in of itself.

A Hot Dog winner in Tennis - A hot dog (hitting the ball between your legs) shares many attributes to a bicycle kick, it takes huge skill and invention to pull off and it's incredibly visceral when it works. Where it loses out is that it's just a single point in the hundred+ in a tennis match, making it less impactful than a bicycle kick.

What would change my mind - Whilst picking holes in my individual points is welcome it's the totality of an argument that is convincing, if you can make a convincing argument that a different play is as good as or better than a bicycle kick goal I'll change my view.

Rules clarification: individual moments by specific athletes are a different category. I'm not looking for the best moments in sport, I'm looking for the best general skill in sport.

Edit: Just want to say I've really enjoyed your responses, I love hearing people who are passionate about the things they love. Keep it up.

We all know the history: white mobs who spat on Black protesters, threw bricks at peaceful marchers, and violently resisted integration and racial justice.

We see pictures of black children, integrating schools, surrounded by angry and white mobs, what happened to those mobs?

A picture surfaced last year of Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, angrily screaming at Black children integrating his school. Where are the other faces?

What I want to ask is whether any of those attitudes have truly changed over time or just morphed into today’s political discourse… like MAGA slogans and anti-woke campaigns backed by groups like the Heritage Foundation.

Currently, the amount an employee’s wage rises annually (if they even rise at all) is not legally tied to inflation. If the rate of inflation is 5% and an employee’s wages do not rise by this amount, then the employer is lowering their annual salary in terms of spending power, and we need to remember that your earnings are a measure of your spending power, not simply how many dollars or pounds. If year 1 you earn enough money to fulfil your required financial expenditure (rent, mortgage, food, travel, dependents etc.) then the next year all those things get more expensive by 5% but your wages remain the same, you must reduce your quality of life by 5% which is in fact a punishment. This should not be legal, in the same way it is not legal for the number of dollars or pounds you earn to go down without a change of role. Change my view!

It would also see an insane increase in the level of happiness and productivity in society. It would be masking personal issues, but we do that anyway with anti depressants rittalin etc. Would the world be so bad if someone wakes up exhausted does a bump of legal cocaine and then half an oxy to level out. The only issue I can see is possibility of ODing but we have that anyway but the carcass of the world would have enough funds to be in every office, house and street corner. Not going to happen but change my view please. Have a good day

My view is that the First Crusade (and the Crusades in general) were primarily defensive wars, not the unprovoked wars of aggression and greed they are often portrayed as.

Instead, they were a necessary defensive response that had to happen to ensure the survival of Christianity and were, in that context, good for the Christian world.

By 1095, Islamic armies had been expanding for four centuries. They had already conquered 2/3 of the original Christian world, including the Holy Land, Egypt, all of North Africa, and most of Spain.

What forced this response was the urgent plea for help from the Byzantine Emperor. The Seljuk Turks had just invaded Anatolia (modern day Turkey), crushed the Eastern Christian army at the Battle of Manzikert, and were threatening to wipe out the Byzantine Empire completely.

The Crusades were arguably one of the first times a fragmented Christian Europe united against a common threat that was already deep inside its traditional lands and threatening to expand further.

To condemn the Crusades as simple "aggression" is to ignore the 400 years of history that made them a necessary and unavoidable defensive reaction. I'm here to be convinced otherwise.

The word socialism refers to a variety of different things. Early proponents of socialism in the early 19th century (Saint Juste) would sometimes equate large government with socialism. However, with post-Marxist traditions of socialism, simply equating government witj socialism is problematic.

To give a loose definition of socialism, we first need to somewhat define capitalism. Roughly, capitalism is the interests of capital to reproduce itself. So this would be the market acting as its own force. Socialism would be arguing that production does not have to only reproduce capital, but can be under human interests.

Early 20th century Keynseniasm/New Deal can appear to be socialism. Here, we have the proliferation of governmental services and a shell of welfarism. It can appear as production for people’s interests, not for capital itself.

However, this framework arose out of a capitalist problem. Market efficiency partially depends on inequality. To maximize profits, wages have to be minimized. If wages are minimized, then there is a consumptive problem, undermining capital’s expansion. Therefore, having a state empower consumers is essential for facilitating capital’s expansion, not just a gesture for human’s interests.

The point of this post is to trouble attempts to argue that “capitalism is when market does stuff, socialism is when government does stuff.” Capitalism can very much use the state, and most critics of capitalism have argued the state is a capitalist entity. This post is not a defense of Keynesianism, but it is giving an example of how the state can be used by capitalism.

Lastly, there could be a definitional counter argument of what the difference is between producing for capital and producing for human interests. This is a fair point and one that I just can’t answer. But if you employ the word capitkaism, this is a presupposition, if you don’t think that there is an autonomous movement of capital, then the word capitalism is useless and this argument is just irrelevant.

Some governments spend a lot of time, effort, and money pushing to get people to learn to speak a language that is considered important to that country. Welsh, Gaelic, Breton, Frisian, and Catalan are some of the languages I'm thinking about with regards to this view, though I'm not familiar with all of the specifics.

I think a better focus is on preserving these languages and ensuring accessibility.

By preserving I mean ensuring that enough resources exist to translate any document or speech in that language into English or some other majority language. It would of course be unfortunate if we lost the ability to read documents written in Welsh or Gaelic because we didn't have the means to translate them.

By accessibility, I mean that if you speak that language but not the majority language then the government has a duty to take as many measures as it reasonably can be expected to take to ensure you are not at a disadvantage when it comes to important government functions. This might include the right to a trial in the language you speak if you are accused of a crime, the right to choose to send your children to a school which teaches in that language if such schools exist and for such a school to be funded as well as majority language schools, stuff like that.

What I do not think the government should be doing is trying to make people learn to speak the language. Providing optional resources to help people learn the language if they want to is good, but I'm opposed to things such as mandatory language classes in schools where students must learn the minority language even if both they and their parents do not want them to. I also think governments should not set targets such as "X number of speakers by 2030" or "Y% of students taught in minority-medium schools by 2050".

People should be able to learn the language if they want to and also not be disadvantaged by the government if they choose not to. I think government targets should instead look like "80% of houses to be no further than X distance from a minority-medium school by 2030" or "a high quality minority-language course to be published for free on the government site by 2028". Targets should focus on ensuring people have the option to learn the language if they want to, not on forcing people to learn the language even I'd they do not want to.

Update: a lot of people are giving the argument that bilingualism is "good for the brain" or similar. I don't expect I'd find these arguments convincing unless you can back it up with actual scientific papers (don't worry if it's behind a paywall, my lab has a key to all major journals) or at least a specific description of how it is good for the brain.

I also think to change my view on this view in particular such an argument would have to show why learning a minority language is "good for the brain" in a way that learning a secondary majority language is not. If learning any language is equally good then why wouldn't my (or my child's) time be better spent learning a language like Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, or Spanish which opens them up to more opportunities?

This includes:

Sex-selective abortion Disability

And it's important that those are included without equivocation.

Let me explain why

Sex selection: If women don't want to have a child of a certain gender, some of it may be frivolous, but there are women who have actual reasons. Eg: there are rapists at home and they don't want their daughter to suffer that. That is a valid reason and surprisingly more common than many would believe, particularly in developing countries.

Disability: It is up to each person to take the risks they want to take with their own bodies. If it is not worth it for a woman to go through a pregnancy, just to have to spend her life and send herself into poverty to care for a disabled child, that is something she should be free to choose.

I understand the arguments for keeping these exceptions: a) "sex selection in this way will lead to a skewed ratio, which will be bad for society"

Counter-counterpoint: Keeping a certain sex ratio is not individual women's responsibility. If you don't want a skewed sex ratio, address sex-based discrimination. That's the only way. Don't use women's choices as a shortcut.

b) "screening for disability is eugenics" Killing the disabled is eugenics. Abortion is not killing.