I regret being circumcised.

I'm a little late to the party (post inspired by that 2020 version) but I'm here to add more context and statements regarding to the "uncut vs. cut" argument.

Basics:

1. Hygiene

I swear to God if I get another "Cut is cleaner—" argument, like my predecessor... Do you take a shower? Do you wash your dick? If you love your penis and care about it then you have the time to pick out the white growing specks on the folds and make sure it's clean for your future/current partner. If you do that most of the issues with smegma or STDs are drastically lowered nearly 0%.

(You can do your own research of cleanliness)

For another: "The skin gets tight/other issues" I have another question, when you were still uncut did you have these problems? No, you didnt. It's just the problems with life being "life."

Mostly it's the issues of:

— Diabetes/Health complications

— Being overweight/Not eating "clean" foods.

— Not being active and mostly sedentary.

That later force you to get circumcised. Even as simple as your pee being bad can pose health risks to your foreskin.

1. Aesthetic

The argument of "Being cut makes your dick look bigger/it looks cleaner" is so wrong simply because of one feature.

Pulling the "hood" down.

Being circumcised is indeed a passive effect of making your dick bigger but that's the thing "It makes it look bigger."

If your dick is four inches? Then it'll stay four inches whether you are cut or not, the truth will be with you. (If you have a spouse then your she will know too)

—————

The norm of the circumcised penis being more "attractive" is bullshit because of melanin.

Most penises (including mine) is toned darker and as a brown guy in southeast Asia, the underside of my penis is color of my balls.

I don't like that at all simply because you were naturally born with a clean, pink, sleek and sensitive look that is arguably more consistent and attractive than a darkened melanin BUT circumcised cock. It's mostly genetics (length/ethnicity/color) that level the "good-looking-cock" playing field and even white folk have darker penises so we're not safe.

Personally if I was a girl... Id choose the ladder and suck the pink colored tip rather than what society deems "clean." (No homo, just being honest)

1. Sexual performance

"Well, I last longer because of insensitivity—" and yeah... You're kinda right on that.

But there's trade off, you're missing off:

— Penile heightened sensitivity

— Sexual pleasure

— Easily glideable motion

— Dual Partner Lubrication

— Taboo Factor/Skin Forepay

Just because you last 15 minutes, doesn't mean those 15 minutes were good.

The foreskin protects the sensitive glans which keeps the nerve-endings good and sensitive, so once intercourse happens you will feel amazing, more than the one who was cut. (Oral/Penetration)

----

A lot of cut guys complain the ridge on their penis being uncomfortable when they're going full bottoming out/deep strokes in sex or masturbation, the reason that happens is the skin on the penis is pulled back and folded it creates a natural glide on you during masturbation but not only do you feel it...

But your girlfriend/wife does too.

---

When you're penetrating, the skin is unfolded and naturally glides on the clitoris and surrounding vaginal area and that same folded skin carries the precum/fluid of you and your partner so artificial lubrication isn't needed.

Which leads your spouse to "cum faster" too.

---

A lot of women who grew to prefer circumcised penises, once they have intimacy or even marry an uncut guy, tend to like that extra skin a bit too much.

Ofc not all women (I hope your spouse does this to you if you're uncut), but during oral sex as foreplay they often bite gently/tug/stretch the foreskin and since the foreskin is basically painless, it's purely kinky.

And provides an extra stimulus of taboo-fuel in the bedroom for you and the woman.

---

Lasting longer?

It's funny because all men can do kegals and improve their stamina whether you are cut or not.

For uncut men, it's just harder since sensations are 10x that of the cut guy.

But the ceiling is much higher for the uncut guy which gives the effect of the 'late bloomer" once more after puberty.

(Religious reasons must be addressed)

If you're religious (Muslim, Christian, Jew) and had your skin removed... I'm sorry.

I'm a victim of this, understand it wasnt in your control at all, man.

My father and brother advised me and encouraged me to get circumcised as a teenager and I was thrilled, I really wanted to be circumcised because I had thought it was an upgrade and "better than being cut" now I see what I lost and researched what it took to maintain an uncut cock and how RIDICULOUSLY EASY It is to clean your uncut penis.

Now as a regrettably-circumised guy, I'm mad. I'm angry that is happened, I'm angry I was misinformed, and lied to.

Potential risks.

- STDs/Uncleanliness

- Yada yada

Not everything good has only good sides.

All the arguments the circumcised guys are going to say are true.

They are right.

Your banjo string could snap.

Your skin could potentially harden even if follow my advice.

You probably have medical issues and would need to be circumcised.

Those are exceptions... But if you are just a lazy cunt and don't care enough to take care of yourself.

Then yeah ofc, you'll have complications like:

- Skin being dirty and hardened.

- Sperm cramps and uthera hurting.

- Being too overweight to unfold it.

- Having dirt and gunk built up.

Etc.

Not saying circumcision is a "lazy man's" way out but there are real benefits to being cut... And there are also real benefits to being uncut.

Remember this...

You pay to eat sweets.

So you pay someone to give you something that would ruin your body because it feels nice in your mouth?

Look at that at a pragmatic view.

Overall verdict?

Lift weights, eat right, stay active, be around family, love your spouse, shave your balls with a nice stubble, and do it for the long run and stay consistent.

This post isn't really about "uncut or cut" it's really about spreading awareness that men and society just need to be healthy and the truth that everything isn't black-and-white as we want it to be.

Remember that smegma doesn't appear because of one time thing.

It's a long process of neglect and bodily-ignorance. It's a sign.

Take care of your life.

I'd love to hear some counter-arguments or personal stories.

God bless. ❤️

No democrat thinks full socialism or full communism is a real threat to the party let alone America. The democrat socialists in the party are wildly popular because they’re fighting to make life affordable for the working class. Bernie, AOC and Mamdani are the most popular democrats.

However no democrat likes traitors working for the enemy.

We were told Trump is a threat to democracy. We see the unchecked corruption. We see our rights being stripped away from a conservative Supreme Court. We see Trump’s nominees be more loyal to Trump than the constitution.

And then we see democrats voting to help further their agenda. Without any consequences.

The establishment is more concerned with fighting against a streamer than calling out the daily recalls, mystery meat flooding our supermarkets or the prices being raised everywhere.

The party’s base, who is needed to turn out already hated the democratic leadership and feel like the party isn’t listening to what the base wants. Democrats openly voting for MAGA bills in a seemingly coordinated way makes people disillusioned with voting because the party isn’t listening to them.

And lastly the party has been begging for fighters for a long time. They want the politicians they elect to fight and resist. Again voting for MAGA bills looks like they’re bending the knee and accepting defeat.

TL:DR: nobody believes that full socialism or communism is a real threat. Democratic socialists are the most popular politicians in the Democratic Party. And voting with the enemy while they’re being full on corrupt, taking away rights and making life harder for the working class is depressing the base by showing us that the party isn’t listening to us.

A wealthy woman with access to daycare and a nanny asked her husband to run a few errands so she could strangle her three children and attempt suicide.

It wasn’t an impulsive mental break. She intentionally created the opportunity by getting her husband to leave. Despite never reporting voices before, she claimed that a “male voice” told her to do it that one time.

What I find deeply disturbing is the number of women jumping to her defense, repeatedly claiming she isn’t responsible for her actions, expressing extreme sympathy because of PPD, or rationalizing that poor mental health absolves someone of guilt. Women seem eager to accept the psychosis claim despite the disputed evidence.

Because what? Being a woman is hard? Being a mother is hard? Antidepressants are hard? So you can murder your children and not be guilty because life is hard, even as a wealthy woman with a nanny?

The sympathy is disturbing.

I understand depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, and intrusive thoughts, but none of that alone absolves someone of planned murder. It would need to be a mental break outside her control. Where is the evidence of that?

I’d like to believe most women aren’t so irrationally sympathetic toward her, but this case is making me doubt that. They seem to care more about Lindsay than the children she killed.

Edit: I feel like I should clarify PPD is real and should be taken more seriously. Women's health needs more attention and resources. That being said, I do not empathize with anyone condoning or using PPD, one-off psychosis, hiding symptoms of psychosis, etc to reduce or eliminate culpability for murder.

I've been reading in to the origins of the Green Lanterns and Volthooms storyline feels so forced. He needs to find a way to save his planet so him and his mother make a Travel Lantern using the emotional energy spectrum. He travels to various universes and eventually gets to Earth 0 where he meets the Maltusians. He teaches them about the emotional energy spectrum and they decide to use this knowledge to make a battery that would suck all their emotions out. They plan to do this for themselves with no regard to Volthooms issues, it was an answer to a problem the Maltusians deemed their emotions caused. When the Great Heart was turned on, it manifested a ring which Volthoom claimed for himself and offered to help the Maltusians acting as a Guardian in return for them helping him perfect this ring. When the ring wasn't working as well as expected, the Maltusians decided to implant the Great Heart in to Volthoom to give him direct access to the emotional energy spectrum which caused him to go crazy and the Guardians created the first 7 Green Lantern rings as a way to stop him.

Fine, all well and good, but I have questions.

If the Maltusians are super geniuses, how did they not know about the emotional energy spectrum? This spectrum exists across all universes.

The Great Heart wasn't initially built to be something that was going to get implanted in Volthoom. Why did they make it small enough to do that? Its shape and size were irrelevant it could have just been a big box and it would have served the same purpose.

The Maltusians also had no idea whether or not this thing needed to continue to operate in order to keep them emotionless. Knowing full well Volthooms intent was to go back to his universe to save his planet, why would they implant this device that they believe they need to keep them emotionless in to Volthoom with no idea whether or not it would even continue to work once he left?

The Great Heart is a battery, it was designed to suck the emotions from the Maltusians. Where did it get this ability to give Volthoom immortality or replace the operations of his organs? How did he not just fucking die?

Why a ring? Turning the great heart on just manifests a ring? I understand this is meant to be the origins of the Green Lanterns so I guess it just has to be a ring but it feels so forced. This machine was meant to just suck all the emotions out of the Maltusians, where did this ring come from?

I'm not even going to get in to the Manhunters and the genius decision to use the DNA of a madman to make robots.

Sure, on paper it's a cool origin story but even a cursory consideration of the timeline of events makes the whole thing fall apart.

It's no secret that a lot of people who lose weight through traditional/non-pharmacological methods struggle to maintain their results long term. Studies suggest that anywhere from only 10 to 33% of individuals achieve successful long term weight loss results over a period of 1-8 years. Many individuals struggle with either elevated levels of physiological hunger or "food noise" (defined as constant, intrusive and repetitive thoughts about food that can occur even when an individual is not physically hungry, by the BBC), and the overall effort needed not just to ignore physiological hunger or food noise but also meticulously craft their diets towards the maintenance of a healthy weight leading to weight rebound in the long term.

GLP-1 agonists (e.g. semaglutide, tirzepatide) currently approved for weight loss/management that have been clinically proven to suppress appetite and blunt the roar of food noise in overweight/obese users, potentially fill the gap that brute force & sheer willpower fail to fill for a multitude of people who will/have embark on weight loss journeys via traditional methods.

The problem is, we don't have much research investigating the effects of these medicines in people with a history of obesity/overweight who have achieved a healthy weight via traditonal methods, and specifically towards the goal of long term maintenance of healthy weight. Anecdotally, 4 years ago I lost 72 lbs taking me from a BMI of 35 to a healthy BMI 22, and to be quite frank, every day since has been a struggle. There's not a single day that my hunger cues and food noise aren't whispering in my ear inviting me back to the "dark side"🤣I have to both fight these urges, and meticulously & painstakingly tailor my diet towards maintaining my weight otherwise I will effortlessly eat my way back to my highest weight. Meanwhile, other individuals I know who were able to access glp-1 agonist drugs to facilitate their weight loss have also been maintaining their weight loss with relative ease on these medicines. I would love to have the assistance of these drugs even with all the unsavoury side effects, even if they have to be taken indefinitely to avoid weight rebound if it meant potentially never having to be obese again and not having to pretty much dedicate my life to actively fighting it off.

But I can't safely or legally obtain access to these drugs because no doctor will prescribe me one even off label due to my weight status, and nobody will prescribe me because of the lack research, so I am stuck fighting my food noise and hunger cues (and they will probably eventually win lol). There are millions of people like me, and we could likely benefit from research into the effects of these medicines on people like us

Edit: What won't CMV: rebuttals/insistence that people who struggle to maintain their weight loss just need to get more "willpower" or "discipline" or anything of the sort.

I believe jurors should be screened on their reflexivity ability, which is basically understanding how their own social locations and subjectivity inform their perspectives and hidden biases and assumptions.

Most people who have done jury duty will attest to how abysmal it is, and how many jurors will outright state they think someone is guilty based on arbitrary factors such as how they look, their gender, or race.

A friend of mine was a jury member on a rape case, where there was clear evidence and admission by the defendant over text and recorded phone calls, along with laboratory results. At least 5 of the jurors were convinced that she made it up to get revenge because “she was probably upset he didn’t want to date her”, despite there being no evidence, testimony or argument in court that alluded to that. When my friend pressed the jurors about it, one juror said “idk, just look at her.”

I’m not advocating for an IQ test, as this is more about testing someone’s basic emotional intelligence and ability to identify what informs their perspective. Someone can have a high IQ but still have strong biases and assumptions, so I don’t think it’s highly relevant to jury duty.

Potential counterarguments:

-The argument that jurors shouldn’t be screened on such a test because it should be “reflective of the general population” seems nice in theory, but problematic in practice. Jurors are also meant to declare if they would struggle to be “fair and impartial” but relying on self-admission assumes the juror has enough self-awareness to identify this shortcoming. There are already questionnaires that screen for the jurors open-mindedness and fairness anyway, so I don’t believe this would be too exclusionary or impede the process of random selection/sample profoundly.

-Doing so wouldn’t cost the courts more as the example screening is a questionnaire (something that jurors must do anyway), and the quality screening is simple (see excluding results below). Furthermore, when you consider the costs of re-trials because of a hung jury, and how often you are left with one or two jurors that are fixed on their judgement without adequate reasoning, basic reflexivity screening and training could reduce this occurrence.

An example of this screening could be: 2-3 case scenarios are presented to the juror, and with each one they are only given half the information at the beginning, followed by some short answer questions on their judgement, and then a set of self-reflective questions asking them to identify what aspects of their social locations and life experiences may have informed/influenced this result.

Then they are given new information/evidence that is likely to change their opinion (at least somewhat for anyone that is not extremely rigid in their opinions) and given short answer questions to see how their judgement changed, whilst again reflecting on how their subjective experience may have informed this.

All of this would be explained in simple language with examples given on what factors may influence their perspective, eg: race, income, gender, religious background, cultural background, occupation, traumatic experiences, what media they consume.

Results that could exclude someone from jury duty could be: the juror showed no ability to identify any of their own personal influences on their judgement; the juror showed no capacity to have their opinion changed despite new, crucial evidence; the juror could/would not explain how this personal factor may have influenced their judgement.

So it is not about finding someone who has “no personal bias” as that is impossible, and the quality assessment is merely requiring them to identify at least one factor that may influence them, whilst seeing if they can change their opinion with new evidence. So it’s rather easy to screen/quality control. Any group of the population can theoretically do this, and it’s merely putting the selection criteria in practice.

Rather than finding people who are adamant they have no bias, it is about finding people who are more likely and open to identifying it, and be open to changing their perspective through new evidence and critical self-reflection.

Wether you’re someone on the left who sees the biggest apocalypse-level threat as climate change, or a republican who sees the biggest apocalypse-level threat as Iran someday beginning to build WMDs, we need to see threats as something we can avoid, or else we’ll just give up.

I think of it like this: in movies, when there’s hope left everyone runs around trying to save the day. When there’s no hope left, the family just hugs eachother and says goodbye. So we need to keep the hope up

If the left thinks they can’t stop air/water/food pollution & contamination, then they’ll just give up. Then, we’ll all have stuff like the trump-toilet-troubles from deregulating companies & their greed contaminating everything, like the lettuce from Taylor Farms & other farms that had doodoo on their lettuce because of way less USDA inspectors.

If the right thinks we can’t stop Iran from building imaginary WMDs like they were never even building, then they’ll just give up. They well all have to deal with waaaaaaaaaaaaay less national debt, because they’ll no longer be wasting trillions of precision-guided missiles to make the rubble bounce in the ruins of Iran.

If the right gives up hope, they’ll never achieve their goal of ruling over useless piles of smoldering ashes. If the left gives up hope, they’ll never make the world a much better place for everyone.

In my view, we have a toxic tendency to think there’s nothing we can do to save the world. But we can make the world change, little by little, if we all work together. Morale is important. We just need to keep up hope that we can overcome apocalypse-level threats together.

I want people to change my view because, if I’m wrong, then I’m wasting my time/energy by trying so hard to make the world better.

The topic of circumcision has been on my mind a lot recently. I was circumcised as an adult at a specialized clinic using a Mogen clamp and recently returned for a frenulectomy. I am happy with my results, and enjoy being circumcised. I also respect the work of the doctor I saw, whose practices for infants and adults alike focuses on aggressive pain management. I've experienced first hand that the procedure is comfortable and painless under local anesthetic. My personal belief is that the decision should be deferred until adult consent can be provided, but being in the clinic environment has me exploring where I stand wholistically on the issue.

I spent some time hashing out my opinion with Gemini, and learned lots about the history, bioethics and mechanics of the procedure. Ultimately, I've landed at the following position, which seems to place me between two hostile extremes:

My Core Stance

I much prefer being circumcised, but I wouldn't force this preference on my own kid(s), due to the importance of bodily autonomy. As such, I do not believe it should be a routine practice for infants. If a parent does choose to have it done, I believe it is an ethical violation to perform it without an injectable local nerve block. I'm horrified that certain medical practices and religious ceremonies still do not use any anesthesia. The acute nervous system shock and pain inflected by the crushing and cutting is unacceptable in the 21st century.

My Frustration with the "Intactivist" Community

While I agree with the goal of preserving the bodily integrity of children, I find the mainstream "intactivist" movement alienating, counterproductive and toxic. I love being circumcised, and I've lived on both sides of the fence. I think it looks better, it's resolved some mild phimosis for me, it simplifies hygiene (especially if regular showers aren't available) and it's given me more confidence. I loathe the rhetoric that I am "mutilated" or "damaged". Projecting this victimhood onto the millions of men who are functioning fine shuts down dialogue.

It also demonizes parents who are well meaning and seek out clinic with high standards of pain management, framing them (and the doctors) as monsters. It trades pragmatic harm reduction for hyperbolic outrage.

By treating the issue in such a divisive way, activists cannot effectively push for achievable harm reduction standards like legally mandating surgical-grade nerve blocks across all clinic and religious settings.

What Would Change My View

Here's where I'm looking to challenge my perspective:

For defenders of routine circumcision: Can you demonstrate that the health benefits are clinically significant enough in development nations to outweigh the violation of bodily autonomy? Also, why not delay the choice until adulthood?

For traditional religious defenders: How do you ethically justify withholding injectable local anesthesia during an invasive procedure on an infant?

To intractivists: How do you justify the use of such aggressive language (e.g. mutilation) when so many men are perfectly content with the procedure?

Looking forward to discussing this further. I feel frustrated being positioned between two extremes.

Edit: I'm going to bed now. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. Lots to think about, but overall I'm feeling pretty strong about my view still.

I think we've reached a point where the word discrimination is sometimes treated as inherently immoral, when in reality, making distinctions between people is an unavoidable and often useful part of human decision-making.

We discriminate constantly: we choose friends based on personality, employers choose candidates based on qualifications, people choose partners based on attractiveness and compatibility. Not every distinction between people is equivalent to racism, sexism, or bigotry.

In fact, I would go further: I think racism itself can sometimes be positive.

Not because treating someone badly because of their race is good, but because racial categorization and in-group preference may have historically provided humans with useful survival advantages. For most of human history, people lived in relatively small communities where unfamiliar groups could genuinely represent competition, violence, or other threats. Being instinctively more cautious around outsiders could therefore have been adaptive.

And even today, I don't think every racial generalization is automatically malicious. If a demographic pattern is statistically real and relevant to a particular situation, acknowledging it isn't necessarily hatred. A generalization can be wrong when applied to an individual while still containing some useful information at the population level.

For example, assuming that every member of a racial group behaves a certain way is obviously irrational. But concluding that no meaningful differences can ever exist between populations because acknowledging them is "racist" seems equally irrational.

Some forms of discrimination are obviously worth eliminating because they are arbitrary, cruel, or destructive. But discrimination can also mean simply recognizing differences and making distinctions. Sometimes that's necessary, sometimes it's useful, and sometimes it may even produce better outcomes.

So my controversial position is that racism isn't necessarily negative in every conceivable context. Certain forms of racial preference, suspicion, or categorization may have had (and in extremely specific circumstances could still have) practical value. What matters is whether the distinction is accurate, relevant, proportionate, and justified, rather than whether it happens to involve race.

CMV: Why should race discrimination (or other controversial kinds of discrimination) be considered inherently immoral rather than judged on the same basis as other forms of discrimination?

This has nothing to do with parenting style or puritanicalism. The internet is a highly dangerous place for a developing mind and allowing a child free reign without a proper understanding of the world can easily lead to serious harm

Grooming, do i really need to elaborate. UIA is inherently allowing children to interact with and communicate with pedophiles, scammers and any other creeps. A young girl with an instagram will almost certainly receive a variety of unflattering dick pics

Porn. Again im not puritanical and i dont think children need to be shielded from all knowledge of sexuality or nudity. Infact im of the belief that most parents leave children too in the dark and that having and early healthy understanding of some of these things can be good for them. What isnt healthy is 99% of internet porn which warps views on what is normal or expected in real life. (When i was a kid I personally wanted to kill myself over what i was seeing and watching, though i acknowledge that is an extreme example)

Violence. Children are exposed to plenty of violence in the media they consume, and i do not believe this is inherently harmful especially when a parent can make a decision on if it is too much. As always with the internet there is not an enforcer on what is too much. Watching too scary of a movie could be slightly trauma for a developing mind, exposure genuine gore and death is certainly traumatic for many kids.

Cyber bullying. The internet can be a great place to make community and meet people. It also has every asshole willing to say pretty much any mean nasty shit they can under the covers of anonymity

Ai psychosis. As we hopefully all know AI is inherently untrustworthy and will make up whatever shit it wants while presenting it as objective fact, even making its own sources and contradicting itself. Children are generally idiots and do not have the tools to determine whether what they are being told is an accurate view of reality. I predict in 10 years time many teenagers will discover that they learned something as a child from ai and never thought to question it for years

Parents have a responsibility to their children to protect them, a child with an ipad is like a chimp with a machine gun, it doesn’t understand what it’s holding and may just look down the barrel and pull the trigger. I think the most dangerous thing about the internet for a kid is that it can happen entirely without anyone in their real life being aware. As i said i wanted to kill myself over the porn i was watching, well i also shoved those feelings and that shame deep down as i thought everyone else would view me the same way. I silently let my brain torture itself for years over this while no one had any clue. there are ways children can be given internet access without it being so harmful and abusive, every limit or child safety lock is a barrier from what i have mentioned above but there is always a way to circumvent those restrictions that can never be accounted for

I have one main point for this. I expect good-faith arguments and civilized discussion. Here goes.

With Zohran Mamdani winning the mayoral election for NY, socialism has finally achieved a win in US politics. However, the biggest issue I'm noticing right now is that come a future election, what stops the opposition (be it MAGA Republicans, or Milquetoast Democrats) from reversing political decisions made by Zohran Mamdani? If there's a legal technicality that doesn't allow it, let me know. The biggest flaw in democracy is the pendulum effect, I see it in my own country when elections come around. A government makes changes that upset one of the other major parties and those parties form coalitions to reverse those changes as quickly as possible, then the next election comes around and the next government tries to reverse those changes. It's a constant push and pull between parties that ultimately ends with almost nothing being achieved in either direction.

Now, I have heard of the "Ratchet Effect." Where the government makes the changes so popular that the opposition doesn't WANT to reverse them. However, in our current political climate, reactionary movements are hell-bent on reversing policies made by people left-of-center or even left-of-far-right.

How have democratic socialists planned to counteract these movements and the pendulum effect?

Again, please be civilized and respectful with each other. I am not looking for a fight, I just want to see the opinions of other people and interact with them in good-faith discussion.

For those who are not aware, poisoning AI is when you purposely feed ai false information so that it can give that false information later and become less accurate. To me, that sounds like the worse idea of all time. The people who poison ai partially do it because they believe that if AI starts giving out wrong information, people will stop using it. I completely disagree with this. A lot of people who use ai for searching things up will not fact check their information and then will spread misinformation over the internet. Even if people do realise that the AI said something wrong, they will most likely think it was a fluke and continue to use it. To me, "poisoning" ai does nothing to stop ai and just spreads misinformation. It's pointless at best and actively harmful at worst.

Not only did he get the entire country of Kazakhstan that is more like Eastern Europe lite wrong but as a Jewish person he should have known better not to pick on countries with Muslims and non white people that are not his own culture. It just feels like hate against minorities and Muslims and he gets a pass for it because he’s Jewish

The man was a racist in Borat. And it’s crazy he never faced any consequences for this Islamophobia and ridiculous stereotypes of a a foreign culture that wasn’t his own. I know it was the 2000s but not even after that. That’s wrong

The aggressive rise of AI coupled with record breaking temperatures around the world and extreme weather makes me believe that I (32, F) shouldn't bring a child to live in the future of this planet.

All I can see is rising temperatures, mass climate migration, the wet bulb effect, ecological collapse, food insecurity, fresh water scarcity, natural disasters, air pollution, water pollution, forever chemicals, plastic exposure, more pandemics, antibiotic resistance, the suffering of animals, soil erosion etc.

Then a future filled with AI; where no one thinks for themselves, skills are lost, jobs are taken, cyber warfare increases, there's a loss of human connection, etc.

Yes, humans have always been faced with hardship and disasters, but we've never had access to so much information and evidence about what the future will look like (coupled with safe, accessible contraception).

Humanity seems not interested in coming together and making the necessary sacrifices to tackle this issue.

Interested in alternative thoughts.

Edit: What's with all the personal attacks? I'm open to a fair discussion but I seem to have unintentionally ruffled some feathers.

Edit 2: To clarify, after being on the fence for a long time, a few years ago I decided I wanted to have a child. We have the resources and support. This post is not because I secretly don't want children.

I want to challenge the common argument used by racists or white supremacists who claim they are "just noticing patterns" or citing crime statistics to justify bias against specific racial groups.

If we accept the logic that a high statistical concentration of a crime within a demographic defines the entire demographic, it falls apart when applied elsewhere. For example:

• Roughly 99% of rapes are committed by men.
• Over 95% of pedophiles are men.

By the exact same "pattern recognition" logic, one would have to conclude that all men are inherently dangerous, rapists, or pedophiles. We universally recognize that this is absurd and unfair because an individual is not their demographic. Yet, this exact same flawed logic is used to claim that people with more melanin (a simple biological adaptation to UV rays) are inherently inferior or criminal.

It seems to me that clinging to racial supremacy is a coping mechanism for people who feel they have no personal achievements, so they rely on the fact they were born in a more developed area to feel superior.

I am open to changing my view if someone can logically explain how "noticing patterns" is a valid argument for white supremacy, but magically ceases to apply when the exact same statistical logic is applied to gender.

As per the title, I believe that the Palestinian people have a moral right to violent resistance against Israel.

I don't want to go too far into the reasons, as I believe that runs the risk of derailing the conversation to things that have been hashed out 1000s of times before.

But to summarize why I'm starting from this view, I believe that:

- The Palestinian people are in one way or another in an existential fight for survival.

- Israel continues to encroach into territory held by Palestinian people

- Israel has killed a lot of innocent people

- Palestinian people believe they have a rightful claim to some or all of the territory.

To be extra clear, I don't want to discuss whether the same applies in the other direction.

I also don't want to discuss who, if anyone, has a rightful claim to the land. Those are very interesting questions, but for the purpose of my dilemma the only thing that matters is that Palestinians genuinely believe they have a moral right to resistance and lots of people, myself included, agreed with them.

The dilemma comes from that by believing that, there is even more reason to believe that other groups have the same moral right. I'm thinking especially of the Australian Aboriginal peoples, it also applies to the Native American peoples and tons of others. There is absolutely no debate that these lands were stolen via colonialism.

It seems fucked up to advocate for the right to violent resistance. It's basically advocating for terrorism and disunity in my own country which will cause nothing but pain and more suffering for everyone involved. Yet as a moral principle, I can't support one without the other.

What if anything makes one different from another?

All human decisions stem from the brain. The final result is a function of external factors and internal wiring, both of which are outside the person's control (if that even means anything).

The only opposing worldview I can think of is that in which souls are fully functional even without bodies. There is a pure decision the soul makes which is then corrupted by the material body. In addition, punishment must be purely retributive since this soul cannot be influenced by material fears. If it can, the situation is equivalent to a purely material consciousness (for this specific discussion).

Given current evidence, that can be considered plainly incorrect. Even if one insists a soul exists capable of making decisions, one cannot deny that the physical body has the lion's share of influence, given the noticeable effects of drugs on people's decision-making and even how growing up makes people more sensible.

Instead, punishments are proactive, and work to the end of setting standards. They're a deterrent for others. Hence, the only mental excuse from punishment should be when foreknowledge of the law (and the punishment it entails) has no influence on whether the crime is committed. Consider a case in which someone has a complete and utter mental breakdown and kills someone on purely primal instincts or due to indistinguishable hallucinations. No amount of punishing the person can curb the situation in subsequent cases.

If there's any amount whatsoever of coherent thought and calculation, it's a crime. Similarly, the higher the level of premeditation, the more severe it should be.

Edit: Clarified that punishments are for deterring.

[For the purposes of this post, I'm mainly referring to platforms like Klarna that offer regularly spaced interest-free installments over a certain interval, like Klarna's Pay in 4. But historically BNPL companies like Affirm and Klarna have offered even longer 6-12 month 0% APR deals for select merchants and products like mattresses, electronics, apparel, and fitness equipment.

The vast majority of these BNPL providers perform 'soft credit checks' that do not damage credit score, and they have historically been incredibly generous to low-credit individuals; in fact, CFPB data reveals that BNPL lenders have approved 78% of loan applications from subprime or deep subprime consumers, meaning that struggling individuals are not locked out.]

Now, I'm sure we're all familiar with the Boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness, which essentially states that a lack of access to upfront liquidity forces poorer individuals to make subpar purchases that require frequent replacements, ultimately draining more money in the long term than a higher-quality product would have.

This is where BNPL comes in: providers like Klarna let individuals split payments into installments, delaying the full payment and requiring only a fraction of the expense upfront. The implications are staggering: full purchases of high-quality goods can now be delayed until the averted replacement expenses pay for them.

Consider a simplified example: a consumer chooses between a cheap, low-quality $100 pair of boots that last 6 months and a high-end $200 pair that last several years. Ordinarily, that individual might have only $100 on hand, forcing them to buy the inferior option. But with BNPL, they might be able to pay in 4 $50 installments over the course of a year. The first installment is not only within their means but even cheaper than the $100 option, allowing them to save or reallocate. By the time the consumer reaches the last two installments, they are paying $100 in an alternative world for a new pair of boots to replace the shoddy original pair, which is now in tatters. But in the BNPL world, they can pay for the last two installments with the share of their paycheck that would have otherwise been sacrificed for a replacement. BNPL has just extended their liquidity far enough that they can pay for quality now, circumventing later costs.

Another underappreciated perk of interest-free BNPL programs is that, from an economic perspective, they are a figurative and literal free lunch for the consumer. Time value of money dictates that money now matters more than money later (for a whole host of reasons that are readily available online). The lack of interest means that this added economic value is essentially given for free. Instead of paying for a $5000 mattress now, you can pay a mere $1250 and pop the remaining $3750 in the market or a risk-free asset, drawing out only what you need to pay each installment. By the end of the interval, you will definitionally have more money than if you had paid the full cost upfront. For all these reasons, I'd require a lot to be convinced that BNPL programs are not a win-win proposition.

tl;dr BNPL providers let struggling individuals play around with and stretch their incomes for no added accounting cost, giving them the berth to avoid the cyclic traps of low upfront liquidity and to build a foundation of quality, lasting goods.

This is kind of inspired by the whole GTA VI controversy where they're selling an ultimate edition of the game for $100 and the base price is $80. The game took the company like a decade to create. It's expected to give you hundreds of hours of entertainment while telling a (hopefully) wonderful story and doing it in an artistic way. Folks will easily spend $10-15 on a movie ticket today for 3 hrs max of entertainment. I feel like it makes sense to pay several times that for several times the amount of entertainment you get out of it.

Some might argue it sets a bad precedent for companies that make games that aren't worth that price to then set unfair prices. But I also think you need to be a responsible consumer there and know that you shouldn't spend more than $60 on, for example, a Ubisoft game until you know it is worth it.

It sucks more people can't afford a pricier game like this. Don't get me wrong there. Wages haven't kept up with consumer inflation anywhere else in the (United States) economy. But I think these AAA titles are more or less worth the increase in price, especially given the rising costs of game development, too.

EDIT: Also adding on this comment from Mestoph because they raise a great point:

"You also miss a major point in argument for increased prices. They haven't risen noticeably in like 30 years. Which means that in order to be profitable they have to put out a shittier product or sell an astronomical number of copies."

I want to start this post by emphasizing that I actually want my view changed here. This is NOT just another astrology bashing post. If your answer is "it's a belief system, you either believe in it or not" this is not what I am looking for.

I am a very rational thinker. A little too rational sometimes. If in any social context, the topic of astrology arises, I almost instinctively roll my eyes at the very least mentally and stop listening to anything my conversation partner has to say about this topic.

I want this to change. I think this is in fact quite a**hole-ish behavior even if I don't share the same belief system. And what always has helped me find the common ground and actually try to understand what people are actually trying to communicate through the lens of a certain "system" was at least a little bit of scientific backing.

Now I doubt that there is a science paper that empirically shows that cancers are a great romantic match with capricorns.

But what WOULD make sense to me is that maybe there are certain personality traits predominantly present in people born during certain seasons of the year. Or heck, maybe even moon phases. Sure, rationally and logically, I am aware that the affect the moons forces have on an individual are so miniscule that they are probably less than a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. But the process of billions of "butterfly effects" that occur when you are born and still have tremendous effects on a person's entire life is still absolutely a thing and I am pretty sure we are far away from a conclusive statement what actually meaningfully affects us and what doesn't.

Now, me personally, I don't believe for a second that the phase of the moon or constellation of the stars has any affect on anybody and even the seasons probably barely make a dent in our development especially now that we have be came in-doors creatures with air conditioning. (So maybe astrology used to have more "science" behind it that slowly tapered out of our "habitat"?)

But it isn't completely unheard of that certain seasonal effects have statistical bearing. The classic example is the birth months of hockey player (though that is more likely to be a systemic effect rather than an actual seasonal one, so even this one is probably correlation, but still)

So yeah. Does anybody have a more rational take on astrology? Are there any hints for some scientific grounding or even some empirical data that might help me have a conversation about astrology without mentally shutting off completely? Or is it in fact all bs?

Why would I ever care about somebodies birth sign even in the slightest?

I don’t think there is inherently an issue with wealth I think the main issue is a political system that allows systemic corruption and bad actors to proliferate. If we had enough rules and regulations in our political system I do truly believe there could be ethical billionaires. I just believe that the current system makes it almost impossible to build wealth if you are behaving completely ethically.

Let me explain what I mean. So I know some people in my life that have started businesses or small businesses. Now right now they are not doing well but genuinely I believe the only reason it’s so hard to succeed in business or even to get started is because our system allows for a lot of people to behave very unethically with zero consequence to themselves except getting richer. I have someone in my life that started a business from nothing 30 years ago, they were doing very well for a number of years I mean definitely not a billionaire but doing well and the governor of a certain state colluded with a company in that industry and he passed a law that only that company can operate a certain governmental program in her industry. This person lost 3/4 of her customers (it’s a healthcare thing) and that company was lobbying the governor and was completely out of state and had terrible reviews. So now they get literally every single customer under this system and the person I know is left in the dust because she behaved ethically.

There is no issue with people being wealthy if they get that wealth in an ethical way but I think there are certain laws we need to implement to create a system that can eliminate corruption, bad actors and price gouging. These are my ideas and I want your input if you think it would work or if there are any holes in the plan(these are all laws I think the government should pass):
1. Every company worth over $10 million must track every income and expense down to the dollar and publish it publicly . This includes government agencies (even the FBI and CIA but we will get back to them)

1. Lobbying is illegal. This builds on the previous point. Companies should not be allowed to hand politicians money so they will vote the way they want to. Point blank that is corruption and it’s a travesty we ever allowed it in our country .

2. It is illegal to sell your product for more than double the cost of producing it. - for this one it will force healthcare companies and stuff to either lower their prices, increase their costs(we will get back to that), or expand and actually sell the product to more people. Basically revenue can’t be more than 2x cost

3. It is illegal for the highest paid worker in the company to be making more than 10x the salary of the lowest paid worker. This is not including the net profits if the CEO is the sole owner they can get all the profits in addition to their salary but don’t forget it won’t be more than double cost. This will eliminate companies trying to boost their executives salary to increase their yearly “cost”. If the company wants to be allowed more profits they must sell to more people or raise the wages of everyone.

4. Companies cannot spend more than 25% of their budget on advertising. Ads are everywhere and they are very annoying. I’m hoping first of all this would reduce the quantity. But the main purpose of this would be so companies can’t inflate their costs by increasing their ad budgets and also won’t be able to as easily crowd out small businesses in the advertising field.

5. Taxes, this is a big one. It is ridiculous that if we have someone on benefits they are still paying taxes. Shouldn’t they save that tax money so less government money has to be spent on benefits? If someone is getting government benefits they should not be paying taxes at all it really makes no sense. I propose a system where if you make under the poverty threshold - zero taxes . If you make above it for every dollar above that threshold let’s say until $100k you pay a 10-15% tax rate etc with probably the top tax rate being 50%. Another note on this - eliminate all the workarounds wealthy people use to avoid paying their fair share. Make it illegal. Like what most rich people do is they take out loans against their assets. So yes they have to pay the interest rate on the loan but they don’t have to pay any taxes. We can classify a loan as taxable income(not a mortgage loan but other types) . Idk that kink still needs to be worked out.

6. Military . We spend wayy too much money on defense . We also spend way too much on defense contractors. The no lobbying and the open ledgers may eliminate some of that but it’s not enough. Instead of focusing on offense, building better weapons having a stronger army etc we should focus on defense. Focus all our resources(still reduced from what it is currently I’ll get into that) on nuclear defense. Build a wide system of nuclear shelters, have a real plan and do training. And also put almost all of our funding into developing a nuclear protection system. Something to block nukes. Cuz if we don’t have to worry about war we can basically eliminate all our defense spending. Now don’t worry the military will be given new positions. We would probably only need 10% of our military actually working as fighters or whatever and then the other 90% we reallocate. 10% can be allocated as auditors- they will go and audit all the companies with public budget info and catch any discrepancies or corruption, make sure no one is inflating their prices , thoroughly audit the government spending as well as catch any lobbying attempts. The rest can be allocated to education, or healthcare or some other stuff I’m not sure yet but I’ll get into it in the next point.

7. Federal budget- this majorly needs to be reallocated. Do you guys know we have enough money in the federal budget to provide free healthcare for all Americans if we just reallocated some funding. Defense spending at least cut in half but probably more, corruption and auditing will probably catch a bunch more, I’m not super sure about this part but I would like to allocate some more funding to healthcare. Institute government hospitals all over the country where healthcare is free. Eliminate Medicare and Medicaid because it won’t be necessary and people can choose to get private insurance and go to private hospitals but they won’t need to. Plus with the revenue can’t be more than 2x cost rule healthcare and insurance itself will be much much cheaper . We can use the military to build the hospitals and new schools.

8. Education . Allocate way more funding to education . Hire military personnel as teachers and psychologists fast track them through a one year education program. Downsize classrooms to 10 students per class, and mandate that half the day must be outside hands on learning. Also have mandatory one on ones with a psychologist at least once every 2 weeks and more often if necessary. Also institute free psychological care for all Americans. I know this sounds crazy but if you look into how much is wasted in our budget it’s possible.

9. FBI and CIA. We pour billions of dollars a year into these agencies. I understand their need for secrecy but not at the expense of the country they are supposed to be protecting. All financial info , income and expenses will be public on a 1 year staggered basis and will be heavily audited before then. The CIA and FBI currently have nothing telling them they actually need to share what they find with the American people. Institute a law that the contents of every single case will be public 3 years after the case closes, and a case cannot be open for longer than one year without a yearly appeal.

10. Companies tracking . While big companies would have a lot more oversight from the government, these companies have way too much oversight into us. I would eliminate tracking cookies and make it illegal for companies to send out targeted ads or track people at all. Companies can choose to display ads in an ad marketplace where shoppers who want some ideas can visit. Otherwise illegal.

11. Eviction freeze and company can’t shut down. Now you might be thinking, well if the government would institute these laws all the big companies would shut down . If a company tries to lay off its workers or shut down during this period and the federal government does not determine they had a real reason they needed to do so the federal government will seize there assets and allocate shares of the company to the people who work there. Landlords will not legally be allowed to evict tenants for this period if someone cannot pay the government will back pay the landlord after this period and provide that person with a zero interest loan to repay the federal government .

12. If any company or person owns more than 10 residential properties, any property over that limit will incur a 500% property tax rate. This will cause the housing market to actually return to its true value.

I see many people blaming Google and Apple for caving or sucking up to Trump on the name change. Many going as far as to delete both apps, boycott the entire companies, and switch to MapQuest and DuckDuckGo instead. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what actually happened here.

Firstly, Apple and Google have used the same policy for years. Inside each country, they show whatever that country's own government naming database says. Everywhere else, show both. That's why Google shows "Sea of Japan" in Tokyo, "East Sea" in Seoul, why "Persian Gulf" and "Arabian Gulf" both appear depending on where you're standing, why the Crimea border looks different from Moscow than from Kyiv.

I think this rule's purpose is to take company out of the judgment seat. Nobody at Google decides who's right about Kashmir. They point at the database and say "talk to your government."

Now if you're thinking "Well MapQuest did it, why can't Google and Apple?"

MapQuest is an ad-tech-owned app with no meaningful presence in China, Iran, Russia, or anywhere else with a naming fight. Nobody is going to ban them. So yes, they took a stance. It cost them nothing and made them a fortune in free press. Good for them. That's a marketing decision available to a company with nothing to lose.

Google and Apple are on every phone on Earth. If they override a government database once, every other government with a naming dispute lines up, asking for the same favor. Picture the phone call the next morning: Beijing says "you overrode US for Canada, so now label Taiwan a province of China or your iPhone factories have a problem." Moscow wants Crimea drawn as Russian. Tehran wants "Arabian Gulf" gone. And now Apple and Google have no principled way to say no, because they've already shown the database is negotiable if you push hard enough.

If Apple or Google were able to adopt a different naming standard, one that keeps Lake Ontario on US phones, applies uniformly to every disputed name on Earth, and doesn't require an employee at Apple or Google to decide which government is right, then perhaps my mind could be changed. But right now I can't think of one.

I want to start by prefacing this is not hate towards GTAVI/Sony or anyone going to buy it. The last GTA I paid was liberty city (still my favorite) and after that it became repetitive. I see a lot of reddit users say "it doesn't matter I'm still going to buy GTAVI" and I say more power to you.  

My biggest concern is what happens in the next 10 years with not just Sony but every company in every field. If not owning digital media becomes normalized and everyone just goes along with it what stops companies from putting something like functions for a remote control for your tv behind a paywall. I know it sounds extreme but 10 years ago I thought it would've sounded extreme to play ads on your radio every time you stop at a red light or pay 80k for a car and still gotta pay $25 a month for the heated seats. 

If we get too comfortable paying full price for something while companies still hold the power to charge more how far can this really go. My concern isn't that companies are going to start charging for random features that we were used to, it's that this can get out of control to the point we don’t own much even after purchasing

Edit: I want to clarify. Locking software behind a paywall is also considered digital ownership. If you buy something with software already installed but can’t unlock it without paying a subscription is something I would put under this umbrella

Edit 2:Edit: I realize I can’t prove why anyone should care if they’re comfortable with the convenience and the current model. I still personally believe ownership matters other than just seeing it in your library but I understand now that it’s not something everyone sees as important. (Which was an overreach on my part) At the end of the day, if people are happy with the convenience of digital media and subscriptions, that’s their choice. I am happy to have gotten better explanation other than “JuSt DoNt BuY GTAVI” lol

As time progresses, competition consolidates around the same dominant companies. These markets becomes monopolies or oligopolies as we are seeing all over the world, primarily in the United States. this leads to fewer meaningful choices and concentrating power among a small number of corporations.

The key difference is that, in a society that values community alongside the individual, stronger public institutions and social safety nets help protect ordinary people from the consequences of individualistic focused concentration of power and ensure prosperity is shared more broadly.

Edit: Ok my bad y'all economy and government systems are very complex these days and I was incorrect by the tangent of free market vs capitalism they can be true at the same time. Really it comes down to this comment i added.

What would be a better way to phrase my view then? true socialism is fair enough sparse but elements of socialism are layered into many democracies/republics around the world. I guess my view is at the end of the day people champion capitalism but at the end of the day it still tends to end up with government influence. There is currently not a true capitalist country in the world as bail outs and that type of stuff would deem the united states as not fully following the true ideology of capitalism of allowing supply and demand to dictate the fate of companies in a free market.